304 



CONSERVATION 



ing of women this afternoon at the Twen- 

 tieth Century Club. The meeting was called 

 by the forestry department of the Massa- 

 chusetts State Federation of Women's Clubs 

 and was presided over by Mrs. Mary L. 

 Tucker, who is chairman of that department. 



The first speaker called upon was Mrs. 

 Emmons Crocker, vice-president of the 

 Woman's National Rivers and Harbors Con- 

 gress, and she spoke especially on the "Con- 

 servation of Waterways." Mrs. Crocker 

 has just returned from Louisiana, which is 

 the home of the waterways movement, and 

 is deeply interested in the development of 

 this movement in Massachusetts. She said 

 that the question of waterways, the conser- 

 vation of water, is inseparable from the 

 question of forestry. One is dependent upon 

 the other and they are completely inter- 

 woven, but in Massachusetts it is all "for- 

 estry," while in the South it is all "water." 

 They go together and must be so recognized, 

 and the problem will not be solved properly 

 before it becomes a national movement. 



The next speaker was Prof. Frank W. 

 Rane, the state forester. He discussed for- 

 estry management and reforestation in 

 Massachusetts, and outlined the campaign 

 of education which has been followed in 

 recent years to develop public interest in 

 the subject. He showed that each town is 

 now equipped with a forest warden through 

 whom the people may be reached and much 

 work accomplished. There is a very much 

 improved system for fighting forest fires, a 

 subject on which the forestry department 

 will issue a special bulletin shortly. 



Edwin A. Start, secretary of the Massa- 

 chusetts Forestry Association, discussed 

 "Shade Tree Problems," considering the 

 shade tree as a municipal asset and its recog- 

 nition and valuation under the law in Massa- 

 chusetts. He spoke of the duties of the tree 

 warden and the importance of the office, of 

 the danger to shade trees from lumbering, 

 gas, wires, horses, poor soil, insect pests and 

 disease, all of which the tree warden must 

 combat, and he urged the duty of the citizen 

 to aid in electing a competent man to the 

 office in his town, and then to assist him in 

 enforcing the law. Here, the speaker sug- 

 gested, was an important work for the wom- 

 en's clubs. Mr. Start closed with some re- 

 marks in regard to the larger tasks of for- 

 estry and the relation of the Massachusetts 

 Forestry Association to the great work of 

 conservation. 



The National Irrigation Congress 



"Apostles of irrigation, deep waterways, 

 drainage, good roads and conservation of 

 resources and recruits from various parts of 

 this continent, England, Germany, France, 

 Hawaii, the Philippine Islands, the Latin re- 



publics and China and Japan, representa- 

 tives of foreign nations and colonial gov- 

 ernments, officials of the Federal reclama- 

 tion, forestry and agricultural departments, 

 governors and members of state and terri- 

 torial legislatures, railroad and bank presi- 

 dents, and members of agricultural, horti- 

 cultural, commercial and fraternal organiza- 

 tions will gather in Spokane, August 9 to 14, 

 where the National Irrigation Congress will 

 have its seventeenth session. 



'To save the forests, store the floods, re- 

 claim the deserts and make homes on the 

 land,' are the four primary objects outlined 

 in the official call, issued by George E. Bar- 

 stow, of Barstow, Tex., president; B. A. 

 Fowler, of Phoenix, Ariz., secretary of the 

 national organization, and R. Insinger, 

 chairman, and Arthur Hooker, secretary of 

 the local board of control. 



"The regular program will consist of ad- 

 dresses by officials of the reclamation, for- 

 estry and agricultural departments of the 

 United States, statesmen and scientists, rail- 

 road and financial men, promoters of the 

 Carey act reclamation projects and officials 

 of private irrigation enterprises. The Fed- 

 eral Department of Agriculture has taken 

 charge of a twenty-acre tract of land in the 

 Spokane Valley, where there will be demon- 

 strations of the latest approved methods of 

 supplying the soil with moisture by artifi- 

 cial means by irrigation experts. 



"The open-air features of the congress will 

 be the parade of the irrigation army of 10,000 

 and the industrial parade, in which Indians 

 from four of the reservations in the North- 

 west will participate. In the latter it is de- 

 signed to show the progress of the Western 

 country in the last quarter century. One 

 day has been set aside for the governors of 

 states and territories, and there will be a 

 series of banquets, receptions, theater par- 

 ties and excursions to near-by lake and 

 river resorts. 



"Spokane is selected for the gathering be- 

 cause it is in a section that affords oppor- 

 tunity to observe the working of irrigation 

 projects. Four thousand accredited dele- 

 gates are expected, many of them from 

 agricultural societies, engineering societies 

 and bodies interested in the conservation of 

 natural resources. Danbury News. 



Irrigation Congress Wanted in the South 



Delegates from the southern states to the 

 meeting of the National Irrigation Congress 

 in Spokane the second week in August prob- 

 ably will make a concerted effort to have the 

 eighteenth session of the organization take 

 place somewhere in the South. 



Mr. James Cosgrove, of Charleston, S. C., 

 in a letter to Arthur Hooker, secretary of the 

 local board of control of the seventeenth 



