REVIEW VOL. VI, NO. 2, PROCEEDING SOCIETY 



AMERICAN FORESTERS 



This issue of the Proceedings of the So- 

 ciety of American Foresters, which appeared 

 in October, 1911, contains a number of 

 articles of particular interest to professional 

 foresters. The opening paper, "The Es- 

 sentials in Working Plans for National 

 Forests," by Harrington Moore, states briefly 

 the author's views as to what should be in- 

 cluded in a typical working plan for a 

 National Forest. A general outline is pre- 

 sented showing the arrangement of the topics 

 to be treated in the working plan, with brief 

 notes as to some of the more important of 

 these. The paper is a very suggestive one 

 and should serve to bring about further dis- 

 cussion of this important subject. 



Another technical paper is one on "Seed 

 Production and How to Study It." by 

 Raphael Zon and C. R. Tillotson, in which 

 the authors review at some length the efforts 

 made by European foresters to solve the 

 problem of seed production. They point 

 out that but little accurate information con- 

 cerning seed production has been obtained 

 by these studies, and present a new method 

 of investigation originally suggested by a 

 Russian forester. Briefly, this method aims 

 to determine the average amount of seed 

 produced per unit area in a given forest 

 type by means of sample plots whose seed 

 production is accurately determined by the 

 study of representative trees. The article 

 deals in an original way with an important 

 subject which has so far received compara- 

 tively little attention in this country. 



Dr. B. Herstein, Technical Expert of the 

 Tariff Board, under the title "Conservation 

 and Chemical Pulp," discusses the possible 

 utilization of sulphite waste liquors resulting 

 from the manufacture of wood pulp. At 

 present no use whatever of these liquors is 

 made in this country, and they are simply 

 run into the rivers which are becoming 

 seriously contaminated by them. Dr. Her- 

 stein points out that a process has now been 

 perfected by which this sulphite liquor can 

 be converted into alcohol at a reasonable 

 expense, and cites a plant in Sweden which 

 now produces 300.000 gallons of alcohol per 



year from this source. The economic saving 

 which this method makes possible is obvious, 

 but perhaps its greatest value lies in doing 

 away with ihe indiscriminate pollution of 

 rivers by the waste 1 : quids. 



Forest fires are discussed in two articles : 

 one by W. B. Greeley entitled "Better 

 Methods of Fire Control," and one by I. F. 

 Eldredge entitled "Fire Problem on the 

 Florida National Forest." Mr. Greeley pre- 

 sents an admirable discussion of the entire 

 problem of fire protection under the heads 

 of patrol, communication, transportation, 

 emergency help, equipment, and fire-fighting 

 organization. Each of these subjects is 

 thoroughly discussed from a practical point 

 of view, and the conclusion is emphasized 

 that fire-fighting is a matter of scientific 

 management just as much as silviculture or 

 range improvement. Mr. Eldredge points 

 out very clearly the difficulties of fire pro- 

 tection on the Florida National Forest. His 

 belief is that under present conditions com- 

 plete fire protection is a hopeless ideal, and 

 that the best policy is to protect all cut-over 

 and experimental areas, and to burn the rest 

 of the forest lands annually early in January 

 when the surface fires are easily controlled. 

 He emphasizes the importance of securing 

 the cooperation of the settlers and of gradu- 

 ally extending the area protected. 



One of the most valuable and timely papers 

 in this issue is a bibliography of the South- 

 ern Appalachian and White Mountain re- 

 gions, compiled bv Miss Helen E. Stock- 

 bridge. This makes available for the first 

 time an exhaustive list of the books and 

 articles dealing with these two regions. The 

 literature is classified under the following 

 subject heads: 



1. National Forest Movement; 2. Topog- 

 raphy and Resources in General; 3. Botany; 



4. Forests and Forestry : Forest Influences ; 



5. Water resources ; 6. Climatology ; 7. 

 Geology ; 8. Mines and mineral resources ; 

 and 9. Soils. 



Altogether, this issue of the Proceedings 

 is one of unusual interest. 



S. T. D. 



One thousand dollars a day will be put into circulation in northern Cali- 

 fornia during the ne.rt fifteen years through the sale of a large tract of 

 government timber which th-e Forest Service is now advertising for bids. The 

 sale includes about 2.100 acres of excellent sugar and yellow pine on the 

 Shasta Xational Forest. The estimates show that nearly 200,000,000 board- 

 feet of timber is included upon this area. 



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