208 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



33 States having Forestry Departments; 



17 States having Conservation Com- 

 missions and Similar Organizations; 



2 National Conservation Organizations; 



2 National Forestry Organizations; 



23 National, State, and Local Forestry 

 and Conservation Organizations; 



42 Conservation, Timber Protective, and 

 Allied Associations; 



And there are now in operation : 



23 schools with courses leading to a 



Degree in Forestry; 

 11 schools with courses covering one or 



more years in Forestry; 

 42 schools with short courses in Forestry. 



"This is the machinery now in 

 existence, and rapidly enlarging, for the 

 study and care of our forest interests. 

 Now what in fact do those interests 

 comprise, succinctly stated 



"The forests of the United States at 

 this date (1914) cover 550,000,000 

 acres, National, State and private, 

 divided as follows: 



295,000,000 acres corporations and individuals; 

 100,000,000 acres farm woodlots; 

 140,000,000 acres national forests; 

 10,000,000 acres Indian reservations; 



3,246,000 acres state forests; 



2,000,000 acres National parks. 



"The annual product of the forests 

 amounts to about 20 billion cubic feet, 

 or about 140 billion board feet. 



"The lumber industry ranks first in 

 number of wage earners and third in 

 value of products in our country. 

 According to the Census of 1909, the 

 latest actual figures available, the 

 number of wage earners is 734,989. The 

 value of forest products in that year is 

 given as $1,156,129,000. The forest 

 Service approximates the present value 

 as $1,250,000,000. 



; ' The money paid out for salaries and 

 wages was in 1909, $366,167,000, of 

 which $47,428,000 was for salaries and 

 $318,739,000 for wages. 



"Surely interests so large are worth 

 caring for. What are we doing to 

 preserve and foster them? It was first 

 said by, I think, Gifford Pinchot, that 

 the two great enemies of forestry, of 

 our woodland growth, are Forest Fires 

 and Unwise Taxation. The country has 

 measurably been awakened to the fire 

 danger. The United States Forest 

 Service notably has done and is doing 



immensely good and valuable work in 

 this direction and not less then 29 

 States make annual appropriations for 

 forestry (including fire protection) 

 ranging in some few States from small 

 amounts up to $164,500 in New York, 

 and $328,000 in Pennsylvania, last year, 

 the total in all the states so appropri- 

 ating being $1,340,300. The various 

 Forestry and Fire Protective Associa- 

 tions are unceasingly active in fire 

 protection work, led by the example of 

 the Great Western Forestry and Con- 

 servation Association which embraces 

 the States of Washington, Idaho, Mon- 

 tana, California, and Oregon, and of 

 which E. T. Allen, of Portland, is the 

 well-known Forester. This Association 

 set the example of printing and dis- 

 tributing among the school children 

 of those States, circulars containing 

 succinct expressive lessons on the fire 

 danger, luridly illustrated, and this 

 example was followed in Pennsylvania 

 in 1912 by the issuance and distribution 

 among the 1,000,000 or more public 

 school and parochial school children 

 of the State, of a Fire Circular prepared 

 and published jointly by the Penn- 

 sylvania Forestry Association, the Penn- 

 sylvania Conservation Association, the 

 Philadelphia Commercial Museum, and 

 Lehigh University. This circular has 

 been copied and issued in Massachusetts 

 by the Massachusetts Forestry Associa- 

 tion and distributed among the 450,000 

 Public School Children of that State, 

 and also in North Carolina by the 

 North Carolina Forestry Association, 

 and such issue is contemplated in other 

 States, the importance of impressing on 

 school children throughout the country 

 the danger and the useless and great 

 loss resulting from woodland fires being 

 widely felt. A burned building can be 

 comparatively soon rebuilt, but it re- 

 quires a great many years to grow a 

 forest. When fire runs through the 

 woods practically all the young trees 

 are killed and most of the older ones 

 greatly injured or distroyed, and so also 

 are the live seeds and nuts in and on 

 the ground, all the laurel and berry 

 plants, and the humus or mould soil 

 which holds the stored water from the 

 rainfall, and from which our springs, 



