692 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



the conservation of wild life, and child 

 welfare. 



The directors of the American For- 

 estry Association have decided to hold 

 their fall meeting at New Orleans at 

 the time the Congress is in session. 



Tree planting exercises have been 

 or are being held in all parts of Chi- 

 cago, about 250,000 white pine seed- 

 lings being provided for yards, vacant 

 lots and roadways. Last years 200,- 



000 elm seedlings were planted ; the 

 year before 300,000 Russian mulberries, 

 and in 1911 a total of 280,000 catalpa 

 seedlings were given a chance to grow. 



1 f all thse grew Chicago would be not 

 a garden city, but a forest city. The 

 mortality rate among seedlings in Chi- 

 cago, says the Chicago Herald, how- 

 ever, is almost as great as it is among 

 slum babies. If a respectable fraction 

 of these young trees grow to maturity 

 Chicago will be in time a woodland 

 paradise. An authority on arboricul- 

 ture as applied in cities, says the ratio 

 should be one living shade tree to every 

 rive inhabitants. In the absence of a 

 tree census it is impossible to say how 

 near Chicago approaches this ideal. 



The New York State College of 

 Forestry at Syracuse has estimated that 

 the utilization of the maturing and 

 dead timber on the New York State 

 Forest Preserve of something over 

 1,600,000 acres should yield a revenue 



of over $1,000,000 every year and this 

 without impairing the value of the 

 forest for future timber supply and 

 watershed protection. This is saying 

 nothing of a common-sense use of thin- 

 nings from the growing forest crop. 

 New York is losing a very large reve- 

 nue annually through not using its 

 forest lands. 



Carl Schwiz Yrooman was sworn in 

 as Assistant Secretary of Agriculture 

 on August 17, succeeding Dr. B. T. 

 Galloway. Air. Yrooman was born in 

 Macon, Mo., Ocober 25, 1872. He at- 

 tended Washburn College, at Topeka. 

 Kan., and later was graduated from 

 Harvard University, in 1894. He also 

 attended Oxford University. Mr. 

 Yrooman began writing on publicity 

 questions as early as 1894, and has 

 contributed to some of the prominent 

 magazines. He is the author of sev- 

 eral books, including ''Taming the 

 Trusts/' published in 1900, and "Ameri- 

 can Railway Problems," in 1910. Mr. 

 Vrooman, by reason of seven years 

 spent abroad investigating social and 

 economic conditions, and by reason of 

 scientific farming conducted on his large 

 estates in Illinois, is declared to be pe- 

 culiarly fitted for the position vacated 

 by Dr. Galloway. For a number of 

 years Mr. Vrooman has been carrying 

 on his scientific farming near Bloom- 

 ington, 111. He started with about 2,000 

 acres of land, and today has nearly 

 i), 000 acres under cultivation, it is said. 



BOOK REVIEWS 



Mechanical Properties of Wood by Samuel 

 Record, M. A., M. F. (John Wiley & Sons, 

 Inc., 165 pp. Price, $1.75). Mr. Record is 

 the assistant professor of Forest Products 

 at the Yale Forest School, and the book was 

 written primarily for students of forestry 

 to whom a knowledge of the technical prop- 

 erties of wood is essential, but it is believed 

 that it will also prove a valuable text for 

 students of civil and mechanical engineer- 

 ing. The mechanics involved is reduced to 

 the simplest terms and without reference to 

 higher mathematics, with which the students 

 are rarely familiar. The intention through- 

 out has been to avoid all unnecessarily tech- 

 nical language and descriptions, thereby 



making the subject matter readily available 

 to everyone interested in wood. In Part I 

 the numerous tables giving the various 

 strength values of many of the important 

 American woods demand attention. Part II 

 will interest all who are concerned with the 

 rational use of wood, and to the forester 

 also, to whom it will suggest means of reg- 

 ulating his product. Part III gives the 

 methods of timber testing for the most part 

 followed by the U. S. Forest Service. The 

 Appendix should also prove of value in its 

 suggestions to the independent investigator, 

 while the Bibliography adds considerably to 

 the worth of the book. 



