FOREST NOTES 



221 



The report which prevailed for some time 

 that Dr. C. A. Schenck, former head of the 

 Biltmore School, had been killed while serving 

 in the German army is fortunately without 

 verification. The last news of him received in 

 this country came from Mrs. Schenck who 

 wrote that on December 18 he was alive and 

 well. He was then and for some weeks had 

 been serving with the German army in Poland. 



The farm woodlot is in more ways than one 

 the balance wheel of the farm. It may easily 

 be so located as to protect the home buildings 

 against wind and at the same time furnish 

 supplies of domestic timber, thereby keeping 

 horses and men busy during the idle seasons 

 of the year. It may also be one of the most 

 attractive playgrounds on the farm. The 

 New York State College of Forestry at Syra- 

 cuse is helping to solve the problem of market- 

 ing the farm woodlot by developing cooperative 

 marketing of the woodlots of an entire com- 

 munity. Woodlots should be marketed by the 

 carload, not by the single tree. 



Of the 503 fires reported by the forest service 

 as having occurred in 1914 on the national 

 forest purchase areas in the White Mountains 

 of New England and the southern Appalachians 

 319, or 60 per cent, were caused by sparks 

 from locomotives. More than half of these 

 fires, or 272, occurred in Virginia alone, and 

 of these 227 were from locomotive sparks. 



Three hundred and seventy-nine of the fires 

 were confined to areas of less than ten acres 

 each, and 296 were extinguished before one- 

 quarter of an acre had been burned. The total 

 loss amounted to $2,192 and the cost of fire- 

 fighting to $1,300, an infinitesimal sum com- 

 pared with the value of the timber and repro- 

 duction protected. As the areas swept by fire 

 were mostly cut-over, the greater part of the 

 damage was suffered by young growth. 



In a recent study of forest plantations in 

 New York State by Mr. B. H. Paul, a graduate 

 student of Cornell, some interesting figures on 

 yield were secured as follows: 1. * White pine 

 (small per cent other species) 44 years old, 

 38,000 feet, B. M. 2. *Norway spruce and 

 Scotch pine, 40 years old, 26,000 feet, B. M. 



3. *Scotch pine, 35 years old, 27,000 feet, B. M. 



4. fWhite pine, 31 years old, 18,500 feet, B. M. 



5. *White pine, 28 years old, 24,000 feet, B. M. 



6. fScotch pine and European larch, 25 years 

 old, 13,000 feet, B. M. 7. fNorwav spruce, 

 22 years old, 10,000 feet, B. M. 



* First quality site, 

 f Third quality site. 



By timely and proper use of the right timber 

 in the Adirondack^ and Catskills, the State of 

 New York can save annually from destruction 

 by fire, insects and fungi millions of feet of 

 lumber. Ninety per cent of the forest fires in 

 the forests and woodlots of the State are 

 preventable. 



The scientific nut grower pins his faith on 

 the hybrid nuts of man's making in the future. 

 The natural hybrid nuts are commoner than 

 one would suppose. Several have been sent 

 in to the competition for nuts that has just 

 been concluded by the Northern Nut Growers 

 Association. Many of these are merely 

 curiosities but some are of great promise. 

 A shagbark-bitternut cross is one of these and 

 a shellbark-pecan cross another. There was 

 also a shagbark-pecan hybrid and one between 

 the pignut and the pecan. These are all 

 natural accidents but the results from man's 

 purposive crossings should far surpass them. 

 Mr. Risien of Texas has already had good 

 results with pecans, as also has Dr. Van Fleet 

 of the U. S. Department of Agriculture with 

 chestnuts, and the results of the experiments 

 of Dr. Morris of New York with hickories and 

 other nuts are expectantly awaited. For 

 results with these things must be waited for. 

 In the American Nut Journal for next month 

 will appear an article on natural hickory 

 hybrids, by John Dunbar, Assistant Superin- 

 tendent of the Rochester, N. Y., Park De- 

 partment. 



The New York State College of Forestry at 

 Syracuse University is urging the Municipali- 

 ties of the State to take up public control of 

 street tree planting and preservation in the 

 same manner as public control is exercised over 

 other street improvements. During the past 

 year the College has made investigation of the 

 shade trees in many cities and towns of the 

 State including New York City, Syracuse, 

 Binghamton, Amsterdam, Mount Vernon, 

 Newburgh and Olean. It has been found that 

 thousands of shade trees are dying along the 

 streets of the cities due to past mistake in 

 selection of varieties and in spacing the trees 

 at the time of planting which has forced the 

 trees to grow with weakened vitality inviting 

 decay by tree diseases and by the attacks of 

 insect pests. There is a great need for system- 

 atic work in planting trees to replace those that 

 have failed to fill in the many unplanted areas 

 along city streets. It has been estimated that 

 within the cities of the State there are 20,000 

 miles of streets capable of sustaining a growth 

 of 5,000,000 shade trees which can be made 

 worth $100,000,000 in increased property value. 



Land clearing is usually considered a warm 

 weather proposition, April and September 

 being the most popular periods, but the 

 introduction of low freezing explosives now 

 makes it possible to blast stumps in March 

 and in early winter. In any weather in which 

 it is feasible to bore the holes under the stumps 

 these modern explosives work well without 

 thawing'. This point is of particular importance 

 right now because there never has been a 

 time when land clearing was more desirable 

 than at present. By clearing cut-over land in 

 March it is possible to seed it this coming 

 spring and get a big crop off this virgin soil 

 during 1915, and the low freezing explosives 

 make March blasting feasible. 



