THE PROGRESS OF FORESTRY IN NEW ENGLAND 393 



Whenever a forest owner or group of owners shall establish 

 a lookout station on the summit of a hill or mountain, and con- 

 nect the same by telephone with some regular telephone line, 

 the state forester is authorized to furnish a watchman for such 

 stations, at a salary not exceeding $2 a day. Up to the present 

 time only one such station has been established, namely, that 

 on the summit of Camel's Hump, a mountain recently given to 

 the state. 



Under the provisions of the "Weeks' Bill," Vermont received 

 for cooperative lire protection $2000 for the year ending Dec. 31, 

 191 1. With this fund, a system of federal lire patrolmen was 

 inaugurated in the most dangerous districts of the state. These 

 patrolmen, who were paid $2 a day, were employed during dry 

 weather in patrolling railroads and other points of danger. The 

 cooperative agreement did not go into effect until July i, 191 1, 

 and was not in good working order until the driest part of the 

 season had passed. During the latter part of the season, when 

 not needed for patrol, these men were employed in mapping their 

 districts and making trails. Only about one-third of Vermont 

 has been mapped by the United States Geological Survey, and 

 good maps of many of the worst fire districts are entirely lack- 

 ing. Town maps are on file in the offices of most of the town 

 clerks. These maps, together with those of the large lumber 

 companies, were corrected in the field, and all reduced to a uni- 

 form scale of 2000 feet to the inch. In cooperation with the 

 Green Mountain Club, the Forest Service is laying out a system 

 of trails connecting the more important mountains which can 

 serve as lookout stations. Considerable trail construction was 

 started in 191 1 by the patrolmen, and will later be continued on 

 an extensive scale. All trails are laid out with an Abney level 

 on a maximum grade of fifteen per cent. 



Vermont suffers less from forest fires than any other state of 

 New England, partly because there are few extensive unbroken 

 coniferous forests, partly because the railroads practically all 

 pass through agricultural valleys instead of forests, as in some 

 states, and partly because the inhabitants largely follow agri- 



