Canadian Forestry Journal, October, ipi6 



777 



present at the lecture. . .Exceptions 

 will be .made in the cases of High 

 Schools and Colleges. 



Other ready-prepared lectures in 

 course of preparation are "The Aban- 

 doned Farm" and "Putting the Forest 

 to Work." 



Canadian Forestry Association, 



119 Booth Building, Ottawa. 



trunk with one fair-sized branch, still 

 in vigorous growth. The trunk is 

 hollow, and shows signs of great age. 



Largest Sassafras. 



The largest sassafras tree in Amer- 

 ica is growing in an old burying 

 ground at Horsham, Penna., and is 15 

 feet 10 inches in circumference at four 

 feet from the ground. Unfortunately 

 nothing remains of the tree but the 



Politics and Fire Ranging. 



From an old Ontario guide, Sept. 15, 

 1916: "There is one thing I would like 

 to see done, and that is to appoint fire 

 rangers regardless of the political party 

 that they were attached to. 



"It is just that kind of work that 

 makes a woodsman sick of the whole 

 thing, for to think that they have to 

 support a government paying salaries 

 to such men as these, just because he 

 took an active part in politics at the last 

 election." 



The Forests of Alasl^a 



R. S. Kellog, Assistant Forester, U. S. Forest Sei-vice. 



The ordinary resident of the United 

 States has no conception of what Alas- 

 ka really is. He has heard of the 

 "Klondike" for the last fourteen years, 

 and he wrongly thinks it is in Alaska. 

 He has heard of great glaciers and high 

 mountains, and that somewhere the 

 thermometer occasionally registers 80 

 degrees below zero. Beyond this his 

 knowledge is likely to be even more 

 fragmentarv and unreliable. In real- 

 ity, Alaska is of continental dimen- 

 sions, and one can no more state brief- 

 ly what its characteristics are than he 

 can similarly describe those of the en- 

 tire United States ; yet a few words 

 concerning its most salient features will 

 not be amiss. 



Alaska was purchased from Russia 

 in 1867 for $7,200,000. The value of 

 all its products since that date has been 

 nearlv $350,000,000. It has an area of 

 586,000 square miles, or 375,000.000,- 

 000 acres, or more than ten times that 

 of the State of Illinois. From south- 

 eastern Alaska to the end of the Aleu- 

 tian Islands is as far as from Savan- 

 nah, Ga., to Los Angeles, Cal. Its 

 northernmost and southernmost points 

 are as widely separated as Canada and 



Mexico. Its range of temperature is 

 greater than that between Florida and 

 Maine. 



Transportation in summer is by 

 steamboats on the larger streams and 

 by poling boats on the smaller ones; in 

 winter, by stages where the roads are 

 good enough, and more generally by 

 dog teams. Alaska has 4,000 miles of 

 navigable streams. It does not have 

 even a territorial form of government, 

 though during the past rew years it has 

 had a delegate in Congress. Called 

 a territory by courtesy, its anomalous 

 standing for years was that of a cus- 

 toms district. It has executive and 

 judicial officers appointed by the Presi- 

 dent and the Senate, but no legisla- 

 ture ; all legislation is by Congress. 



Forest Types. 



The difterentiations between forest 

 types are as sharp as those between the 

 topographic and climatic, and, of 

 course, depend upon them. The coast 

 forests of southern Alaska are the 

 northernmost extension of the coast 

 type in \\^ashington and British Col- 

 umbia. The interior forests are an ex- 

 tension of the interior Canadina for- 



