APEIL29, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



581 



and part of this sum, it is expected, will be 

 expended in the purchase of 25,000 acres 

 that will be given in trust to the authorities 

 of Cornell University for twenty-five years, 

 with the aim of having an experiment in 

 forest preservation and culture tried.* 



It is thus with well-matured plans, look- 

 ing far into the future, that the State of 

 New York has made liberal and far-sighted 

 provision for its forest interests, finally call- 

 ing to the aid of the State the services of 

 the University and giving a quarter of a 

 century in which to conduct an experiment 

 that can hardly fail to be productive of im- 

 portant results. 



The Legislature of Pennsylvania, at dif- 

 ferent times within the past few years, has 

 passed laws establishing and prescribing 

 the duties of a Forest Commission to report 

 upon the condition of the slopes and sum- 

 mits of the important watersheds of the 

 State, the amount of standing timber, the 

 part or parts of the State where each grows 

 naturally, and to suggest measures for 

 maintaining a proper timber supply. Pro- 

 vision is farther made for the enforcement 

 of laws designed to protect forests from fire 

 and for the preservation and increase of the 

 timber lands of the State and for securing 

 forest reservations adjacent to waters drain- 

 ing into the Delaware, Susquehanna and 

 Ohio rivers. 



Most instructive, perhaps, on account of 

 similarity of conditions, is the recent his- 

 tory of forest legislation in "Wisconsin. 

 The Legislature of 1897 passed a law au- 

 thorizing the Governor to appoint a com- 

 mission consisting of three members to de- 

 vise and draw up a plan for the organiza- 

 tion of a State forestry department. The 

 plan is to include provisions for the reser- 

 vation by the State of all lands which are 

 better fitted for the growing of timber than 

 for agricultural purposes, the purchase of 

 similar lands abandoned by their owners, 

 ■ * New York Tribune, February 19, 1898, 



and the management and replanting of for- 

 ests according to the principles of scientific 

 forestry. They are also to draw up a plan 

 by which the forestry department may be 

 from the first self-supporting and in time 

 become a source of revenue to the State. 



It was provided that the commission 

 should receive no compensation, but the 

 services of a competent expert connected 

 with the Forestry Division at Washington 

 were secured, and S500 toward his actual 

 expenses were provided by the State Geo- 

 logical and Natural History Survey. Mr. 

 Filibert Eoth, who was detailed for this 

 work, entered upon his task with charac- 

 teristic energy, and in a month's journey 

 visited 27 counties with a total area of 

 18.5 million acres. His report* is of 

 special interest, giving, as it does, a re- 

 markably clear statement of the condition 

 of things over an area embracing fully half 

 of the State of Wisconsin, including 8.5 

 million acres of cut-over land, most of 

 which is burned over and largely waste, 

 and on which some twenty billion feet of 

 pine has been destroyed by fire. The value 

 of the timber product of former years is 

 suggested by the statement that " the for- 

 est industries have built every foot of rail- 

 way and wagon road, nearly every town, 

 school and church, and cleared half of the 

 improved land in northern Wisconsin." 



The discussion of the future of this great 

 area, once a natural forest, now lai'gely a 

 wilderness, necessarily involves great un- 

 certainty. Trees cannot be made to grow 

 by an act of legislation, and the Legislature 

 itself is an uncertain factor. Mr. Koth pro- 

 ceeds to show that in Wisconsin ' ' the hard- 

 woods, though perfectly able under normal 

 conditions to hold their own and continue 

 as forests, have not done so," and "that 

 hemlock has failed to reproduce itself for a 

 long time," while the white pine, is, per- 



* Preliminary Report on Forest Conditions in 

 Northern Wisconsin. Washington, 1898. 



