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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 793 



fessor E. Blanchard, Paris; Dr. A. Breinl, 

 director of the Tropical Diseases Institute in 

 Queensland; Professor A. Celli, Rome; Dr. C. 

 W. Daniels, director of the London School of 

 Tropical Medicine; Surgeon-Colonel King, 

 Indian Medical Service; Professor Nocht, 

 director of the Hamburg School of Tropical 

 Medicine; Professor G. H. P. Nuttall, Quick 

 professor of parasitology at Cambridge Uni- 

 versity; Major L. Rogers, Indian Medical Ser- 

 vice; Professor J. L. Todd, associate professor 

 of parasitology at McGill University. 



From statistics published in the German 

 press, giving for European countries the 

 number of dirigible balloons and aeroplanes 

 already finished at the end of 1909, or which 

 vfill be ready for use very shortly, Consul Carl 

 Bailey Hurst, of Plauen, quotes the following : 

 Germany possesses 14 dirigibles of six differ- 

 ent models — namely. Gross, Zeppelin, Parse- 

 val, Schiitte, Siemens-Schuckert and the 

 Rhine-Westphalian air ship — and five aero- 

 planes. France has seven dirigibles and 

 29 aeroplanes ; Italy, three dirigibles and seven 

 aeroplanes; Russia, three dirigibles and 

 six aeroplanes ; Austria, two dirigibles and four 

 aeroplanes; England, two dirigibles and 

 two aeroplanes, and Spain, one dirigible 

 and three aeroplanes. Altogether, European 

 nations have 32 dirigibles and 56 aeroplanes 

 that are presumed to be available for service. 



The enterprise of German foresters and the 

 importance of tree planting for forest pur- 

 poses are shown by two items of news which 

 come, the one from Montana, the other from 

 Ontario. It is reported that a demand has 

 developed for Montana larch seeds to be used 

 by German nurserymen; while white pine 

 seedlings are to be imported from Germany by 

 the town of Guelph, Ont., for planting a 168- 

 acre tract of land belonging to the municipal- 

 ity. The Germans recognize that the intro- 

 duction into their forests of valuable trees 

 native to other countries may be to their ad- 

 vantage. Although as a rule the forest trees 

 best adapted to each region are those which 

 naturally grow in it, there are many excep- 

 tions. Norway spruce and Austrian and 



Scotch pine have been carried from their 

 native home to other parts of Europe and to 

 America and have been found well worth the 

 attention of the grower of timber. Several of 

 our own species have met with favor in 

 Europe and flourished there, such as the 

 Douglas fir, black walnut and others. The 

 Australian eucalyptus is proving a great find 

 for America and South Africa. Our own 

 white pine long ago crossed the Atlantic in 

 response to the needs of Europeans, whose 

 forests are comparatively poor in tree species, 

 and is now grown commercially on such a 

 scale that when it is wanted for planting in 

 its own native habitat the German nursery- 

 man is often ready to deliver young plants 

 here for a lower price than our own nursery- 

 men will quote. Now the Germans are going 

 to try the Western larch also. The request 

 from the German nurseryman instructs the 

 collectors to gather the choisest seeds when 

 ripe this fall. One nurseryman on Flathead 

 Lake has offered to exchange larch seeds for 

 seeds of desirable German shrubs, which he 

 intends to cultivate and sell in America. In 

 the same region, four or five months ago, for- 

 esters of our Department of Agriculture 

 gathered seed for use in the neighboring Lolo 

 Forest, where a new forest-planting nursery 

 was begun last year. The objects of the Guelph 

 planting are, according to local accounts, to 

 protect the town's water source by a for- 

 est cover over its springs in the hills, to make 

 a beautiful woods for a public park and to 

 provide for a future timber supply as a munic- 

 ipal asset. In foreign countries, forest tracts 

 are often owned and managed by tovras 

 and cities as a paying investment and to in- 

 sure a permanent supply of wood for local 

 consumption, but in America planting by 

 municipalities other than for parks and for 

 watershed protection has scarcely been thought 

 of. The kinds of trees to be grown in the 

 Guelph park have already been decided upon 

 by the Ontario Agricultural College. The 

 proposed reforestation promises to be of so 

 great economic and sanitary value that the 

 estimated cost of $8 per acre for importing 



