272 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 424. 



forestry in its modern sense is not a new, 

 untried experiment in Germany, but that care 

 and active legislative consideration of forest 

 wealth date back more than four centuries; 

 that the accurate official records of several 

 states for the last one hundred years prove con- 

 clusively that wherever a systematic, continu- 

 ous effort has been made, as in the case of all 

 state forests, whether of large or small terri- 

 tories, the enterprise has been successful; that 

 it has proved of great advantage to the coun- 

 try, furnished a handsome revenue where 

 otherwise no returns could be expected ; led to 

 the establishment of permanent wood-working 

 industries, and has given opportunity for labor 

 and capital to be active, not spasmodically, not 

 speculatively, but continuously and with as- 

 surance of success. This rule has, fortu- 

 nately, not a single exception. It is a highly 

 significant fact, however, that even in Prussia, 

 where the state is exhausting all ameliorative 

 and persuasive means, over 75,000 acres have 

 been deforested by private owners during the 

 last twenty years. The state finally buys 

 these half-wastes, restocks them at great ex- 

 pense, and thus public money pays for public 

 folly in not restricting ill use of forest prop- 

 erties. 



It is interesting to note that Japan had a 

 forest policy earlier than any of the European 

 nations, and has now a department of forestry 

 controlling the management of 17,500,000 

 acres, or thirty per cent, of the total forest 

 area. A forest academy has been connected 

 with the University of Tokio since 1890. 



The concluding chapters are devoted to 

 forest conditions and the forestry movement 

 in the United States. An area of 500,000,000 

 acres represents practically the forest terri- 

 tory of this country capable of timber pro- 

 duction, much of it ' culled ' forests from 

 which a large part of the merchantable timber 

 has been removed. The forest reservations of 

 the federal government to July 1, 1902, com- 

 prise nearly 60,000,000 acres, or about one per 

 cent, of the public domain, including brush 

 lands, grazing lands, and desert. The state 

 of New York owns over one and a quarter 

 million acres and is increasing the area of the 

 state forest, and Pennsylvania has entered 



upon the same policy; but in the other states 

 forest property is still almost entirely in pri- 

 vate hands. It is not to our credit that con- 

 servative lumbering is thus far hardly more 

 than a name in the United States, and in most 

 cases the policy of ' skinning,' i. e., culling 

 out the merchantable timber, prevails. It is, 

 however, a hopeful feature of the situation 

 that corporations and wealthy capitalists are 

 beginning to see the financial advantages of the 

 future in forest properties, that sporting asso- 

 ciations are also becoming interested in forest 

 preservation, and that the long period of agi- 

 tation is finally passing into one of scientific 

 study of our resources, with at least here and 

 there commendable and measurably adequate 

 legislation. It has become at last the policy 

 of the United States government to take care 

 of its long-neglected forest lands, but the ad- 

 ministration of the forest reserves is stiU in an 

 embryonic condition under the General Land 

 Office, while the survey and description of 

 forest reservations are conducted under the 

 agency of the Geological Survey, instead of 

 having the whole matter under the one head, 

 namely the Forestry Bureau of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, an anomalous condition 

 of affairs that can hardly prevail much longer. 

 It need hardly be said that this authorita- 

 tive exposition of the economics of forestry, 

 with the applications that have been made to 

 present conditions and needs in the United 

 States, can not fail to render most important 

 service at a time when the great majority of 

 intelligent citizens freely acknowledge the 

 pressing necessity of a forward movement, but, 

 in nine oases out of ten, are either hopelessly 

 in the dark or extremely iU-advised as to the 

 steps that ought to be taken. 



V. M. Spaldinq. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



MEETING OF THE CHICAGO SECTION OP THE 



AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY. 



The twelfth regular meeting of the Chicago 

 section of the American Mathematical So- 

 ciety was held on Friday and Saturday, Jan- 

 uary 2 and 3, at the University of Chicago. 

 The meeting was presided over by Professor 



