liUllKAV OF FORESTRY. 525 



northern Florida and southern Georgia. In this region, where the 

 forest stand is never heavy and where grass always grows beneath the 

 trees, it has been a long-standing practice to burn over the ground 

 each year to improve the grazing. The investigation was attended 

 by many difficulties, chief among which are that burning has been so 

 general that areas not affected by fire could seldom be found, and 

 without which there was no opportunity for comparison; that the 

 individual fires ai-e so light that the damage is not easily determiuod, 

 nor is its influence long to be seen, and that the indifference of many 

 of the people made it impossible to obtain specific information. 



A few tracts of land were found, however, where, with the original 

 condition the same throughout, some parts had been repeatedly 

 burned, while others had been protected through a number of years. 

 These conditions gave opportunity for a comparative study, the 

 results of which are applicable over an extended region. This study, 

 though at present incomplete, indicates that definite information may 

 be secttred on the damage which fire does to the Longleaf Pine forests. 



THE LAKE STATES. 



In May, 1903, investigations were begun in Michigan and Wiscon- 

 sin to find methods of preventing forest fires in the White Pine region 

 of the Lake States. In addition to a detailed study such as was con- 

 ducted in the Southern States, the Bureau has made careful inquiry 

 into the methods of fire protection proposed by railroads and land- 

 owners. Fires do not occur so frequently in these regions as in the 

 pine belts of the South, but more often reach the dimensions of a 

 conflagration. 



The Bureau of Forestry plans, by means of full field studies, to 

 replace with carefully gathered facts the vague general notions that 

 now exist about forest fires. After detailed study of particular 

 regions the Bureau will be ready to recommend methods of fire pro- 

 tection and control for private land and, when called upon to do so, 

 to suggest fire legislation for the various States. 



Reclamation of Shifting Sands. 



The protection of valuable property from the encroachment of 

 shifting dunes and the reclamation of dune-covered land for economic 

 uses have become important problems in some sections of the United 

 States, particularly along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, in the Great 

 Lake district, and along the Columbia River in Washington and Ore- 

 gon. The most effectual method of permanently reclaiming such 

 land is to establish and permanently keep a forest upon it. Euro- 

 pean experience has abundantly shown that this can be done and 

 that land which is not only useless but a source of grave danger will, 

 when forested, yield returns. 



For this reason the Bureau of Forestry has during the past year 

 made examinations of some of the worst districts of shifting sand in 

 the United States. 



ATLANTIC coast DUNES. 



The dunes lying along the Atlantic coast between Cape Cod in 

 Massachusetts and Cape Fear in North Carolina have received atten- 

 tion. The only extensive work yet done for the retention of sand in 



