PRACT CAds 
=, 2 ye 
GROWTIT OF THE CATALT A SPECIOSA 
FROM 
TELS 
SPUME, 
ARBORICULTURE 
It is not only for the sleepers, lumber, 
posts, poles, timbers required by a road 
to keep it in repair, maintain track, build 
ears and erect buildings—all these are 
important—but to supply a traffic which 
will afford a permanent income year by 
year is a most important consideration 
for railroads. 
It is thus highly important that all rail- 
way companies shall aid and assist in this 
great work of forest perpetuation, and en- 
courage those who are making efforts to- 
ward this end, as the International So- 
ciety of Arboriculture is doing. 
BPOREST FIRES, 
It has been the common practice in 
Florida to burn over the wood lands each 
year, in order to secure a clear grazing 
tract for cattle. This has been continued 
for the eighty-five vears that Florida has 
been a part of this nation. Thirty thou- 
sand. square miles, or more than twenty 
million acres, on each acre of which a ton 
of valuable fertilizing materials have 
grown, have been wasted in these burn- 
ings each vear. At a low estimate of S2 
per ton, there has been an annual loss to 
the State of $40,000,000 or in the eighty- 
five years past a loss of $3,400,000,000. 
If this statement is questioned, I have 
but to refer vou to vour fertile hummock 
lands and the muck lands of the Ever- 
glades, which are merely an accumulation 
of these very materials incorporated with 
the identical sands, but from the moisture 
present in the lower levels they were pro- 
tected from fires, while the drver lands 
were burned. The annual loss of timber 
and standing trees greatly augments the 
aggregate of the fire losses, while the de- 
struction of the young forest trees, except 
in protected places, has prevented a re- 
production of the forests. 
Stringent legislation is necessary to 
prevent a total loss of the timber, which 
is of so great value to the State. 
