FIFTH NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS 315 



Only two States, Maryland and Kentucky, employ as State Foresters tech- 

 nically trained men, though North Carolina employs a Forester in the State 

 Geological and Economic Survey. 



Legislation: Forestry legislation is quite as inadequate as forestry educa- 

 tion. Maryland has had an excellent law for several years, so she is really 

 outside of this class. Louisiana and Kentucky have recently enacted laws carry- 

 ing adequate appropriations and are now organizing work on an efficient scale. 

 Tennessee, Alabama and Delaware have enacted fairly good laws, but, through 

 lack of interest in the subject, have failed to carry appropriations to make the 

 laws effective. They are therefore practically dead letters. West Virginia would 

 have passed an up-to-date law at the last session of its legislature but for lack of 

 time. It will undoubtedly enact one at the next general session. Efforts have 

 been made to pass important forest laws in several other of the Southern States, 

 but so far there has not been sufficient definite public opinion behind them to 

 overcome the opposition of certain interests, chiefly the railroads and the non- 

 landowning stock men. 



Private Effort: No efforts have been made among landowners to organize 

 for fire protection, though individual owners have in several States organized and 

 carried out protective measures on their own lands. Two railroads operating in 

 the northeastern part of the region, the Pennsylvania and the Baltimore & Ohio, 

 are said to be attempting some measures of fire prevention along their lines. 

 The former has constructed a few miles of fire line along their road in Maryland 

 and Delaware, and have issued notices to their employers to take precautions to 

 prevent fires. The latter road also instructs its section hands to extinguish fires. 

 Engines on all the roads are said to be equipped with spark arresters, but there 

 are no State or, as far as can be learned, railroad regulations, except in Maryland 

 and West Virginia, to insure that these are kept in proper condition. As a matter 

 of fact, railroads set a large percentage of forest fires. 



Federal: With the exception then of Maryland, the Federal Government 

 is the only active organization preventing fires in this region. The National 

 Forests in Florida and Arkansas have been patrolled for several years, and 

 organized protection has been started on the land recently acquired in Virginia, 

 North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, West Virginia, and Tennessee, for the 

 Southern Appalachian Forests. The total area now being protected by the Federal 

 Government in this way is about 3,135,000 acres. This, together with the private 

 property in the various States said to be patrolled by the owners, amounts to 

 something like 3,350,000 acres, or about 1% per cent of the total forest area of 

 the region. Through the operation of the Weeks Law, the Federal Government 

 offers to cooperate with the States in organizing State fire protection, but so far 

 only two States, Maryland and Kentucky, have availed themselves of this offer. 



Stock Law : With the exception of Delaware, and possibly of South Caro- 

 lina, all the States in the region are handicapped by having some at least of their 

 territory not subject to the stock law. On such open- range territory live stock is 

 allowed to roam at will over all unfenced lands. Maryland has only one free- 

 range county, and Virginia only a comparatively small amount. In North Caro- 



