American Forest Congress 149 



fires. Concerted action must be insured for the careful 

 watching and successful preventing of fires in the 

 forests. The successful method to accomplish this 

 important work would be to employ at commensurate 

 wages a competent and skillful fire warden to preside 

 over a certain district and to employ under his direction 

 the students from the several colleges of forestry. 

 This experience for the students would be for a short 

 period of time each year during the season of drought 

 prior to the time when the shrubs and trees are bud- 

 ding. Military colleges require students to devote a 

 certain amount of time to become experienced in the 

 art of drilling. Is it not quite as important that the 

 colleges of forestry require practical experience? 



New York State has been active for a few years in 

 planting seedlings of spruce, pine and hardwood on 

 denuded lands. The work has been intelligently pros- 

 ecuted by Col. William F. Fox, who is an ardent 

 advocate of the importance and common sense practi- 

 cability of this method of reproducing timber; of 

 securing to the soil the properties Nature intended 

 should exist. If proper encouragement is forthcom- 

 ing, the systematic annual planting of seedlings will 

 be carried out in the State parks, especially in the 

 Adirondacks and the Catskills. There are important 

 successful nurseries established for this purpose and 

 the advocates of this method of reforesting believe and 

 teach that the increased value of these denuded lands 

 will be far in excess of the actual expense of planting. 

 The beneficial results which will follow by the reten- 

 tion of moisture, by the improvement of the soil and 

 the contribution to the economy of commerce and 

 navigation, all . these are in line with American 

 progress. It is a well known fact that each tree thus 

 planted will contribute its share to the humus which 



