THE ATLANTIC SLOPE NATURALIST. 



*5 



Forest Fires and Tree Planting. 

 The recent forest fires in Pennsyl- 

 vania and New Jersey were but mere 

 bonfires compared with some of the 

 fierce conflagrations that occur in the 

 vast landed areas of the West. The 

 very latest statistics gathered by the 

 Bureau of Forestry conservatively 

 place the annual loss of the United 

 States from forest fires at from $25,000, - 

 000 to $50,000,000. During the past 

 fall, inside of two weeks over $12,000,- 

 000 worth of merchantable timber went 

 up in smoke in Washington and Ore- 

 gon. Pennsylvania and New Jersey 

 are supposed to have comparatively 

 efficient systems of fire protection, yet 

 during a short ride to the seashore 

 hundreds of acres of burnp.d-over pine 

 lands are seen in New Jersey. The 

 Government is determined to do its 

 utmost to assist the lumbermen of the 

 country to guard against this enor- 

 mous monetary loss and waste of val- 

 uable and much-needed material. To 

 this end experts are to be despatched 

 this year to all parts of the country 

 where forest fires are reported. Their 

 duties will be to gather data as to the 

 causes producing the fires, how long 

 the fires last, what conditions favor or 

 hinder them, and just what damage 

 is done to the soil and tree growth. 

 In addition field parties will be main- 

 tained in Northern Florida, Southern 

 Alabama, Georgia, Minnesota, Wis- 

 consin and Michigan and the Pacific 

 coast States, who will study the meth- 

 ods in vogue for fire prevention and 

 protection. The fire warden system 

 of States having forest fire laws will be 

 studied, and the practice of railroads 

 for the protection of timber lands ad- 

 jacent to their tracks will be observed. 

 It is hoped that these first-hand in- 

 vestigations will enable an efficient 

 method of forest fire protection to be 

 developed. 



Not merely is the Government en- 

 deavoring to protect its forests but in 

 various sections where trees are few 

 tree planting is the latest method of 



rendering unproductive grouud profit- 

 able. Land that is not readily ac- 

 cessible to convenient transportation 

 facilities is apt to have an insignifi- 

 cant value. Owners of vast estates 

 30,000 to 100,000 acres, and even more, 

 are not infrequent in some of the 

 Southern and Western States, yet such 

 lands often are not worth more than a 

 dollar an acre. In order to foster the 

 growth of correct forestry methods the 

 Government has undertaken, through 

 the Bureau of Forestry, to help the 

 owners of great tracts of unprofitable 

 lands to transform these deserts, thick- 

 ets, swamps and hillsides into produc- 

 tive timber lands. One of the most 

 extensive plans recently worked out by 

 the forestry experts covers an estate of 

 1800 acres in Cullman County, Ala- 

 bama. Several hundred acres of this 

 land are to be planted this season in 

 loblolly pine, chestnut, white and post 

 oak. The pine will furnish merchant- 

 able lumber, the chestnut, telegraph 

 poles and fence posts and the oak rail- 

 road ties. Inasmuch as labor in this 

 locality is exceedingly cheap— fifteen 

 dollars a month— the extensive plant- 

 ing can be carried out with compara- 

 tively little expense. A fire patrol 

 system will, of course, be necessary to 

 insure the success of the undertaking. 



The Mourning Warbler in Pennsylvania. 

 By A. R. Justice, Philadelphia, Pa. 



In June, 1875, in company with my 

 uncle, the late John H. Mcllvain, I spent 

 two weeks at Tobyhanna, Pa., in the 

 Pocono mountains. I well remember our 

 arrival at Chase's Hotel. The next morn- 

 ing I was up bright and early, and could 

 hear the songs of various birds from the 

 woods near by; several were strange to 

 me. I awakened Mr. Mcllvain and called 

 his attention to the unknown birds. He 

 was much excited and declared that one 

 of the songsters was a Mourning Warbler 

 He had never heard the note but once, 

 and that was twenty years before, and yet 

 he unhesitatingly pronounced the song as 

 belonging to this rare bird. His memory 



