FORESTRY. 



475 



season opens, but what happens between 

 times is easy for anyone who lives in this 

 region to imagine. Some of our game war- 

 dens are all right, but at best they are a 

 poor lot. 



G. L. W., San Diego, Cal. 



FOREST FIRES AND STATE OWNERSHIP. 



In the "Report on Forests of New Jer- 

 sey," by the State Geologist, he states 

 "some system of protection must be 

 adopted if ever these terrible forest fires 

 are ;to be stopped," and also that "in the 

 southern part of the State the necessity of 

 public protection is imperative if there is 

 to be any production of timber or lumber 

 in that part of the State." 



In other words, part ownership of forest 

 areas by the State is as much a necessity 

 with us as with the old countries, for, as 

 the State Geologist says, "any system of 

 protection against forest fires to be thor- 

 oughly effective must .be under the control 

 of the State and a forest system with State 

 control necessitates either State ownership 

 or the relinquishment of rights of private 

 ownership, which io not to be expected in 

 our country." He then points out that 

 the great pines district of southern New 

 Jersey, a compact body of timber land, 

 would make a most valuable State forest 

 reservation, which under an efficient sys- 

 tem of control would eventually become 

 self-supporting and more, and he con- 

 tinues : "The control of .the forests by the 

 State is a subject of great public import- 

 ance and demands the careful study of the 

 wise legislator in order to avoid the error 

 of excessive paternalism in government on 

 the one hand and the reckless and riotous 

 excesses of individual liberty and license 

 on the other side." 



That State ownership is desirable, has 

 been recognized now in a practical way by 

 the Federal Government in establishing 

 forest reservations — some 42 reserves of 

 over 47 million acres — in the Public Tim- 

 ber domain, by the States of New York, 

 Pennsylvania, Michigan, and by the Cana- 

 dians. In Germany, where only one-third 

 of the forest area is owned by the State 

 and where interference with private owner- 

 ship rights owing to historic development 

 is less, objectionable than with us, the 

 States have come to the conclusion :that 

 after all, safety lies only in State owner- 

 ship, and hence they have for some time 

 entered upon a policy of adding to the 

 State forest reserves by purchase and ex- 

 change, not only to check danger from fire 

 — for the forest fire laws are there strenu- 

 ously enforced like any other laws — but 

 to prevent -the deterioration of soils and 

 forest growths and to make every foot of 

 soil do its duty by producing some value 

 instead of weeds. 



In Prussia, where the government exer- 

 cises hardly any control over private forest 

 ownership and owns less than one-third 

 of the forest area, $3,500,000 were spent 

 during the decade 1882-1891, in purchase 

 of waste or poorly wooded lands, 30,000 

 acres of State farmland were exchanged 

 for 17,000 acres of timberland, and 80,000 

 acres of unproductive waste land were re- 

 forested, at an expense of a quarter mil- 

 lion dollars annually. That and why this 

 change of ownership is desirable is also 

 illustrated by the experiences of France, 

 which spends a million dollars annually 

 now because it neglected to enter upon this 

 policy earlier. The letter of Prof. Clark, 

 referred to in another place, also throws 

 a side-light on this kind of State activity. 



PROGRESS IN FOREST RESERVATION. 



A further step toward the creation of 

 the National Appalachian Forest Reserve, 

 for which such active propaganda was 

 made last winter, is the cession by the 

 State of Tennessee to the United States 

 of a strip of forest and mountain land 

 twenty miles wide along the eastern bor- 

 der of the State; and of similar tracts by 

 the States of North Carolina and Virginia. 

 It would seem that now all that is neces- 

 sary is to have an enabling act passed by 

 the next Congress and an appropriation 

 to take charge of this Reserve. 



Such administration should be placed in 

 the hands of the Bureau of Forestry in the 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture, where 

 now the management of all the forest res- 

 ervations of the Federal Government 

 should be. 



Congress as usual needs forgivenness 

 for things left undone that it should have 

 done, one of which was action on the bill 

 for the purchase of the Calaveras Groves 

 of Big Tree ; the bill did not come before 

 the House owing to the disapproval of 

 Speaker Henderson 



On the other hand the Legislature of 

 California voted $250,000 in 5 annual in- 

 stalments for the purchase of the Red- 

 woods in the Santa Cruz mountains for a 

 public park, thus saving for the admiration 

 of a future generation a body of trees, 

 which for their size and antiquity, are 

 famous in all parts of the world. 



"What is a conjunction?" asked the 

 teacher. 



"That which joins together," was the 

 prompt reply. 



"Give an illustration," said the teacher. 

 • The up-to-date girl hesitated and 

 blushed. 



"The marriage service," she said at last. 

 — Chicago Post. 



