FORESTRY 



EDITED BY DR. B. E. FERNOW, 



Director oi the New York School of Fore try, Cornell University, assisted by Dr. John C. Gifford, of same 



institution. 



THE GREAT NATIONAL PARK. 

 (From the Hartford Courant.) 



The wildest and most naturally beauti- 

 ful part of this country East of the Rocky 

 Mountains is that region where North 

 Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, South 

 Carolina and Georgia approach each other, 

 li is a mountain country with an average 

 elevation of 4,000 feet and peaks running 

 up to thousands of feet higher. The tall- 

 est mountain East of the Rockies is in 

 North Carolina. 



This wild region abounds in timber, and 

 is still a natural and unbroken wilderness 

 except as the lumbermen invade its quiet. 

 They have come. Already traffic in forest 

 land is on, and the railroads of the vicinity 

 are loaded with lumber for the market. 

 Let the American people sit by with their 

 accustomed optimistic apathy, and before 

 long the forests will be gone, the water 

 courses left to dry up, the bears, deer 

 and other wild animals killed off, and noth- 

 ing but a fading memory remain of what 

 now is a great natural park. 



The general government ought to step 

 in, before it is too late, and take posses- 

 sion of the whole region. The Yellow- 

 stone Park, far away, and to all but a few 

 inaccessible, should be supplemented by 

 this natural reservation, which is easily 

 reached by the great majority of the peo- 

 ple of the United States. Take your map 

 and you will find that from Boston on the 

 East around by Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincin- 

 nati, Chicago and St. Louis to New Or- 

 leans, Jacksonville and so on up to Wash- 

 ington, every city on the imaginary circuit 

 has railroad facilities bringing it within 

 not more at most than one night's ride of 

 Asheville, the central point in the Blue 

 Ridge and Great Smoky country. Estab- 

 lish a park there and people from every 

 large city this side of the Mississippi would 

 be visiting it in large numbers at all sea- 

 sons of the year. This is an opportunity for 

 conferring on the people of the country a 

 means of great enjoyment. But that really 

 would be only an incident of the work. In 

 this elevated land are multitudes of clear, 

 sweet streams, delivering water to the At- 

 lantic coast and to the Mississippi river. 

 The divide is in the possible park. If the 

 timber is all stripped from these hills the 

 streams will dry, up and the ultimate loss 

 will be serious and widespread. Leading 

 citizens of North Carolina and other States 



adjoining have recently held a meeting and 

 formed themselves into the Appalachian 

 National Park Association to push the 

 project. It ought to go without much 

 pushing. All that is needed is to set peo- 

 ple thinking about it. 



68 



SUGAR MAPLE PESTS. 



The sugar maple forests of Vermont 

 have for 2 years been so seriously at- 

 tacked by a pest of worms as to endanger 

 the whole sugar maple industry. Can you 

 tell me the name of these worms, how 

 long they are likely to stay, and whether 

 owners of sugar orchards need fear the 

 destruction of their trees? I go to Ver- 

 mont every year, and while residents de- 

 plore the ravages of the pest, no one seems 

 able to tell what it is, or the prospects of 

 relief from it. 



C, Philadelphia, Pa. 



The worm affecting maple trees over 

 a wide area in the Eastern and North- 

 eastern States during the past few years, 

 is the forest tent caterpillar, the maple 

 worm, Clisiocampa disstria. Usually such 

 pests have their periods, coming to a cli- 

 max when, probably owing to the simul- 

 taneous development of their enemies, a 

 sudden collapse takes place. It is, however, 

 impossible to tell how long the pest will 

 persist. If the trees put out new leaves 

 in the season of defoliation the damage is 

 not likely to be marked beyond a possible 

 decrease in the quantity of sap. An at- 

 tack on the second leafage is a more seri- 

 ous matter, and permanent damage or the 

 death of the tree may follow persistent 

 defoliation by the worm. 



The Vermont State Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station has investigated this matter 

 for the last 3 years, and is just on the 

 point of publishing the results, having 

 made a preliminary statement in their 

 11 annual report. A most interesting 

 description of the development of insects 

 injurious to maple trees has just been 

 issued as an "Extract from the Fourth 

 Annual Report of / the Commissioners of 

 Fisheries, Game and Forests, of the State 

 of New York." The report is illustrated 

 with colored plates, and can probably be 

 obtained by application to that" Commis- 

 sion at Albany. 



The sugar maple borer is a more seri- 



