316 
iially accrued, until such scientific men as concern themselves with 
the soil have within the last few years become convinced that 
there was a real and novel set of phenomena to be explained, 
some of the United States station workers even began to advo- 
cate the steam heating of soil destined for the growth of plants in 
greenhouses ; they maintained that not only was freedom from 
certain fungoid diseases and animal pests thus secured, but that 
the productiveness of the soil was sufficiently raised to pay fo:: 
the treatment. — A. D. Hall, in Harper’s Magazine for October. 
NEED EOR ORGANIZED E OREST EIRE PROTECTION 
AMONG PRIVATE OWNERS. 
Washington, September 30. — One of the lessons which will 
finally be drawn from the trying experience of the present forest 
fire season, in the belief of officials of the U. S. Department of 
Agriculture, is the need of wider organization among private 
owners of timber to safeguard their holdings. 
It is pointed out that already in the Northwest, both on the 
Pacific Coast and in Montana and Idaho, timberland owners have 
formed themselves into associations which assess the members on 
an acreage basis and thus meet the cost of maintaining a regular 
patrol and fire-fighting organization. Only by getting together 
can private owners usually assure themselves protection, for fire 
is no respecter of boundary lines and the man who undertakes 
to keep it out of his own timber will want it kept out of his neigh- 
bor’s too. Wherever possible the government’s forest officers 
cooperate with the force put in the field by the associations, so 
that the employees of the government and those of the private 
owners are handled practically as a unit in fighting the common 
enemy. 
This cooperation is advantageous to both sides. Protection of 
the national forests necessarily carries with it a good deal of pro- 
tection of adjoining or interior holdings. If the private owners 
would everywhere shoulder their reasonable share of the burden, 
the public would gain both through more general forest conserva- 
tion and through relief from the necessity of paying for the pro- 
tection of private timber in order to protect its own. 
THE EENCE POSTS OP IOWA. 
Washington, September 30. — The U. S. Department of Agri- 
culture estimates that the farmers of 'the single State of Iowa 
use every year $1,400,000 worth of new fence posts, which cost 
the equivalent of $600,000 for setting them in the ground. Fur- 
ther, the department officials believe that a part of this expendi- 
ture might be saved. 
