this country. Were our cities and towns thoroughly alive to the im- 
portance of this movement and willing to purchase the necessary 
areas of nearby idle or non-arable land, it would go a long way toward 
solving the problem of forest conservation throughout the country. 
National and state forests are desirable and necessary in every scheme 
of conservation. City and village forests are in many respects, more 
important, because they are accessible and intimately associated with 
the communities that own them. A national forest must necessarily 
be more remote from civilization. 
Located, as they are, within easy reach of large bodies of people, 
municipal forests, aesthetically and economically, meet all the re- 
quirements of true conservation. 
J. W. Toumey, 
Director of the Yale Forest School. 
Mt. Airy Park Forest 
Cincinnati is proud to be the first American city to have a Forest 
Reserve. The Park Board is carrying on the work of reforestation 
in a one-tho.usand acre tract, known as the Mt. Airy Forest. 
The land was purchased at an average cost of $120 per acre, and, 
by judicious selection, it is expected that the size will be increased to 
fifteen hundred acres. 
The purpose is to create a forest park and arboretum, a unique 
undertaking for a municipality. In carrying out this project the 
Park Board has had the constant advice of the Department of 
Agriculture at Washington, together with the services of a landscape 
architect. 
The Mt Airy Forest is a picturesque assortment of hills, valleys, 
streams, woodland and wild landscape, and has been described as a 
magnificent bit of romantic scenery. 
Within two years, more than one million, two hundred thousand 
trees have been planted; tulip, ash, poplar, white oak, European linden, 
and red cedars have been set out in great numbers. There will be 
groups of hemlocks, which are fast becoming extinct in this country, 
maple, birch, pine, and hundreds of other varieties, intermingled in 
such a way as to give the impression of a natural forest, while persim- 
mon, papaw and berries, edible and ornamental, in variety and profu- 
sion, are scattered throughout the planting. 
Across from the main part of the forest is the arboretum — a 
garden in which every known variety of tree which can grow in this 
climate will be found. 
