woods since adolescence, and the pine roof has 
sifted the snows of winter, filtered the spring rains, 
tempered the relentless suns. The dead limbs of 
the forest have cooked the meat of the kill and 
warmed your body. The axe has bitten deeply into 
windblown trees and pitchy hands have piled high 
the cut to light and warm the snowy night, the 
smoky faces of companions, the restless sleep of 
dreaming dogs. Thethrenody of winds and strange 
~ sounds and stillness have lulled you to the light yet 
satisfying sleep of a woodsman. And you rise at 
the pallid light of dawn and look out over the mist- 
shrouded landscape as though you were looking 
over your own possessions. 
“FIREWOOD” 
IREWOOD is one of the important products 
F of the forests. It is one of the most valuable 
because it performs a service that is vital and 
at present could not be supplied by any other prod- 
uct so easily and so cheaply, says the New York 
State College of Forestry at Syracuse. 
The problem of furnishing light, heat and power 
for hundreds of thousands of our citizens would be 
difficult of solution in many sections of the coun- 
try if firewood could not be obtained. Practically 
every modern home contains a fireplace for wood. 
Firewood is the only product of the forest that 
is being grown plentifully. Under rational forest 
practice the harvesting of this product would im- 
prove the forests, but as it is usually cut it is a 
detriment and depletion of forest growth. 
In foreign countries firewood is taken from the 
limbs and parts of trees that cannot be used to 
better advantage. Buta large portion of fuelwood 
consumed by Americans is cut from the trunks of 
sound trees that would make good lumber. About 
10% of the firewood used in this country is cut 
from such timber. 
Firewood represents about 42% of the total tim- 
ber cut. It is the largest single item in the forest 
crop. We use nearly one-third of the world’s con- 
sumption of firewood. As the United States uses 
more wood than any other nation and is cutting 
timber four times faster than timber is growing, 
and as other nations have no more than enough to 
supply their needs it is time to begin to think about 
a more careful use of the 10% of saw timber un- 
necessarily consumed as fuel. This amounts to 
5,500,000,000 board feet. In other words, timber 
equal to all the wood we use for hewed ties, pulp- 
wood, round mine timbers and fencing is going up 
in smoke. 
BUFFALO MEAT SENT TO WASHINGTON 
HREATENED extinction of the buffalo has 
not only been averted, but the numbers of 
these big animals have so increased that oc- 
casionally buffalo steak may be had at city markets 
or at hotels and restaurants, according to the Bio- 
logical Survey of the United States Department of 
Agriculture. 
Shipments of surplus animals have already been 
made from the National Bison Range, in Montana, 
to points in Montana, Idaho, and in the State of 
Page 339 
Washington, and recently one went as far east as 
St. Paul, Minn. To learn something of the possi- 
bilities of longer shipments, so that all parts of 
the country may enjoy as a delicacy what was once 
the ordinary food of the early frontiersman, half a 
buffalo carcass was frozen at a plant of Ronan, 
Mont., in February, and sent to Secretary of Agri- 
culture Wallace at Washington, D. C. The De- 
partment of Agriculture is interested in the qual- 
ity of this meat and in how it will best stand ship- 
ment from western ranges to the eastern markets. 
The total number of buffalo now in the United 
States is about 4,500, of which more than 1,600 
are nationally owned and divided into nine herds. 
One of the largest of these herds is maintained by 
the Biological Survey of the United States Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, on the Montana National 
Bison Range, an 18,000-acre pasture on the North- 
ern Pacific Railroad, near the town of Dixon, in 
western Montana. 
The full-blooded buffalo in North America now 
number nearly or quite 15,000, according to the 
most recent information received by the Biological 
Survey, from points in Canada, Mexico, and the 
United States. We can therefore rest assured of 
the perpetuation of these interesting animals, with 
an ample supply for exhibition and breeding pur- 
poses and a surplus each year to be marketed for 
meat, heads for mounting, and robes. 
MOUNTAIN CLIMBING 
CCORDING to records made public by the 
Department of the Interior, a total of 623 
persons made the big climb to the summit 
of Longs Peak, altitude 14,255 feet, in Rocky 
Mountain National Park from June 25th to August 
16th? of 19283 
The total includes 447 men and 176 women. Of 
the climbers 231 were from Colorado and 392 from 
other States and foreign countries. One visitor 
each from Canada, Scotland and Japan made the 
summit climb. 
Visitors from States other than Colorado making 
the climb were as follows: Illinois, 53; Kansas, 49; 
Nebraska, 48; Texas, 40; Missouri, 35; Iowa, 29; 
‘New York, 21; Ohio, 18; Wisconsin, 12; Michigan, 
11; Indiana, 10; California, 9; Pennsylvania, 8; 
Oklahoma, 8; Connecticut, 4; Massachusetts, 3; 
New Jersey, 3; New Mexico, 3; two from each of 
the following: Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Min- 
nesota, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee and 
Wyoming; and 1 from each of the following: Ala- 
bama, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Maine, New 
Hampshire, North Dakota, Virginia and the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. 
These records were taken from the register on 
the summit of Longs Peak placed there by the Colo- 
rado Mountain Club. One man mentioned that he 
had climbed the peak 29 times. An adventure is 
suggested by the concise notation, ‘““Came up North 
Side—slipped—almost went down North Side— 
never again.” The registered record of climbers 
for previous years is as follows: 1915, 260; 1916, 
623 ; 1922, 1,285; 1923, 623. The total for the year 
1923 cannot be obtained until next summer when 
the register now on the summit of the peak is again 
accessible. 
