The Pennsylvania State College

FOUR YEAR COURSE

IN FORESTRY.

A thorough and practical undergraduate course in technical forestry-preparing men for all lines of professional and applied forestry.

Special attention is paid to practical field work in surveying, mapping and forest measurements. One of the largest of the State Forest Reserves is within a short walk of the College. For information regarding entrance requirements, expenses, etc., address

DEPARTMENT OF FORESTRY,

STATE COLLEGE, PA.

FOREST LEAVES.

THE OFFICIAL ORGAN

OF THE

Pennsylvania

Forestry

Association.

The attention of the advertising public

is called to the advantages we offer as a medium. Address, 1012 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa.

Vol. XV.- No. 11

TH

EDITORIAL.

HE forest fire season is upon us! It is well to remember that all forest fires originate from one of three causes: ignorance, carelessness, or crime. For each forest fire there is some one who merits punishment. The solitary exception to these sweeping statements is in the case where a forest fire is started by lightning, which, in this State, is an exceedingly rare thing. For 240 years law givers have wrestled in Pennsylvania with this burning question. It is only within recent years that people have come to realize that the suppression of forest fires is after all less a question of law than of education.

The mass of our people are inherently law-abiding and if they as fully understood the real damage caused by forest fires as they do the loss from a city fire, the most potent agency yet enlisted for the suppression of these annual burnings would be awakened.

Forests were hindrances to the original settler. The ground was needed for farming, and "there were forests to burn." Generations have not sufficed to get rid of this idea. It still lingers in the minds of those "who make haste slowly."

Our laws for the prevention of forest fires represent stages in the educational growth required for | a fireless spring, or autumn, in the woods. Some were supposed to be helpful and entirely wise. Others were known to be makeshifts, the best that could be done at the time. When, for example, in 1901 the County Commissioners were authorized to appoint detectives to ferret out and bring to punishment those who created forest fires, it was supposed that there could be no objection to a measure so equitable and just. Yet the law was a signal failure. The citizens of the State were not ready for it.

Again, when in 1897 constables were made exofficio fire wardens, it was well understood that small help could be had from the average constable; but the Legislature was dead set against creation of any new officers and we had to combat an existing evil by the best means at hand. The choice lay between the constables and the road supervisors.

But public sentiment is maturing.

We are

1

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slowly reaching a solid basis for aggressive warfare on forest fires. The railroads of the State are actively co-operating. The public school system is enlisted in the crusade. The sportsmen of the State, who frequent forest and stream, are a unit for fireless forests. In the State Forestry Department is a bureau of Forest Protection, with an active, intelligent Chief Forest Fire Warden, who has the power to appoint competent assistants and to weed out those with unsatisfactory records. Mr. Wirt, as Chief Forest Fire Warden, has new, coherent laws which promise well. His first report has been published by the State Forestry Department. It contains much of interest to the citizens who care to know what the State is doing to perpetuate its own prosperity.

A new ally has been invoked and before long the thousands in Pennsylvania can see moving picture films which depict truthfully the destructive, dangerous forest fires that for more than two centuries have wrought havoc here! The advent of such an educational force is a power for good and merits generous encouragement!

But along with this campaign of education should go the mailed hand of the law, seeking out the cause of every fire and bringing punishment to every one against whom a case can be made out.

Above all, however, stands the fact that prevention of forest fires is not only better than suppressing them, but that it is in the long run cheaper. Every practical lumberman knows this. Every forestry official in the State knows it and longs for such a force of men and such financial support as will head off forest fires before they begin.

J. T. R.

OAK is the most suitable wood for carving, on account of its durability and toughness, without being too hard. Chestnut, American walnut, mahogany and teak are also desirable, while for fine work Italian walnut, lime, sycamore, apple, pear or plum are generally chosen.

EXPERTS of the Forest Service estimate that the farm woodlots of the United States contain from 200 to 300 billion board feet of lumber and from one to one-a-half billion cords of wood.