its timber gone the region, which is neither mineral nor agricultural, offered no remunerative occupation and property once valuable became practically worthless. In the spring of 1910, for instance, a five-room frame house with bath was offered for sale at $25. Another seven-room frame house with bath was offered for $35, and found no buyers even at these prices. In the winter of 1914 a census of the town showed that it had a total population of 61.

What is true in this instance is also true of many other sections where the land is not suitable for

farming and grazing and where no care has been taken of the second growth. What is even more significant is that this system of industry has done little good to the men engaged in the lumber industry itself. It has aided a few speculators in timber lands; but of those who carried on the lumbering, comparatively few became wealthy. The reward for their enterprise was not great. Economic conditions were such that lumber then, as now, was thrust upon the market in advance of actual pressing need. The consequence was that prices, even for the best, fell below a normal rate and an irreparable injury was inflicted upon the country a wrong so great and so unnecessary that even the phenomenal development and prosperity of those days cannot atone for it. The men who cut the trees and the men who sawed the logs into lumber have left, and now once heavily timbered sections of our country which were booming with prosperity while the logging operations lasted, have become practically depopulated. -Abstract from Report of the Committee on Forest Resources, National Conservation Congress, Washington, D. C.

CHIPS.

Pennsylvania has had an experience with chestnut blight. One of her most valuable kinds of trees is practically blotted out. We waited until the disease was well established ;-before we tried to arrest it.

Now comes the White Pine Blister Rust. It is on our borders now, but has not yet fairly invaded the State. Will we give it a good chance for a grip on our forests; or will we use the known remedy at once?

Another unwelcome invader comes to us from abroad, just as the chestnut blight and the blister rust have done. The last one attacks the poplar, notably the Carolina poplar. It is known to observers as the poplar canker.

It may be safely said that these diseases all came through nursery stock, imported from abroad. Is it wise, necessary, or in the long run profitable to allow these scourges to go unchecked?

Timber (fence posts and all the like) is worth preserving. To find out exactly how to add from ten to twenty-five per cent. to the life of it send to U. S. Department of Agriculture for Farmers' Bulletin number 744. It is worth while!

Dean Fernow reports: "France, during the last century, by private and government enterprise, reforested 2,400,000 acres of waste land at an expenditure of $18,000,000, and finds herself in consequence in possession of property valued at $140,000,000!"

Today the poorest pine land covered with twoyear-old seedlings, sells for nine dollars an acre. Stocked with thirty-year-old pine it is worth eighty dollars, and with fifty-year-old pine, one hundred and sixty dollars an acre.

trees.

-Henry S. Graves, U. S. Forester.

Arthur H. Graves, in Phytopathology, August, 1915, calls attention to the suffocating effect of piling quantities of earth over the root system of The same result may be brought about by compact layers of soil over roots of young trees; anything which excludes the air is detrimental to them! Such difficulty may be suspected when the leaves droop, show signs of death at the tip, and the roots are found to be dead or dying. cially significant are these signs if the plants are found to be located in low ground, or under a dense layer of earth and to have little bunches of fungous growth on the roots.

Espe

The Report of the Chief Forest Fire Warden for Pennsylvania, 1915, is interesting. If you do not know what our State is doing for Suppression of Forest Fires, write to the Commissioner of Forestry, Harrisburg, Pa., for the report.

"Get busy, get busy," fellow-members! Your Association needs exactly as many more members as it now has. If each one of you secures one new member, the thing will be done, and it might be within a month. "Get Busy."

"Rock elm is the hardest, toughest, strongest and most durable of the three species of elm cut in Canada. Its wood is almost as valuable as hickory for some purposes on account of these qualities."

The United Sportsmen and What They are
Doing for Forests and Wild Life.
(Presented at the Reading Meeting of the Pennsylvania Forestry
Association.)

O

UR President, Mr. V. W. B. Hedgepeth, of Scranton, who was to deliver this address, is sick and not able to leave his home. Someone has well said that the night the Israelites crossed the Red Sea modern history began. "Then Moses and the Children of Israel sang their song. And Miriam, the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. And Miriam answered them Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea."

I am under the impression that the real history of reforestation, protection, conservation, and purification of streams, had its real beginning with the inception and organization of the Pennsylvania Forestry Association, and I want to say all honor to your worthy President, Dr. Rothrock, who was the prime mover in this movement, and its first president, a number of years ago. And all honor is to the noble women who have stood by the movement for so many years, and who have done such noble work along these lines.

I am not quite sure that I have the right conception of this subject, and it has always been a conundrum why all sportsmen are not united. They have one end, one aim, and one object; why not therefore, be all in one great organization? If the United Sportsmen of Pennsylvania alone is meant, a short résumé can be given of what they are doing as an organization. If, how ever, the sportsmen of the State is meant, the recital will be a little more lengthy, but that is the only difference.

You will all agree with me that there is a feeling of sympathy and kindness in every human breast for those things pertaining to nature, the fields, the forests, the deer, the rabbit, the squirrel, etc.; the inhabitants of the waters, the gorgeous trout, the wily bass, the alert pickerel, the brilliant perch and sunfish. All of these are friends of yours and need your protection and kindness. Every true sportsman is their friend, and is willing to guard and show them kindness. The laws on our statute books are many, but not enough for their safety and propagation, and attention and active co-operation is necessary to assure their prolongation. And this is what the United Sportsmen are doing, and propose to do to the best of their ability.

The object of the organization is four-fold: First, to protect game and song-birds. Second, to protect the animals of the forests. Third, to protect and propagate the fish of the streams. Fourth, to conserve and build up the forests-the habitation of the birds and animals.

To accomplish these purposes hundreds of laws have been placed on our statute books, and if the game has not been adequately protected it has not been for the want of legislation. Even in the Colonial period laws regulating the manner of taking game were passed. As early as 1708 heathhens, ruffed grouse, quail, and wild turkeys were protected in New York, but it was not until 1791 that woodcock were given legal protection. Since early times, and especially of late years, game legislation has so flooded the country that it has been difficult to keep track of it.

Over 1,300 laws were enacted during the first decade of the present century, and to the credit of the Sportsmen is due a great deal of this legislation.

But, though it is true that much has been done, there still remains much more to do. One serious problem facing the Sportsmen of the State is the divergence of the State game laws and regulations. It needs only a glance to show that State laws affecting game, even in adjoining States differ widely. Thus a game bird may be adequately protected by law in one State and only partially protected in a neighboring Commonwealth. Moreover, the history of game preservation since Colonial days in many States reveals no well defined policy, but a series of regulations constantly changing according to the ever-shifting points of view of State game officials and the political exigencies of the moment. Indeed, so great is the divergence in the nature and purpose of Game legislation in the several States that there would seem to be little hope that the inconsistencies and shortcomings will ever be reconciled.

If the Sportsmen of Pennsylvania ever expect to accomplish their purpose or reach the goal of their ambition, they must first face conditions as they are, and then adopt plans for remedying same.

What are the conditions that we are up against as Sportsmen in the State? Lack of individual responsibility of the obligations as True Sportsmen. The great rank and file of sportsmen do not take it upon themselves personally to do their duty, but each one has a theory as to how the other fellow should do it. The old adage is "United we Stand Divided we Fall." Upon the proper solution of the problems now confronting the Sportsmen will depend the future of this State as a wild life sanctuary, and as a mecca for sportsmen.

A good deal has been heard of late on the subject of preparedness. Preparedness may be prompted by two motives, namely, for aggression, or for protection. Sportsmen are in a state of preparation, or preparedness, for the protection and propagation of wild life; in the conservation and reforestation of the forests; and purification of the streams.

This is a great State. We ought to be proud of it, and put forth every effort, and exert every nerve to restore its prehistoric abundance of wild life of every description.

All over this State grow great forests. Wild men and wild animals found in its forests and by the streams, food and shelter. The white man came, and then what happened? The forests were cleared, homes were founded, and peaceful agricultural pursuits engaged the attention of a contended husbandry. About, or less than a century ago, the natural wealth lying beneath and about became known to its people. Then began the transformation that genius and enterprise so quickly produce. Cities arose; streams of people from all the great nations of the world flowed hither; transportation agencies culminating in great railroad systems, brought the valleys close to the great cities; manufacturing enterprises sprang into life. We are the heirs and beneficiaries of all this natural good and human enterprise. In addition to this natural wealth and advantages the State teemed and abounded with wild life in its forests and streams, perhaps as no other State in the Union.

What happened? The forests became denuded of the trees. The streams, rivers, and lakes became polluted. The wild life, or many species of it, became extinct, and there was a great scarcity of all kinds of animals, birds, fish and forests.

What happened next? The Pennsylvania Forestry Association began its work of restoring the forests; reforestation began. The United Sportsmen of Pennsylvania got after the game, the fish, the streams, and the forests, as no other organiza

tion has done; without much talk or fuss we have backed up the work of the Forestry Association and have determined to hand down to posterity some of the blessings we have enjoyed, and some of the gifts of nature.

FRANK GRAY.

THE POCOno Protective Fire Association of Monroe County has recently made a financial statement for the year 1916 to the Department of Forestry, which shows plainly the benefits that follow upon the co-operative agreements between private forestry associations and the Department, which are permitted under the Acts of June 3d and 4th, 1915. The whole amount expended by the Association during the calendar year was $1,460.96, and of this sum the State returned $674.53-forty-six per cent.

We need in Pennsylvania a widespread distribution of information about forestry, so that the people may become interested in tree planting, tree protection and the reforestation of State lands. At present, most of our people are ignorant of these subjects, and this is the chief barrier against advancement; for without public interest and public backing little progress in legislation is to be expected. As soon as the general public learns the lesson that the few have acquired, and realize the losses-direct and indirect, that are affecting the taxpayers, year after year, through neglect of the forests, there will be a public demand for forest protection and development, to which the legislators will be forced to listen.

Experience in many States has shown that one of the best means for spreading information, and for interesting the public in subjects relating to forestry, is the private association made up of individuals living in the region who can reach and influence the general public in ways that cannot be employed by State officials. Where such organizations are widely distributed and earnestly carried on, the public cannot fail to become interested in their objects, and rally to their support.

We need in Pennsylvania many more of these private protective forestry associations. Surely there is ample encouragement towards the formation of new organizations of this kind under existing laws, which provide for agreements of cooperation by which the State agrees to pay back to the associations one-half the amounts which they supply for such preventive and protective purposes as the Department of Forestry may deem to be efficient. The more money an association can raise for its legitimate expenses the more it receives from the State for the further development of its protective work. W. R. F.