best missionaries in creating a healthy home
hatred of these useless conflagrations.
The operations in this State have
WE are accustomed to with the pretec made it possible to open camps on the mountains
tion it assures to our timber crop and the good effects of this upon the waterflow of the State. True, these alone would be sufficient reasons for State forestry.
They are, however, but the direct and most conspicuous benefits derived. There are others; some, at least, of great importance.
The South Mountain Reservation is an example of this, and the following points may be taken to verify the statement above made.
1. One of the roughest mountain roads in the State has been transformed into probably the best road in Quincy Township, of Franklin County. This was done at slight expense and because good roads are a necessary requirement of successful forestry. The good accrues not only to the forestry service of the State, but also to the community. This road, once made, has become an object lesson, which is not likely to be overlooked or forgotten in future.
Furthermore, in making the road, work was furnished to a deserving, but needy, population.
The same, indeed, may be said of forestry operations wherever found. They provide work for those who are near them. Indeed, one might well broaden out this statement and say that forestry exists to perpetuate industry. This applies not only to lumbering, but to work in nurseries and in thinning out surplus or lower grade trees in the forest.
2. Forestry requires foresters, and here we
for those of our citizens who are in need of out-
ing grounds, but who from business pressure or
from financial stress are unable to seek more dis-
tant regions. The article and the illustrations in
the October number of this journal, we trust, are
yet so fresh in the minds of our readers as to need
no further comment here. Surely anything which
promises to restore the health and productive
energy of our people cannot be lightly estimated.
4. Under existing rules and watchfulness the
large game of the State is now so well protected
that it is actually on the increase on our forestry
reservations. This is another factor of the outing
question. Furthermore, we must not lose sight
of the fact that it is from the ranks of the hunters
that we must look for our most effective riflemen,
who are to stand between the Commonwealth and
danger in the hour of need.
5. And not least, at Mont Alto the officers of
the Forest Academy have gathered in more than
fifty children, who otherwise would have been, for
the most part, at large on Sunday, and organized
a well conducted Sunday School. Morality may
well be counted then as an element in the work
of the South Mountain Reservation.
6. Our school influence reaches down even to the children in their daily life. The boys of the community are aspiring to enter the forestry ranks when they become old enough. In any new cause which promises so much of good for the State, this tendency among the children will create a public sentiment of vast importance when they
I have to train them, part of the time, at least, assume the active duties of citizenship.
the forest. Woodcraft, a necessary adjunct of
forestry, can only be acquired in the woods.
meet the demand we have established a forest
academy, where there are now fifteen pupils, who
are earning their living and an education in
forestry, by working on the Reservation for the
betterment of the State's holdings. They also do
duty as watchmen, and to render them more
effective they are mounted and armed, and will
shortly be sworn in as officers with constabulary
powers. The illustration fairly represents the
school and a part of the student force. This
school is, furthermore, accomplishing two other
important purposes. It is providing means of
education to some very worthy young men who
otherwise could not have acquired it, and it is
showing the criminal and wasteful work done by
forest fires to those who live in a region where
these spring and autumn pests are so common as
to have attracted but little real serious attention.
Our pupils from the mountain regions will be the
These are all probably to be counted as side issues to the main question, but they are worthy of note in estimating the results from the new field which Pennsylvania is now cultivating.
The old and matured white pine trees, called by
the Pennsylvania lumbermen
the Pennsylvania lumbermen "Pumpkin Pine,
were characterized in this State by great heights,
the shafts being long and clean. Mr. Gifford
Pinchot, who made a special study of these trees
in Central Pennsylvania, estimated the average
age of first growth timber as 200 to 250 years,
although some much older are found.
He men-
tions one sound tree 351 years old, which was 42
inches in diameter, 41⁄2 feet above the ground,
with a total height of 155 feet, which scaled
3,335 feet board measure of merchantable timber.