From a small beginning the membership has increased until there is now on the roll between 1600 and 1700, and the Association has shown its influence in the preparation and passage of various State forestry laws by the Pennsylvania Legislature. Copies of the laws now on the statute books are collated in the Digest of the Game and Fish Laws and the Warden and Forestry Laws of Pennsylvania. The annual reports of the Council and officers, and the Constitution and By-Laws, and lists of members have appeared in the various issues of FOREST LEAVES.

The initial campaign was one of education, and in 1893 the efforts of the Pennsylvania Forestry Association resulted in the appointment of a Forestry Commission, which made a detailed report to the State Legislature in 1895 on the condition and needs of forestry in Pennsylvania. This was followed in 1895 by the formation of a Bureau of Forestry, and in 1901 by a Department of Forestry, which is a permanent feature of the State government.

The State forest reserves started from the purchase of lands at tax sales. Later, authority was granted to purchase three reserves of 40,000 acres each at the headwaters of the three principal river systems of the State, the Delaware, Susquehanna and Ohio, and later the Forestry Reservation Commission was authorized to purchase any lands which it thought advisable for forest reserves, provided such purchases were approved. Under these various acts over 622,000 acres have been secured by the State, which is being rapidly added to, but by law not to exceed $300,000 can be spent for this purpose in any fiscal year. Lately, a Forest Academy has been started at Mont Alto, Pa., to educate young men to take practical charge of the different State forestry reservations. Sanitaria have also been established to aid the afflicted to renewed health. The saving or the prolongation of life will of itself amply repay the State for any expenditures made in the preservation of its forests.

The Pennsylvania Forestry Association is the largest and most powerful of the State Forestry Associations, working on practical, intelligent and systematic lines. Having no quarrel with those who use forest products, but protesting against all misuse or waste, it has persistently and successfully exerted its influence to reduce the enormous sacrifice of value, which each year is attributed to forest fires, and will continue to be aggressive in this particular. It has secured and recognizes the co-operation of women's clubs in its efforts to popularize the work to which it is committed.

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sylvania is the history of the Pennsylvania Forestry Association, for in every movement it has been the leader. The results attained have been the stimulus which brought into existence organizations in other States; and its influence has been felt in forming the national policy of forest protection. J. B. * WE take pleasure in presenting to our readers an address made by Mr. Alfred S. Haines before the Botanical Section of the University of Pennsylvania. While this treats in detail of the operations on a small tract of timber in an agricultural district, it will be of interest to others having similar woodlands.

THE freshets which prevailed in Pennsylvania during the past winter caused serious injury to growing trees by both water and ice. Swollen streams carried great masses of ice at high velocity, which, grinding against tree trunks, scarred them and removed much of the bark. In many instances young trees, and even some large ones, were overborne by the ice mass, and the damage done to growing trees along the river banks will take many years to repair.

But while this loss is great, the damage to houses, bridges and roads greatly overshadowed the injury to trees. Thousands were driven from homes, and many of the buildings rendered uninhabitable or entirely destroyed. Great masses of ice far inland from stream beds and much above the ordinary freshet level long withstood the softening action of spring winds and the sun's rays.

We venture no opinion as to whether a larger percentage of forest cover upon the drainage basins of the streams would have materially altered freshet conditions. We have passed through a phenomenal winter, with unusual snow-fall and long continued cold creating abnormal conditions. We know that snows melt more slowly in the forests than in the open, that water absorbed by the forest flow passes off more slowly than from cultivated fields, and that the partial shade even from leafless trees retards the snow melting from the sun and winds.

A generous forest cover may be expected to ameliorate freshets, but we are not prepared to accept the theory that this would prevent occasionally severe overflows. Probably a considerable proportion of the damage resulting from ice-gorges will be traced to the wholesale denudation of forested areas in years gone by, which encouraged severe scouring of the surface soil, the detrital matter being deposited in the beds of streams to form bars and obstructions to a free de

We do not intend the above expressions to be interpreted as minimizing the influence which liberal forest cover exerts upon the run-off, either from rain or snow. We believe thoroughly in this influence, and attribute much to the protection given by trees from sun and wind, to the absorbent character of the forest floor, and to the limitations which this offers to obstructing underground channels. But we are satisfied that the claims upon public appreciation which the protection of forests can present are so strong and unassailable, that we do not need to assume any problematical conditions to prove that forestry is as essential to our well being as agriculture. J. B. *

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In accordance with the proclamation of Governor Pennypacker, the Hon. John Weaver, Mayor of Philadelphia, has notified the heads of the various departments and the public school authorities that Friday, April 8th, would be celebrated as Arbor Day in this city. This is the first time the Chief Executive of Philadelphia has officially recognized Arbor Day.

Forest Fires.

Watch the rays of the sun and warm spring winds dry the leaves of last fall until they are ready to blaze at the touch of fire.

Watch for the careless hunter, the thoughtless youth, the grasping grazer, or the spark from the unprotected locomotive stack, which may furnish the ember or flame to start a fire.

Watch for the tiny flame or the thread of smoke, which if not promptly controlled may develop into a forest fire-ravaging many miles of timber land and checking the growth, if not entirely destroying trees, which can only be reproduced after

many years.

ests.

Watch the county officers who are sworn to observe the laws, and whose duty as set forth in these laws is to secure aid to combat forest fires. If they fail in their duty advise the Pennsylvania Commissioner of Forestry at Harrisburg promptly. Pennsylvania has now ample legislation to limit, if not entirely prevent, the destruction of her forAll that is needed is to have these laws enforced, and officials recreant to their sworn duty should be reported so that they may be dismissed and punished. The State has now 622,000 acres of forest reserve; they belong to the people and every citizen has a proprietary interest in them. They are not to be damaged either by carelessness or design, and the offenders should be promptly and severely dealt with. Other forest areas belong to citizens, our neighbors, and their property is also to be protected. J. B.

Arbor Days, April 8 and 22, 1904.

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HE Governor of Pennsylvania has issued his proclamation, which appears in this column, fixing as Arbor Days Friday, April 8th, and Friday, April 22d, and urges a general observance of these days by tree-planting, etc. "Winter lingering in the lap of spring" may interfere with accepting the earlier date, which was intended to meet the climatic conditions of the southern and lower portions of the State, and the latter date may even be too early for some of the mountainous sections. But the Chief Executive, making no claim to be a weather prognosticator, selected the two dates which he believed would best suit the conditions in different portions of a State having an area of 46,000 square miles, and whose surface varies from sea level to 2800 feet above this. Should either of the days selected by the Governor prove unfavorable, no true friend of the forest will be deterred from observing other more suitable days, and we are satisfied that Governor Pennypacker would recognize the importance of following the spirit rather than the letter of his proclamation. too good a friend of the forests to do otherwise.

He is

These recurring Arbor Days keep the forest before the people of the State. If we cannot plant trees, we can take part in exercises which instruct others, or advance our knowledge as to tree growth. They impress upon the young that trees and forestry are of sufficient importance to demand recognition from the highest State official, and in this way instil an appreciation of their value. J. B.

Arbor Day Proclamation.

In the Name and by Authority of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Proclamation.

THE preservation of the forests of a country is essential to all of its life. When they have been destroyed the water-supply disappears, and lands capable of sustaining vast populations become desert wastes. Beauty and utility are both found among the trees.

The Forestry Reservation Commission of Pennsylvania have secured up to the present time six hundred and twenty-two thousand five hundred and seventy-six acres of land, and are zealously engaged in the work of preserving and renewing our forests. Their efforts ought to be encouraged and supplemented by those of every thoughtful citizen. Many an arid and barren piece of land may be made attractive and profitable by the planting of trees.

In order that all may have the opportunity to participate in this grateful and laudable duty,

I, Samuel W. Pennypacker, Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in accordance with law, do hereby designate and proclaim Friday, the eighth day of April, and Friday, the twenty-second day of April, A. D., 1904, to be observed as Arbor Days throughout the Commonwealth.

Two days have been designated because of differing climatic conditions in different parts of the State, and in order that a selection may be made between them.

Given under my hand and the great seal of the State at the City of Harrisburg, this fourth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and four, and of the Commonwealth the one hundred and twenty-eighth.

By the Governor :

SAMUEL W. PENNYPACKER.

FRANK M. FULLER,

Secretary of the Commonwealth.

An Interesting Forestry Experiment in Nebraska.

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HEN the Government set aside two tracts of land in the sand hill region of Nebraska, to be used to demonstrate the possibility of foresting, nearly everybody pronounced the idea an unrealizable dream. In the sand hill country especially the idea was laughed to scorn. Some, who a few years ago stood firm in the belief that winter wheat would not grow in western Nebraska, that alfalfa could not be made to grow successfully in the eastern counties, that it was foolishness to plant fruit trees anywhere but along the Missouri River, and that cottonwood was the only shade tree that would ever grow successfully, are now doubtful of the wisdom of spending money to start pine forests in the sand hills, and shake their heads dubiously at the mention of the matter.

While two years is not a long enough time to demonstrate anything definite as to the chances of success or failure, there is a combination of indications that leaves little room for doubt that the adaptability of the sand hills to timber-growing will ultimately be proved.

On April 16, 1902, two forest reserves were created in the State of Nebraska. The Dismal River reserve includes an area of 86,000 acres, lying between the Loup and Dismal Rivers; the Niobrara reserve includes 126,000 acres near the centre of Cherry County, lying between the Niobrara and Snake Rivers. Both are in the sand

hill district of northwestern Nebraska, and the tracts selected are as nearly typical of sand hill conditions as it was possible to find. Two months after the proclamation was issued a party of six men were sent out by the Bureau of Forestry to survey and plat a portion of the reserve for seed beds, for the extent of the operations proposed make it necessary that the foresters grow their own seedlings. This has the added advantage of giving them acclimated trees for their planting experiments.

Planting of seed was begun last year, and the nursery sheds at the reserve headquarters now contain long rows of bristling, prosperous looking pine seedlings, at least a million in number, that are to go into the ground next spring. Some go to the nursery now, for further growth before being finally transplanted, and others to take their chances out on the hills in the forest row. Jack pine from the sandy regions of northern Michigan and Wisconsin, western yellow pine and the native red cedar are the varieties that offer the best chance of success, and these will be most extensively used. Next spring, besides transplanting some of the year old seedlings to the hills, attempts will be made to grow trees direct from the seed in tree rows out on the hills. There are reasons to think that this can be done.

There is but one object in this attempt to establish forest conditions in the sand hill country, and that is to supply timber and fuel for local use and to improve the condition of the country by adding another resource to its wealth.

All this work, however, has not gone far enough to prove beyond doubt that forests can be made to grow and thrive on the sand hills. The soil has sprouted the seeds and produced thrifty year old seedlings, and that is all. Were this all that were known it would be too early to express more than a hope that the experiments may prove successful. Fortunately, however, there is a forest reserve in the sand hills that has been established long enough to prove more than this. This is the twelve year old pine grove of Bruner Brothers in Holt County. In 1891 they planted exposed sand hill land thickly to pine seedlings, every alternate row being the northern Jack pine, the other rows different varieties of pines that it was thought might do well in the region. The tract was fenced off to protect the trees from live stock, was guarded from fire by plowing around it and was then left to its fate. That was twelve years ago, and now this half acre of pines is a forest that people go miles to see, so dense that one entering its shades for a few feet can find or see nothing to indicate that he is within a thousand miles of a prairie, a sand hill, or any sign of civili

zation. It has begun to reproduce itself, and scores of seedlings are coming up under the larger trees and in the vicinity of the grove, whither the cones have been carried by the wind. The ground under the trees is a heavy mat of pine needles.

In 1903 a forester from the Department at Washington surveyed this grove, made accurate measurements of the trees and estimated the percentage of the original seedlings that were planted and lived. He found that the living Jack pines amounted to the surprising proportion of 73 per cent., a percentage that the most enthusiastic believer in the sand hills as a forest region would hardly have dared to hope for. The measurements showed results fully as pleasing. It was found that the half acre contained 626 trees that are over nineteen feet high and have a diameter of three inches or more, having made a growth of 1.6 feet a year. Besides these there are 930 trees that average sixteen feet in height and two inches in diameter, and 828 that had been outstripped by their companions and were too small to be taken into consideration. Best of all, there is not a diseased or dead tree in the tract.

The conditions on the whole are considered to have been as unfavorable as can be expected to be met anywhere in the sand hill region, and the remarkable growth and condition of the grove would seem to be all the proof that can be desired of the adaptability of the sand hills to the growing of pine trees in any quantity.

The cost of an acre of pine trees set at intervals of four feet, including trees from a nursery, plowing, planting and mulching, is estimated at $20.60. At this rate it takes nearly 3000 trees to the acre. Estimating the cost of the land at the Government price of $1.25 per acre, the total investment in an acre of trees amounts to $21.85. In twelve years the Bruner tract of one half acre has produced wood at the rate of fifteen and onethird cords per acre, which is worth $60.80, estimating it at the reasonable price of $4.00 a cord on the stump. The investment at the end of twelve years, allowing 5 per cent. compound interest, amounts to $39.34, leaving a net surplus value, including the original value of the land, of $22.71. To put it another way, the land has paid an annual income of 5 per cent., and nearly $2 an acre a year besides, considerably better than high-priced farming land can usually be made to do. And it is just at the beginning of its producing stage..

The direct financial benefit to the tree planter is not the only object sought for, however. The growing of large tracts of trees over the sand hills will add wonderfully to the attractiveness of the

The

country and to its value as a stock country. shelter afforded to stock will be an important element, and the shelter to crops and grass will probably add still more to the value of the land. More than that: when the forests attain an average of ten or twelve years, they will require a large amount of labor to perform the necessary thinning, a process which pays well for itself in the wood produced. Mr. Scott estimates that a few thousand acres of timber to the county would in a few years afford employment to several times more people than now inhabit the same counties altogether, thus adding heavily to the population of those districts.

The Government experts who have been in touch with the work express the greatest confidence that the outcome of their work will revolutionize conditions in that wide stretch of Nebraska country that has always been called derisively the sand hills, and that in time much of the land that has by common consent been given over to the range steer, at the rate of about twenty acres per steer, will be as valuable as any in the State, producing a crop that has always been among the great needs of the west.-Nebraska State Journal.

DR.

Perpetuate the Hardwoods.

R. C. A. SCHENCK, Director of the Biltmore Forest School, at Biltmore, N. C., says that outside the United States primeval supplies of the hardwoods exist only in the Amur valley of northern China, in some Austrian dependencies drained by the Danube River, and in the Spessart Mountains of Bavaria, qualifying this statement by remarking that these foreign resources are limited in quantity. Thus it seems that the main world's dependence for the most available hardwoods is on the United States. Of course, there is an unknown quantity of birch, beech, maple and a few other hardwoods in the belt of Canada north of the settled portions, but that resource is not extensive and will be needed, and more, for the supply of Canada alone.

Dr. Schenck proceeds to declare that our monopoly of the hardwoods covers the world, and it seems to him that the time has come for the forest owner to realize his lucky position and to draw the necessary conclusions as well as the incident financial benefits from his happy supremacy. As showing how valuable hardwood timber may become, Dr. Schenck ascertained from the foresters managing the remnants of the primeval white oak found in the Spessart Mountains of Bavaria that the owners are now obtaining for the stumpage alone from $100 to $400 a tree, the trunks meas

uring from two and one-half to four feet in diameter. Hence, Americans being excellent financiers, the owners of hardwood stumpage cannot be an exception to the rules of good economy. They must see the advisability of curtailing their logging and milling operations, or, which is the same thing, the financial sagacity expressed in the two words-conservative forestry. Such a conservative attitude and practice must pay best unless the soil on which the trees stand is of high value for farming purposes, or the trees are threatened by rapid decay from old age.

In the last words of the foregoing sentence is the gist of the whole matter. Forestry is an admirable science, and it should and can be practically applied where economical conditions favor it. In mountainous districts, on lands too rocky or too light and thin for agriculture, in sections remote from transportation and where the land is cheap a wise forecast should dictate a conservation of hardwood forests by all the known means, and it should receive the encouragement of owners, economists, the State and the nation. when it comes to wooded lands on small holdings in comparatively well settled localities, especially where the land is fertile and timber and farm crops both command a good price, the question of tree preservation becomes one that the individual owner must be left to settle for himself.

But

Then there is the question of climate and character of soil and timber to be considered, with reference to the possibilities of preservation. On the deep rich soil of Ohio, Indiana, southern Illinois, parts of Kentucky and the river bottoms of the south, the trees root deeply, are continually nourished by the rich soil, and can be preserved from century to century. But on the thinner soils of the lake region and northern New York and New England the older growths, left exposed by clearings, are inclined to deteriorate and break down by the winds.

In localities where the hardwoods are interspersed with coniferous timber there is always a liability to destructive and wide sweeping forest fires. Without doubt, any attempt to preserve pine, hemlock and cedar in the northern sections involves too much risk to make it justifiable in an economic sense. Holders of such timber are inclined to cut it as rapidly as the market will bear, because the risk of letting it stand is so great. How often has it happened that pine has been burned over and the owners have been forced to cut it the following winter to save it from damage by worms and rot, and possibly by a succeeding fire?

A leading hemlock operator in Wisconsin stated that even the opening up of turnpike roads in

that State is seriously menacing not only the hemlock growths, but some of the hardwoods, especially elm. He says that where turnpikes are cut through by lumbermen or the township authorities the side ditches seem to drain off the moisture from the bordering lands, which has a peculiar effect on the trees. For some distance on either side of the roads the hemlock begins to die and become wormy, and a like effect is seen in some of the hardwood trees. Thus settlement and civilization seem to be fatal to the forests, as they are to the wild Indian when his native fastness is broken into by the inroads of the pale face.

It is a common experience with the farmers of the northeastern States that their cherished woodlots, when isolated by surrounding clearings, suffer loss by decaying trees, and eventually the wind finishes the work of destruction. Consequently, many a holding of that kind is slaughtered, in order to save the wood and convert it into money before the loss shall become complete. In the deep, rich soils of the Ohio River and further south the isolated timber stands better, and it is here that the forests should be preserved to the utmost.

Wherever soil and climatic influences are favorable, every farm of any size should have its woodlot, and no desire on the part of the owner for speedy profits should induce him to cut away all his woods. In New England and the Middle States, though it may be wise to cut all the old growths, there is an abundance of second growth springing up that should be economized and preserved as far as possible; for this young growth will thrive for many years and furnish good returns to the owner. It is doubtful, however, if a like preserving process would work as well in the northwestern States, where the land is level, the soil less favorable to young growth, the climate severe and the winds sweep over the landscape with the ferocity of a hurricane. In Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and northern New York spruce timber will stand and reproduce in spite of all climatic or other opposition, and forests of that kind can be maintained.

But aside from all discouraging features, local, climatic and economical, the forestry idea should be put into practice wherever there are favorable conditions. Dr. Schenck's advice that the oaks, ash, poplar and other woods should be held on the stump, for a future rise in values should be heeded. In the Ohio River and tributary valleys, in the lower Mississippi country, and on the rivers that run into the gulf, timber can be preserved without much deterioration. It is in such parts of the country, embracing the greater supply of the world, that conservatism in cutting should