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State Forestry Reservation Commission having the right before any public land is warranted to determine whether this public land should not be included in the forest reserves (a law to this effect has been passed.-ED.), of the need of surveys of lands already obtained, of the depredation of State lands.

The report states that the most important problem before the public to-day is the suppression of forest fires, both on public and private lands. All efforts at timber restoration will be more or less neutralized so long as the present existing condition continues. Bad as it is at present, however, there is great ground for hope and encouragement. It is but a few years since it was deemed, by the average citizen in this State, no crime to fire the forest. There are some uncivilized portions of the United States where this belief still exists and where, regularly, spring and fall, the woods are systematically fired.

This

At present there is a growing realization of the fact that it is a crime to start a forest fire. at least is a hopeful change in public sentiment, and may be regarded as the promise of the time when forest fires will be as effectually held in check here as they now are in Germany and France.

There exists, however, urgent need for continued educational efforts in order that the sentiment in favor of forestry protection may be sharpened and increased. Even under existing laws it is quite possible to diminish, materially, the frequency and severity of these annual conflagra

tions.

On State lands the cutting of fire lanes, with a properly mounted warden for every 5000 acres, is advocated, with a superintendent over each five wardens. This would require, on the basis of one million acres, 200 wardens and 40 superintendents, at an annual expenditure of $168,000.

It is never economy in the long run to neglect to provide for our national safety, because in its keeping rests the prosperity and safety of every individual. If the forestry work of the State is not to be properly done, it had better be abandoned at once, but, if abandoned, disaster to the Commonwealth may be regarded as assured.

As the population increases, and as the timber of the country becomes scarcer, the price of the forest productions will eventually increase. This means that the State will receive a large financial return for every cent which it has invested, or will invest, in timber production, if it conduct its operations upon a proper business basis.

In order that the State may realize these financial returns, two things are requisite. First, that the annual destruction of growing timber by for

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Attention is also called to the way in which assessors evade the carrying out of the law, rebating a portion of the taxes on land kept in timber, the need of compensation to be paid to State Forestry Reservation Commission, the use of these State lands for sanatoria and as camping ground, and the good results secured at the Mont Alto Sanatorium, where 66 per cent. of the inmates were cured of incipient consumption. It is also recommended that the Forestry Commission be, by law, empowered to set apart upon the State Reservations suitable areas of 100 acres each, upon which those who are in search of health might be, under certain restrictions, allowed to go and erect permanent cabins or cottages, and that when those who erected those buildings should be dismissed from the camp, that the said buildings were to become the property of the Commonwealth.

Mr. George H. Wirt, State Forester, contributes. a chapter, setting forth the work done on the Mont Alto Estate, improvement cuttings made, plantations set out, detailing the work at the nursery, on the roads and at the Forest Academy. Valuable suggestions are made as to the best method of administering the Mont Alto Re

serve.

Dr. Addison M. Rothrock, Camp Physician, describes the South Mountain Camp Sanatorium, its rules and needs. The desirability of increasing the number of cottages, so as to accommodate 75 patients (double the present capacity), together with a kitchen, bath-rooms, etc., is set forth.

Mr. I. C. Williams, Deputy Commissioner of Forestry, supplies a valuable review of Forest Fire Legislation in Pennsylvania, from 1664 to the present time, while Mr. Paul E. Arnold contributes a paper on "A Rational Method for the Cultivation of the Willow (Salix)," the report closing with a tabulated statement of timber cut in and forest fire losses, by counties, in the years 1902 and 1903. In 1903 the area cut over was 125,981 acres, 941,147,602 feet B. M. of lumber, and 651,709 cords of bark and wood obtained. For the same year 64,186 acres were burned by forest fires, the loss being $241,240.

The report is embellished by several fine illustrations, and everyone interested in forestry in Pennsylvania should secure a copy of this report from the Forestry Department at Harrisburg, Pa., or a member of the Legislature.

THE

Woods for Special Uses.

THE Forest Service has begun a study of woods for special uses, and will this season take up cooperage woods, box and basket woods, vehicle and implement woods, and woods for street paving. The manner in which these woods will be studied is briefly indicated below.

Woods for Street Paving.-Paving with wood, in one form or another, has been experimented with in the United States for nearly seventy-five years. The first experience was so unsatisfactory that municipal engineers for a long time looked upon wood pavement with disfavor. It was quiet, cheap and comfortable, but it soon wore into holes and ruts, and the absorption of street filth rendered it unsanitary, while the wood speedily decayed and had to be replaced. In recent years, however, both knowledge and practice have improved. It has been discovered that, with the right selection and treatment of woods and the right method of laying, wood paving can be made successful; that a good pavement, like a good house, must be built on a sound foundation, and that both absorption and decay can be prevented in the wood by proper chemical treatment. Consequently a revival in wood paving has begun, and many of the largest cities are again trying it.

Few people realize the enormous cost and importance of street pavements. Measured by the money invested, street paving is probably the most important of any single class of engineering construction except steam railroads, the amount invested to date being estimated by a competent authority as approximately $515,000,000 for the United States. Wood pavement is now made almost exclusively of one or two of the best construction woods, and if it should become popular the drain upon these woods would be seriously increased.

The Forest Service wishes to ascertain if there are not among the various cheaper and more abundant species some which can by proper treatment be substituted for the more valuable kinds now in use. This study will involve three principal lines of inquiry.

The experience of cities which have wood pavements will be compared as to the kind of wood used, the form of block and the kind of construction, the qualities of the resulting pavement, and the cost.

Laboratory tests will be made, first to determine to what mechanical qualities woods which have given good service seem to owe their success, and then as to what woods among our cheaper varieties either possess or can be given

these qualities. The wear to which a pavement is subjected is a very complex one, which it will be difficult even to approximate in laboratory tests. The final test will be actual service, but the laboratory can, at least, give the basis for an intelligent solution in place of an unfounded guess.

Finally, the supply and location of promising substitutes will be considered.

Cooperage Woods.-The cooperage industry is one of the most important branches of forest utilization. According to the Twelfth Census, the annual value of the staves, hoops and heads made by the mills is over $20,000,000. It is estimated that more than 300,000 barrels, kegs, tubs and similar articles are manufactured daily in the United States.

Until a very recent date the woods chiefly used for cooperage were the slow-growing hardwoods, such as oak, elm, maple, ash, beech and birch, but within the last few years cottonwood, poplar, and latterly gum, have been substituted to some extent, owing to the diminishing supply of the species first exploited.

The depletion of the supply of raw material is felt strongly by the manufacturer,. who finds it yearly more difficult to obtain good stock. This is especially true for white oak, since the maker of tight cooperage must often refuse stock which a furniture maker would consider first-class material. Two factors have contributed to bring about this condition-first, the increase in the cooperage manufacture, which has developed enormously in the past quarter century; and second, the extremely wasteful methods employed in cutting, which have left the forest in a deplorable condition, and often wasted more material than was used. Cutting for cooperage purposes is far more wasteful than is ordinary lumbering.

The Forest Service in taking up this question aims to make its investigations of practical value to the cooperage industry and its operators. It is planned to bring together information regarding the supply of raw material, and the best methods of manufacture, the ill-effects of wasteful methods on the forest and possible remedies for them. Particular attention will also be given to a study of the properties of woods, with the view of recommending substitutes which are more abundant than the species now used for cooperage.

Box and Basket Woods.-The amount of wood annually consumed in the United States for packing boxes and baskets cannot be given in exact figures, but it is much greater than is generally realized. The State of Michigan alone has 48 box-making establishments with an annual product valued at $2,272,621. Other States have a yet

larger output. There is hardly a business in the whole country which would not be unfavorably affected by a serious shortage in packing box ma

terial.

The growing scarcity and consequent high price of most of the woods now used in this industry make necessary a search for other suitable woods and for means of regulating their supply, in order that the future demand may be met and a reasonable profit be insured to the manufacturer without overtaxing the consumer.

The study will include the questions of supply and demand as regards woods now used, the introduction of other woods as possible substitutes for the scarcer species, the demands of the trade, the physical and mechanical properties required in box and basket woods, and the methods of manufacturing them.

Vehicle and Implement Woods.-Manufacturers of vehicles and implements are finding that the supply of woods used in their industries is becoming more and more difficult to obtain. A careful investigation of vehicle and implement woods has begun, to secure more complete knowledge as to whether new and more abundant species may not be fitted for use in these important industries.

This study, which will be carried on in the manufacturing establishments, and also in the mills and logging camps which furnish the supply of raw material, will embrace an investigation of the properties of the woods used, the distribution and supply of these woods, and the possibility of replacing them by cheaper and more abundant kinds. After as many of these establishments as possible have been studied, extensive tests will be made on the various woods, to find suitable substitutes.

with healthy crowns roundly developed, and in the most even distribution over the ground. . . ."

[And this result in spruce is of general application in some if not all other species. In fact, this discovery that the German forester has made after decades of the opposite practice is just where our Ohio experimental station men have started. There are, of course, vast differences between the intensely managed Austrian spruce forest and the catalpa or locust wood-lot of the American farmer; but the same general principle seems to apply to both. It is the variety of species in our Pennsylvania woods that makes less obvious the evil effect (in nature) of overcrowding. In uniform stands the result of a too severe struggle for supremacy is likely to be a dwarfing of the whole crop, whether in corn or in loblolly pine. crookedest trees I ever saw were a lot of 5-year-old catalpa (speciosa), standing one to every three square feet. No tree was a foot longer or shorter than any other, and the growth for the last two years was hardly perceptible. And yet this method of planting had been adopted to force the height growth and to insure clear, straight boles.] A. S. H.

The

Damages for Injuries to Forest Property.

TH

BY ERNEST BRUCKEN.

[In the Forestry Quarterly.]

HIS paper, after citing the present rule of the courts in awarding damages for injurious trespass on timber land,-that the damage is limited to the merchantable value of the timber converted or destroyed,-calls attention to the necessity for some better method of evaluating forest property, so that the owner may be compensated not only for the present value, which may be nil, but also for the future value thus destroyed. In a few cases this principle has been followed by the courts. The great difficulty is in proving, with the reasonable certainty the court demands, what is this future value. Here the

In a paper by Dr. Schwappach, reviewed by Forestry Quarterly, the question of the growing space best calculated to produce maximum values in spruce is considered. The accepted theory has been to plant as closely as permitted, to force the young stand into rapid height growth and to fur-trained forester must come in as an expert witther the early clearing of the boles. Unusually early thinnings made in certain Austrian forests produced such remarkable results in increased growth rate, that the subject was made the matter of careful study. As a result of this study Dr. Schwappach finds that the accepted method of crowding spruce stunts the trees and does not fully utilize the productive powers of the ground on which they are growing. And "that the criterion of the thinning (beginning with 4000 to 6000 plants to the hectare) is to be: Production of the greatest possible number of vigorous trees

ness, because the economic side of forestry is so little understood that many lawyers are incompetent in such cases. [Will not the certainty that one who destroys or is responsible for the destruction of timber in any stage of its growth will be compelled to pay for what he destroys and for what would have grown from the same,-will not this certainty help the suppression of forest fires? In many cases where fires are set carelessly or wilfully in young sproutland, the excuse is advanced that such growth represents no assessable value.]

The Pennsylvania State Forest

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Reservations.

N December 31, 1904, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania owned and had under control for forestry purposes about 550,ooo acres of land. Since that time there have been purchases and contracts entered into for purchase of about 150,000 acres additional. The State Forest Reservation Lands will, therefore, probably cover an area of 700,000 acres by the close of the year 1905.

The lands thus held for forestry purposes are wild mountain lands, unfit for agriculture or anything else but tree-growing. They are, in the main, covered with a fair stand of timber, much of it young and vigorous with dense undergrowth, having a few open places here and there, at one time farms, many of them long since abandoned. The State holdings for forestry purposes, as exhibited by the accompanying map, do not lie in one compact body, but are scattered about in greater or less areas in the counties of Adams, Bedford, Cameron, Centre, Clearfield, Clinton, Cumberland, Dauphin, Elk, Franklin, Fulton, Huntingdon, Juniata, Lackawanna, Lycoming, Mifflin, Monroe, Pike, Potter, Snyder, Union, Tioga and Wyoming. By reference to the map, the approximate location of the State Reservations may be seen.

In accordance with an early law, when investigation of the forest conditions of Pennsylvania was first undertaken, the reservations to be established were known generally as the Delaware Reservation, the Susquehanna Reservation, and the Ohio Reservation. The lands to be procured under this act were to lie in the Delaware watershed, in the Susquehanna Valley or localities whose streams ultimately reach the Susquehanna River, and in the watershed of the Ohio River. The purchases thus far made lie within the Delaware and the Susquehanna Valleys, a small portion only draining into the valley of the Potomac.

The purchase of tracts has not proceeded sufficiently far to allow a complete naming of definite and specific areas. It is believed that one forester should not be charged with the care of more than about 25,000 acres. If this become the established rule, it will no doubt result in the dividing of the whole forest reservation into suitable tracts ranging from 25,000 to 30,000 acres, over which will be placed one scientifically trained forester. Suitable names to designate these parts of reservations will then be selected and applied by the State Forestry Reservation Commission. A start in this direction has been made. Those lands which lie in the South Mountain region, on

the line between Franklin and Adams Counties, and extending northward into Cumberland County, are now known by the specific name of The South Mountain Reservation. This reservation contains about 42,000 acres. That part next to the Maryland border is known as the Mont Alto Division, because it largely comprises the lands formerly owned by the Mont Alto Iron Company; while the upper portion is known as Caledonia Division, for the reason that a large part of it is made up of lands formerly owned by Thaddeus Stevens and later by the Caledonia Mining and Manufacturing Company.

The second reservation to which has been assigned a definite name lies in the southwestern part of Clinton and the northern part of Centre Counties, and is called the Hopkins Reservation, after the Hon. A. C. Hopkins, one of the first members of the State Forestry Reservation Commission. This reservation is now without well defined bounds, comprising numerous tracts lying in this locality, all of which will no doubt be connected sooner or later. Convenient divisions for forestal work will then be made.

The third named reservation consists of lands lying in the valley of the Licking Creek, in Juniata and Mifflin Counties, and is now officially known as the Rothrock Reservation, in honor of Dr. J. T. Rothrock, the first Commissioner of Forestry in this Commonwealth, now a member of the State Forestry Reservation Commission, and the founder and developer of the forestry work of the State, achieved after twenty years of unremitting endeavor. The Rothrock Reservation was so named because it lies in that part of the State where Dr. Rothrock was born and where he spent his boyhood years. It was his custom to cross and recross these mountain tracts, now comprised within the reservation, while laying the foundation of his education at Academia. No better or more fitting name could be bestowed upon this particular part of the State Forest Re

serves.

More recently the State Forestry Reservation Commission has designated the tracts lying in Tioga County as the William A. Stone Reservation, in honor of Governor Stone, who signed the bill making the law whereby the State Department of Forestry and the State Forestry Reservation Commission were created, and who at all times was an earnest friend and a loyal supporter of every endeavor made for the purpose of forwarding the forestry work within the Commonwealth. In addition to signing the bill creating the department, he likewise affixed his signature to three other important laws bearing upon the subjects of timber preservation, the planting of

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TOTAL AREA OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA 47,000 SQUARE MILES, AREA OF FOREST RESERVES BUT 1,100 SQUARE MILES.

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