The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-10-20

greater than the New England and Mid
 dle States combined, and more and more
 will be added as the exigencies or the
 case demand it. System has grown out
 of confusion, for the step was new and
 the nation at first had much to learn.
 The division of forestry has been taken
 from the department of the interior and
 made a service under the department Of
 agriculture, and with one-fortieth of the
 entire area of the United States under
 their control and with an annual appro-
 priation approximating $500,0eo with which to carry on their work of experiment and protection, those in charge are already be-
 ginning to show practical and profitable returns.
 The service has to correct all the eviis
 enumerated above. provide means to pre- vent their recurrence, and make amenos
 for such losses of the past as they can.
 The work they have undertaken is stu
 nendous. vet the results achieved in so short a time have proved the urgent need of the science of forestry in the great economical progress of the nation. Stand
 ing forests are being preserved by en- couraeing conservative numbering and the
 planting of many trees to replace every
 ripe one felled. Sheep raisers have not
 been put out of business, as they bitterly
 prophesied, but have been allowed to lease RONeTuIuelb ldiioo icA D.
 tain restrictions being observed for the protection of herbage, and this industry has greatly increased. Miners have not
 been denied prospecting rights, as they believed they would be, should they nave to pass through government forest re- serves but have awakened to the fact that through the government will come l the orsly means of securing timbers for props in the mine shafts of the future | cto hox hapn danlGt cd l by wasteful cutting.
 1 Every summer two or three hundred young men are chosen from among the l thousands of college men who apply to inc service and for salary at which a hod-carrier would turn up his Celtic nose, tramp for months through the forest re- serves taking the heights of trees, mak- ing stem analyses, and valuation surveys acre by acre until fair estimate of the
 output of each section can be determined. | They measure the trunks of trees with caipers, they tend young shoots in nur- i series they study insect life that may 1 help or injure trees, and, when asked l will make a careful survey and working plan for any private forest. They are | working hard to raise the United States
 from the depths of ignorance and indiffer- ence to the conservation of her forest DTOQuCISt ueplIlS WiilCh oiC OtCuplCu | alone with China of all the great nations. Forest schools at Biltmore. N. C.; Yale, Harvard, Pennsylvania State college, and
 the University of Michigan offer instruc- | tion of an advanced nature, and eleven | state colleges have added forestry to their curricula.
 The most notable work of forestation is | that of the Dismal River reserve, in | northwest Nebraska, where 1t was found
 that only jack pine would grow. A nur- sery was set up and S6,o00 acres are being | set at the rate of 1,000 acres a year. The 1 trees will be ready for use fin from 30 to | 75 years, according to the timber needed Los Angeles is the first city to go on rec ord as planting a forest for profit, Griffith park, a 5000 acre tract of waste land having been set with trees under the di- rection of four foresters of the United
 States service. Railroad companies, with 1 their thousands of miles of ties to be con tinually renewed, are beginning to raise 1 their own timber, encouraged and advised 1 by the forest service. The Illinois Gen. | tral has two large areas of catalpas, one 1 in Illinois and one in Louisiana. The 1 Frisco 25 years ago planted $40 acres in trees and recently cut s100,000 worth of | timber for its use. The Louisville and | Nashville has private forests recently re- planted in Florida, Alabama and Illinois, and the Santa Fe in Kansas and the Bur | lington System in Nebraska some years