Los Angeles herald., 1910-01-09
fire song,
Want to be a forester
And work for Clifford 2.

IRE song,
Want a forester
And work Clifford P
assemble, from the of Oregon to the sunshine
California, receive their first instruction in the
profession of forestry.
The camp is situated on a high plateau which is
part of the estate of Mr.. Clifford Pnchot, Chief For
ester of the United States whose home Gray Towers,
lies half mile away, the gorge of the sawki
The camp proper has four simple one story build
ings and stone cottage near Gray Towers in which
those who taking the short course have their
lectures
These buildings are the mess han. roofed but open
to the winds of heaven the Sides with its accom-
panyng Kitchen junior hail. where the surveying in
stuments kept and the lectures and recitations
in surveying held; small building which contains the
office of the director of the camp with small work
ing technical library and supplies of calpers tapes
hypsoneters and other instruments pertaining to the
profession of forestry, and last but to the
heart of the students, the club house. building with
one large room and immense fireplace, the walls
hung with pictures of past classes and the colors of
many colleges.
The students live in army tents two to each canvas
covering, pitched along the streets, Fifth avenue
and Broadway, which extend from the Flatron Build
ing. rather dudishly white tent into the woods back
of the club house. The residences along these two
famous thoroughfares furnished with cots and
blankets, washstand with washbow two chairs and
table Luxury creeps in in the form of bookcases,
improvsed from fragments of packing boxes and a
straight limb swung from the ridge pole the tent on
which may hang his other flannel shirt and
khaki trousers. These two streets the healthi>st
in the world, and trade has I'D never will en-
croach them.
On July &, 1909 when the school opened, there
forest fires burning the hills in several drec-
toTs, and call for volunteers to fight them
issued. The wise ones put heavy hobnailed boots
aid left their coats behind; the uninitiated suffered
f,r their ignorance There can be no more pitfu
Sight than man wearing his coat and smooth soled
shoes trying to carry two pals of up the side
of hill made glacial with pine needles.
Under the orders of the instructors and senior
students the fires were beaten out with hemock
boughs dipped in pals of water then tiny but effective
fire trenches dug and scientific back firing foiled
the hungry fame with its own weapons.
Many Sore Muscle.
When night came the fires either out or under
control, but there sore muscles and blistered
hands galore The way beans and roast beef disap-
peared in the hall, however, banished all fears
of internal injuries.
The next day the camp formed into two di-
Visions of which to Junior Hail. where it was
given short lecture the fundamentals of survey
ing and then turned loose outdoors with tape plumb
bob and instruments to put into practice what he'd
just heard The other diviion assembled in the club
house, where it listened for hour and a half to a
lecture on mensuraton They we're tod how by
measuring arbitrary distance from the foot of a
tree, setting up stick with notch in it at given
distance from the ground and lying down and squnt-
ing across this notch till they got 1t in line with toe
top of the tree they could find the length by the
method of similar triangles
They discovered that calpers We're simply piece
of wood, with fixed and sliding limb which
placed the trunk of tree showed its diameter in
inches the piece of wood along which the sd
and that hypsometer instrument which gave
the height of trees in refined manner than the
stick and notch method After some information had
been furnished to the standard lengths into which