ITEMS OF INTEREST November 16, 1907 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

March 3, 1891, Congress passed an act which gave the President the power to "set apart and reserve in any State or Territory having public lands bearing forests, any part of the public lands wholly or in part covered with timber or undergrowth, whether of commercial value or not, as public reservations." Eighteen million acres were set apart under this act within the next three years, but the real forestry policy of the United States began in February, 1896, when Hoke Smith, Cleveland's Secretary of the Interior, asked the National Academy of Science to make an investigation and report upon "the inauguration of a National forest policy for the forested land of the United States." When President Roosevelt assumed office there were 46,153,119 acres of National forests. To-day there are more than 158,000,000 acres in the 159 National forests, an increase of more than 112,000,000 acres. There are State-owned forests to the amount of 2,722,766 acres. In the Philippines are 40,000,000 acres of woodland. With the forests under private ownership there is a grand total of between seven and eight hundred million acres of timberland within the jurisdiction of the United States.

The National Drainage Association will meet at Baltimore on Nov. 25 to 27. Senator Flint of California, the author of the general drainage bill, will advocate the adoption of that measure by the congress. Most of the governors of the Southern. Western and Eastern States, as well as the mayors of a number of cities, have been appointed delegates to the congress.

The Attorney General of Texas has filed suits in the District Court against eleven alleged subsidiary concerns of the Standard Oil Company, which are said to be doing business in that State in violation of the anti-trust laws. Penalties amounting to $6,900,000 are sought to be received from each defendant, the total sum sued for being $75,900,000.

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