Items of Interest June 13, 1914 Issue

Items of Interest

Through arrangements made by the United States forestry service, twenty-four boy scouts—eight from Washington, D. C., eight from Baltimore, and eight from Boston—are to build this coming summer a ten-mile trail in a remote part of the White Mountain national forest. This plan is to aid the scouts to practise their craft, to learn about forestry, and to awaken in them an interest in conservation. In return for this work the boy scouts will be paid at a rate equivalent to that which the government would have to pay for the construction of this trail were the work done by the regular force.

The trail which the boy scouts will build is intended primarily as a means of protection against fire. The boys will be working approximately ten miles from the nearest town, which is Gilead, Maine. They will camp in the valley of Wild river, a tributary of the Androscoggin river, and will have two stretches of trail to build. The first will be alongside of Wild river, and the work will consist merely of the improvement of a rough trail which needs to be put into condition so that horses can travel over it. The second stretch of trail will be located in the timber where no means of quick travel existed before.

The Mt. Vernon Ladies' Association, the owner of the home of George Washington, at its annual meeting recently at the old homestead, listened to annual reports and made up a program of activities for the coming year. According to the official figures, there were one hundred and twenty-nine thousand visitors at Mt. Vernon during the past year. Probably the most important work of the year was that of reshingling the mansion. The shingles are of cypress, hand made in North Carolina, and are of the same kind and size as those used in 1743, when the mansion was erected. The first reshingling was in 1785, and the second in 1860.

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