A daily paper remarks:

"Great forest fires are reported from various parts of the country, and in every case it is stated that nothing can save the woods except soaking rain storms. New York is trying both prevention and cure by the organization of a body of forest wardens, but time has not yet shown whether they can be made effective. It is certainly time that something more likely to come than rain in a dry season should be found for the suppression of these widely destructive fires that deplete American forests".

In a large number of cases forest fires come from locomotive sparks flying from the engine as it drives through the forest. How much more sensible would it be to employ laborers to clear away the forests a few hundred feet on each side of the track than to employ " wardens " at large salaries to loaf around and watch for those who " start fires." Or, where the woods are in no danger from locomotives, why not employ laborers to clear out dangerous underbrush and dead trees that start fires, instead of lazy " wardens," to hunt up offenders against the laws. For our part, we would sooner trust to a rain to put out a forest fire when it once starts among dead brush, than to a thousand high-salaried forest wardens.

Remove the dangerous material, and the danger ceases. This is our forestry platform.

Mr. R. L. Lamb, Charleston, S. C, says: " I notice your opinion of the Forest Wardens in the September number of the Gardeners' Monthly. I think that they would •prevent forest fires from destroying the forests about as easily as I could prevent the earthquake from knocking Charleston into a cocked hat. The only way to prevent great forest fires is to set them on fire every year which would consume the dead leaves and small underbrush. A small fire every year would not injure the larger trees, but a great fire once in ten or twenty years destroys all".

[On the grounds of the Editor, a railroad runs through a piece of forest. It burns over from locomotive sparks every spring when the thaw comes. Frost seems to have the power of forcing out gummy material from dead vegetation, which easily catches fire. No injury has ever been known to the forest trees from these annual fires. - Ed. G. M].