than when it is in the act of being sawed or manufactured into lumber or other commodity for use in building, or any person not an employé of the owner who shall, without the written consent of the owner, take into possession any branded or unbranded log or timber cut for floating or sawing, or any sawed timber, lumber, or shingles floating in any of the waters of this State, or deposited upon the banks of any river or stream in this State, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction, shall be punished by fine, not exceeding two hundred dollars for each offense. That by "lumber" is meant lumber attached or bound together in some way for floating, and not loose lumber; and by "shingles" is meant shingles in bunches or bundles, and not loose shingles.

SEC. 6. The courts of the county in which the timber or lumber was deposited in the water, or in which it is unlawfully taken into possession, or unlawfully defaced, sold, purchased, or branded, as the case may be, shall have jurisdiction of the violation of the act or omission complained of, or constituting an offense under this act.

SEC. 7. That the near approach of the end of this session creates an imperative public necessity that the rule be suspended requiring this bill to be read on three several days, and it is therefore suspended.

Right of Eminent Domain in respect to Timber taken for Macadam and Plank Roads, Railroads, Causeways, and Bridges.

I. AS TO MACADAM AND PLANK ROAD CORPORATIONS.

[Revised Statutes of Texas, 1879, p. 102.]

ART. 612. If any such corporation shall require for the construction or repair of its road, or any bridge thereof, any stone, timber, or other material from land adjoining to or near said road, and cannot contract for the same with the owner thereof, such corporation may proceed to have the value of the same assessed, and the same proceedings shall be had therefor as is provided by law to be taken by railroad corporations in like cases; and all macadam or plank road corporations shall have the right also to condemn in like manuer and occupy any quantity of land, not exceeding one acre at any one place, for the purpose of erecting toll-houses thereon.

II. AS TO RAILROADS.

[Revised Statutes of Texas, 1879, p. 601.]

ART. 4167. Each such corporation shall have the right of way for its line of road through and over any lands belonging to this State, and to use any earth, timber, stone, or other material upon any such land necessary to the construction and operation of its road through or over said land.

Any materials, except fuel and wood, necessary for the construction of a railroad may be taken by appraisal from private owners. (Art. 4178.)

III. AS TO CAUSEWAYS AND BRIDges.

[Revised Statutes of Texas, 1879, p. 631.]

ART. 4419. When to the overseer it may appear expedient to make causeways and build bridges, the timber most convenient therefor may be used; but in such case the owner shall be paid out of the county treasury a fair compensation for the same, to be determined by the Commissioner's Court upon the application of such owner.

WASHINGTON TERRITORY.

AN ACT to encourage the planting and growing of Timber in the counties of Stevens and Whitman. Approved October 27, 1877.1

SECTION 1. Be it enacted, &c., That the Board of Commissioners of the respective counties of Stevens and Whitman2 are hereby required, at their May meeting, A. D. 1878, and at each regular spring term thereafter, to exempt from taxation, except for Territorial purposes, the real or personal property of each tax-payer who shall, within the county, within such year, plant and suitably cultivate, or, having within such year or the preceding year planted, shall suitably cultivate one or more acres of forest trees Laws of Washington Territory, 1877, p. 411.

These counties occupy a vast area in the northeastern part of the Territory, lying north of Lewis Fork or Snake River and east of the Columbia.

for timber, to an amount not exceeding three hundred dollars: Provided, That said Board may fix the minimum number of trees which shall be grown upon each acre. SEC. 2. Any person claiming the benefit of such exemption may appear before the Board of Commissioners of the county, at any regular meeting, and, upon making proof by sworn evidence showing to the satisfaction of said Board that he has complied with the requirements which entitle him to such exemption, he shall receive from the Clerk of the Board a certificate stating the amount of exemption, which shall be received by the County Treasurer in satisfaction of the taxes exempted.

SEC. 3. All acts in conflict with this are hereby repealed.

SEC. 4. This act to take effect and be in force from and after its passage.

WYOMING TERRITORY.

AN ACT to encourage the growth of Timber and Fruit Trees. Approved December 14, 1877.

Be it enacted, &c.:

SECTION 1. That there shall be exempt from taxation of the property of each taxpayer who shall, within the territory of Wyoming Territory, plant and suitably cultivate one or more acres of forest trees for timber, the sum of two hundred dollars annually for five years for each acre so planted and cultivated: Provided, That the trees on said land shall not exceed twelve feet apart, and shall be kept in a healthy and growing condition.

SEC. 2. That there shall be exempt from taxation of the property of each tax-payer who shall within the Territory plant and suitably cultivate one or more acres of fruit trees, the sum of one hundred dollars annually for five years for each acre so planted and cultivated: Provided, That the trees on said land shall not exceed thirty-three feet apart, and shall be kept in a healthy condition.

SEC. 3. Persons claiming the benefit of such exemption shall, at the time of making the annual assessment, upon showing to the satisfaction of the Assessor of the county in which he resides that he has complied with sections 1 and 2 of this act, be entitled to have deducted from the valuation of his property by said Assessor the amount as herein before stated: Provided, That there shall not be an exemption from taxation of the property of any person owning less than one hundred and sixty acres of land of more than five hundred dollars; nor shall more than five acres of land, planted aud cultivated as hereinbefore provided, be taken into the account for every one hundred and sixty acres of land by any person, which said five acres shall be in part of the tract of land for which the exemption is claimed; and it is hereby made the duty of said Assessor to make return to the Board of County Commissioners of his county the name of each person claiming exemption, the quantity of land planted to timber or fruit trees, and the amount deducted from the valuation of his property: Provided, That there shall not be an exemption from taxation of the property of any person owning less than forty acres of land.

SEC. 4. If any person claiming exemption under the provisions of this act shall feel himself aggrieved by the decision of the Assessor in the rejection of his claim, then the said owner or applicant may apply to the Board of Commissioners of his county, at their regular meeting, to have the same corrected in the same manner as other erroneous assessments.

SEC. 5. That persons without real estate, and living on homesteads under the act of Congress, shall be allowed for each acre of timber, under this act, one hundred dollars exemption from taxation annually for five years.

SEC. 6. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage.

NOTES UPON FORESTRY IN THE SEVERAL STATES.

THE FORESTS OF ALABAMA AND THEIR PRODUCTS.

From a pamphlet by Charles Mohr, of Mobile, published in 1878, containing also an article upon the grasses and other forage plants of Alabama, we derive the following information:

The 50,000 square miles which make up the area of this State were originally a nearly unbroken forest, it may be said up to the end of the first quarter of this century, with the exception of a comparatively small area of prairie land and grassy savannas in the southern portion of its center. According to the latest statistics, seven-eighths of this forest are still existing, amounting to 20,630,963 acres, some of it culled of its largest timber growth, but the greater part in its virgin state, scarcely touched by the axe. One-half of the lands owned by the farmers are yet woodlands. The

heaviest timbered lands are found in the southern part of the State, within the great maritime pine belt, where the forest area amounts to 66 per cent.; in the central counties, situated in the prairie region, and embracing the cotton belt, it amounts to 45 per cent.; in the broken moun ainous part, embracing the mineral region, and extending to the waters of the Tennessee River, to nearly 70 per cent.; and in the northern part, with the rich agricultural land in the Tennessee Valley, to 60 per cent. According to the distribution of the prevailing trees, determined by climatic intluences, the nature of the soil, and the topographic features of the country, the forests of this State present three characteristic regions. Distinct as they are by peculiar features, their boundaries cannot be defined by a distinct line-one region passing almost imperceptibly into the other.

The first or lower region is formed by the great pine belt of the Gulf coast-the continuation of the immense pine forest which extends from the eastern bauk of the Mississippi to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. It covers the southern part uninterruptedly from east to west, and extends from 100 to 150 miles into the interior. This area is almost exclusively occupied by coniferous trees-the undulating dry and sandy uplauds entirely by the Long-Leaved or Yellow Pine (Pinus australis), the most important, while most valuable, of our timber trees, which arrives here at its greatest perfection. On the lands more level, and with a substratum more retentive of moisture, it is accompanied by the Pond Pine (P. serotina) and the Loblolly, or Old Field Pine (P. Elliotti). Following the sandy and gravelly deposits of the drift, the limits of that formation determine the northern boundary of the pine region proper. A growth of pine trees, however, prevails wherever the silicions constituents of the drift soil mingle with the outcrops of the tertiary strata. This is the great timber region of the State. Traversed centrally and towards the east by the numerous tributaries of the Escainbia River, a large share of its products find an outlet in Pensacola; westwardly, the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers, with their affluents, offer an access to the sea by the port of Mobile; while a small portion along the western boundary line of the State, by the eastern tributaries of the Esquatawba River, is attracted to the mills and wharves along the Pascagoula River. The products of this forest of Yellow Pine assume, with every year, a greater importance to the business of the Gulf ports; and their exports from the seaport of this State, entering only since the beginning of this decade in competition with its neighbors, show a steady and rapid increase in the production and export of sawed lumber, square timber, spars, shingles, and particularly in the receipt of naval stores.2

The maritime pine here noticed should not be confounded with the Pinus pinaster or maritime pine of Europe.

2 The reports of the Mobile Board of Trade and other sources of information give the following imperfect statistics of the shipment of lumber from that port for several years, as follows:

In these sums the quantities required for home consumption are not included. If those, and the quantities of sawed lumber and squared timber derived from the piue belt within the confines of our State, and which are exported from Pensacola, so far the chief center of the lumber business on this coast, are considered, the amounts given above will certainly be doubled. Lastly, with the exhaustion of the yellowpine forest that encircled Pensacola Bay, and of those in convenient reach upon the coast of continental Florida, a very large quota of the saw-logs are drawn from Alabama by the tributaries and headwaters of the Escambia and the Perdido Rivers.

The average height of the yellow pine in the virgin forest is from 60 to 70 feet, with a diameter of 12 to 18 inches for two-thirds of its height. It is of slow growth, particularly at the later periods of its life. According to the number of annual rings, trees of the above dimensions must have reached an age of 60 to 70 years. The reproduction of a tree from the seed, furnishing an equal supply of timber, would at this rate take two generations. It is a poor seeder, as the younger Michaux observed. In unfruitful years, a forest of hundreds of miles may be ransacked without finding a single cone, and these, according to my observations, are far more frequent than fruitful ones. In its struggle for existence in our days, the odds of a survival of its kind among the arborescent vegetation that disputes its ground are greatly against it. Taken from the flat and moist lands, and it is replaced almost exclusively by the pond and old-field pine; the hilly, broken, dry upland, denuded of the grand old pine forest, is with surprising rapidity covered by a dense and scrubby growth of blackjack, turkey oak, scarlet and upland willow oak, above which seldom a young pine raises its head, crowned with its large white-fringed terminal bud.

Full of resinous juices through all stages of its life, the young trees are not as able to withstand the raging fires that annually devastate the woods as the less resinous species and the deciduous-leaved trees; besides that, being of much slower growth, this noble tree is doomed to extinction if not protected by the aid of man. On tracts sheltered from the invasion of fire, groves of young trees from 15 to 25 feet high can

Lumber Shipments to Foreign and Coastwise Ports from 1874-75 to 1878-79 (feet).

be observed around Mobile, testifying that its existence for the future can in some measure be secured if protected from these destructive influences, unnecessarily caused by man. The utmost efforts by an enlightened community should be made through active and efficient State legislation, without further delay, to guard against the calamity of a total destruction of such a magnificent estate intrusted to the hands of our people. Besides its contributions to the manifold necessities of the agriculturist, the builder, in naval architecture, the construction of railroads, the arts, medicine, and the innumerable smaller demands of domestic economy, and the varied industries of the world, the influences of this great pine belt upon the climatic conditions and the salubrity of this coast, are even of more far-reaching importance to the interest of the community at large, extending far out of its confines. Rearing its horizontally, outspreading limbs high up in the atmospheric ocean, their branches densely clothed with the long, slender leaves, the forests of these trees present to the canopy of heaven, for many hundreds of square miles, an unbroken sheet of perpetually active vegetation, whose forces at such an altitude affect a constant attraction of the fleeting clouds, causing them to deposit their life-giving and supporting humidity in grateful showers over a large area with wonderful regularity during all seasons. To this fact is due the delightful climate of this part of our country, equalizing its temperature, particularly in tempering the rigors of the long summers of a region near the tropics.

During the great progress in meteorological science of late years, the fact has been established that in their exercise upon the conditions of the atmosphere, as regards the precipitation of its moisture, the pine trees stand unrivaled amongst all other trees of the forest. Robbed of this protection, the hills and the plains of the Gulf region, now blooming and clothed with the richest verdure, would be arid and parched, presenting as forbidding and austere an aspect as those of the denuded coasts of Africa along the Mediterranean Sea, devoid of productive power and unfit for the habitation of civilized man, smarting under the scorching rays of the sun. The efforts of nature are ever directed to recuperation in its aims to insure the existence of different forms of the living organisms from generation to generation. To secure to our posterity the blessings enjoyed by us in its bounty in assisting these efforts, as directed by her laws, is a stern duty imposed upon us Its discharge in the prevention of a wanton destruction of our forests and the adoption of measures regulated by the light of science, common sense, and the proper regard to the future of our State, should engage the attention of every intelligent and patriotic citizen, appealing particularly to the owners of the soil. Of little importance to agriculture and industry are the other species of pines found in this region. Of considerably smaller dimensions than the yellow pine, and of a soft and sappy wood, they have, as timber trees, but a small value. On account of their rapid growth they are, however, important resources of fire-wood and of a lumber of inferior quality, fit for ordinary purposes, as the manufacture of boxes, &c. Next to the Yellow Pine in importance follows the Cypress—Taxodium distichum. It grows in great abundance on the perpetually overtlowed banks of, and in the marshes skirting, the rivers in the tide-water region, as well as the deep inundated swamps in the pine region, from which issue the feeders of the innumerable creeks that water the pine belt. Here it reaches gigantic dimensions-trunks from 100 and more feet in height and from 25 to 40 in circumference above the conical base are frequently met with in the forest swamps of the Tensaw River. Logs of 3 to 4 feet in diameter are often floated down to the shingle yards and saw-mills of Mobile. Its lumber finds a variety of application. It is mostly sawed into planks for exportation, latterly in increasing quantities; much of it is used in the manufacture of doors, window-sashes, and other cabinet work, and in that of shingles. For posts it is scarcely rivaled, resisting the action of water for ages.

The Juniper-Cupressus thyoides-is gaining, of late years, with the manufacture of wooden ware, the attention which, by the excellent quality of its wood, it deserves. This fine tree is found in great perfection in the low land skirting our great rivers, and in the large forest swamps of the low pine barrens, preferring a partially inundated soil. Soft, light, easily worked, of a fine grain, admitting of high finish and pleasing hue, when well seasoned its wood offers the finest material, particularly for the manufactnre of hollow ware. This industry, lately established in Mobile, is capable of great development, as, by the inexhaustible supply of timber within easy reach, such goods can be made cheaper here than in any other part of the United States.

The Live Oak-Quercus virens-has ceased to be a source of timber here. The excellent qualities of its wood, particularly fitting it for ship-building, has, like everywhere else on the Gulf coast, led to a rapid destruction of the stately groves that extended along our sea-shore. It is only by the effort of the owners of the land, who have a love for that which is grand and lovely in nature, that these beautiful and noble trees will be preserved, and not cease to form one of the most pleasing features in the landscape of our coast.

The Black-jack, Turkey Oak, Spanish Oak, Upland Willow Oak, and a more or less scrubby growth of Black and Red Oaks, with a sprinkling of Hickory, form the second growth on the denuded dry pine land. These furnish the supply of hard wood