PROF. FISHER FOOD MANAGER

Professor Richard Thornton Fisher '98, director of the University Forest, has been appointed manager of food production and conservatism in the town of Petersham, where the Forest is located. All the forestry work has been dropped and the laborers have been taken from the lumbering and will at once begin plowing all the tillable land that is owned in Petersham by the University. On this land nonperishable foodstuffs, such as corn, beans, grains and potatoes will be planted. This work is part of the state-wide movement which is being organized by the Massachusetts Committee of Public Safety to bring up the farm acreage of Massachusetts so as to help meet the coming food shortage caused by the war.

Professor Fisher will give his whole time to the work and with offices in the Petersham town hall as a base, he will carry out by automobiles a canvass of all the farmers in the vicinity of the town and will organize a scheme which will greatly increase the acreage under cultivation throughout the whole neighborhood. As a result the normal crop production will be at least doubled and it is hoped trebled. Seed, fertilizer and labor will, as far as possible, be furnished to all those who are unable to themselves furnish them. The money for carrying out these loans will be raised in the towns.

Although a great many of the students in the Forestry School have left for military service, the work of the School will go on as usual.