To the chair of forestry, created 
early last spring, Filibert Roth, B.S., 
 '90, has been appointed. He brings 
to the position not only abroad knowl
edge of the science of forestry, but an
 unusually wide practical experience
 that cannot but win for him the con
fidence of those portions of the state
 to which his services will be most 
valuable. He was born in 1858, at
 Wilhelmsdorf, Wurtemburg.

Much 
of his early childhood was spent in 
the well kept forests of Oberschwaben, 
 with their fine stands of spruce, beech, 
 and pine, and their beautiful forest 
nurseries. Here he developed an in
terest in the woods, and a love for
 woods work as well as for outdoor 
life in general.

In 1871, he came to 
this country with his parents, who 
settled in Ann Arbor. His first three 
years in America were spent, however, 
 in Wisconsin, where he incidentally 
learned his first lessons in American 
methods of lumbering.

From 1874 to
1882 he lived in Texas, Wyoming, 
 and Montana and other parts of the 
then frontier, working as a farmer and
 range stockman, and for two years as a
 hunter. He took part in the last great 
bison hunt of the West.

In 1888, while
 still in the University, he was em
ployed by the forestry division of the 
United States Department of Agricul
ture. He assisted in the investigation 
begun by the chief of the division, 
 Dr. B. E. Fernow, into the properties 
and relative qualities of our American 
woods. Among the results of this
 work are his studies of the cypress, 
 and of the forest conditions of Wis
consin. The latter work was a means 
toward rousing the people of that
 state to an appreciation of forestry
 conditions that found expression in 
the passage last winter of one of the
 best forest laws ever submitted.

In
 1898 Mr. Roth assisted Dr. Fernow 
in t he organization of Cornell's school
 of forestry, but in 1901 he re entered 
the service of the government. In
 November of that year he was made
 chief of the division of forest reserves, 
 in the General Land Office, where he
 reorganized the service. February 
last he left the land office to return to
 the agricultural department.

Up to
 the opening of the college year he has 
been engaged in the work that the
 national government is doing in cooperation with the forestry commission 
of the state of Michigan, making a 
survey and formulating plans for the
 management of the state forest reserves, for which he has recently been 
appointed warden by the state com-
mission.