THE FORESTER. 183 



ficquisition, and tlie plans for ultimate acquisition embraced addi- 

 tional areas aggregating 4,422,167 acres. The purchase activities 

 ',verc largely confined to areas previously approved for purchase and 

 to the consummation of negotiations already pending. The National 

 Forest Reservation Commission desires, so far as practicable, to 

 round out and complete the present purchase areas for practical 

 administrative units before initiatmg purchase activities in other 

 regions. 



At the close of the fiscal year there were pendmg in the Interior 

 Department proclamations providing for additions in the Western 

 States totaling 283,780.54 acres. Of this 75,050 acres represents 

 additions in the State of Wyoming authorized by special acts of Con- 

 gress. The prevailing sentiment in the public-land States is now 

 generally favorable to the extension of the Forests. This is indi- 

 cated by the fact that at the present time there is pending in Congress 

 legislation providing for 10 different additions to National Forests 

 in the public-land States in which such additions can only be made 

 with the consent of Congress. These proposed additions aggregate 

 approximately 1,700,000 acres. The most important of the projects 

 now before Congress is one for adding to the Idaho and Payette 

 National Forests the region commonly known as the Thunder 

 Mountain country, of approximately 1,120,000 acres. This pro- 

 posed addition v/as discussed in last year's report. It has been 

 strongly urged by successive sessions of the Idaho State Legislature, 

 and is very desirable in order to give this area the protection and 

 regulation it has so long and so urgently needed. 



PROTECTION. 



Mention has akeady been made of the emergency conditions 

 which arose during the fire season of 1919 in the Northwest. The 

 National Forests of u'estern •\Iontana and northern Idaho are 

 heavily timbered, and most of the country v.-hich they cover is ex- 

 ceedingly mountainous, rugged, and undeveloped. Because of its 

 v\'ild character, its remoteness from centers of population and bases 

 of supply, its lack of means of communication, its large stand of 

 valuable timber and importance for v-.atershed ])rotection, and 

 because of the climatic conditions, it presents the problem of pro- 

 tection in its most extreme form. Nowhere else, experience has 

 proved, is the control of fires so difficult or so expensive. 



The region is subject to severe droughts, m which almost no rain 

 may fall for months ; when such drought seasons oocm- the forests 

 become almost lilve tinder; and frequent f^lectric storms supply the 

 sparks. Lightning fires generally start in the high mountains, where 

 the}- are most difficult to reach and fight. Their control necessitates 

 special provision, first, for diseovermg and getting to them quickly 

 before they have gathered headv,-ay; and, secondly, for throwing 

 against them and mamtaining in tlie field large forces of fire fighters 

 in case their immediate suppression becomes impossible. 



Tiie experience of the past season simply emphasizes the conclusion 

 set forth in my report of a year ago. The protective system must 

 be strengthened along lines wliich ^\^ll permit of quicker work. The 

 choice is between, on the one hand, provision for a moderately ex- 

 panded regidar protective organization or, on the other hand, unnec- 

 essarily large danger of terrific fires and huge emergency expendi- 



