THE FOEESTER. 



203 



COOPERATION WITH STATES. 



Wliilc the forest fire protective systems maintained by the States 

 in cooperation with the Federal Government have been extending, 

 there has also been a recent greatly increased cost of operation. The 

 appropriation of SI 00,000 is now^ very madec^uate. 



Expenditures from the Federal appropriation, and the expenditures 

 of the States which have entered into cooperative agreements, are 

 shown in the following table. The area ])rotected was much greater 

 than ever before. This was made possible by the fact that the co- 

 operative funds contributed by States and private owners were 

 greater than in 1918. The Federal fund was of course the same as 

 in 1918. 



Cooperative expcnditares from Federal appropriation and hn the States for protecting 

 forested vatersheds of navigable streams from fire. 



An agi-eement entered into with Rhode Island made that State the 

 twenty-third to enter into cooperation. Toward the end of the fiscal 

 year California requested cooperation, but the agreenient had not 

 been completed when the year closed. 



Protection from forest fires is the first essential to forest conserva-' 

 tion. Without an organized and efficient system, such as can be 

 maintained only with aderpiate regular appropriations, the forests can 

 not bo made safe. Xo better proof of this could be given than the 

 situation which arose in Minnesota in the fall of 1918, when a large 

 number of rolativeh" small fires burned for weeks because of lack of 

 men and equipment to extinguish them, and finall}^ came together in 

 five larsrc conflaorations. according to the State Forester, which in the 

 aggi'cgate swept over not less than 200,000 acres, destroyed property 

 w orth about 825,000,000. and caused a loss of more than 400 lives. 

 Estimates based on forest fire statistics collected in cooperation with 

 vState and private agencies indicate that in the calendar year 1918 not* 

 less than 2.5,000 fires occurrerl, with an area of fully 10,500,000 acres 

 burned over and a financial loss in timber, young tree growth, and 

 improvements of about 840,000,000. Railroads caused approximately 

 18 per cent of the fires, brush burning and campers each 13 per cent, 

 lightning 10 per cent, incendiaries 9 per cent, miscellaneous causes 7 

 per cent, lumbering 5 per cent, and unknown causes 25 per cent. 



