212 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Service and paid their pro rata share of the cost of fire control in 

 the rano-er districts whicii include their lands: 



In Oregon and Washington public opinion has forced the passage 

 of State laws which rec|uire owners of private land to maintain 

 adequate fire control, and cooperation is therefore complete in these 

 States. Within the last 15 years all the larger timberland owners 

 in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana have formed associa- 

 tions which work in the closest relations with the national forest 

 fire control organization. \ATiere private and national forest lands 

 are intermingled either the Forest Service or the association takes 

 over the whole job of protecting the area and the cost is distributed 

 in proportion to the acreage of each owner. Railroads give varying 

 degrees of cooperation but no longer leave their grant lands without 

 systematic protection, and their efforts to keep fires from starting 

 on the rights of way are steadily becoming more effective. 



Fire control on the national forests becomes every year more 

 effective because of the various forms of cooperation obtained. The 

 trouble is that the best cooperation now rendered is not enough. 

 The number of fires due to human agencies must be reduced from its 

 present preposterous size if there is to be any assurance against 

 catastrophic losses in the extremely hazardous fire years which 

 weather cycles are sure to bring. The only way to accomplish this 

 is to engrave the habit of care with fire deeply on the minds of users 

 and visitors on national forests. There is no more reason for the 

 usual man-caused fire on the national forests than there is for the 

 usual grade-crossing accident. It is good business to carry on an 

 educational campaign on the need for and the methods of effective 

 care with fire in the woods. 



THE CONTROL OF INSECT INFESTATION. 



The danger of serious losses by tree-killing insects and the necessity 

 for prompt action to prevent these losses were forcibly brought out 

 during the year by the situation in southern Oregon and northern 

 California, briefly mentioned in last year's report. An epidemic of 

 bark beetles in this region has caused a loss of valuable pine timber 

 estimated at 1,500,000,000 board feet, worth at least $3,000,000, 

 and endangered 10 times this quantity. The infestation was scat- 

 tered over an area of 1,280,000 acres, of which about half is in private 

 ownership, a small quantity in State ownership, and the rest owned 

 or controlled by the Federal Government, partly in national forests, 

 partly in Indian reservations, partly in the public domain, and 



?artly in the revested Oregon and California railroad land grants, 

 t was useless for any one owner to attempt to protect his land on 

 account of the danger of reinfestation should the other holdings 



