REPORT OF THE FORESTER, 175 



total of over $950,000. In California the fire season has not, at 

 the time of submitting this report, yet terminated. 



Details regarding the extent of the losses can not yet bo given, 

 and belong to tlie next report; but while the property losses have been 

 considerable they are, in comparison with (he risk, remarkably small, 

 and so far as known there was no loss of life. With a period of 

 drouth that extended throughout most of Montana, northern Idaho, 

 Oregon, and Washington, over an average period of more than 90 

 days, with parching heat and winds of extraordinary violence, the 

 woods of the Northwest were, through the work of the Forest Service 

 and that of the State and private protective organizations, saved 

 from a great catastrophe. The outlay involved in excess of the 

 emergency appropriation of $150,000 has been paid from funds ap- 

 propriated for the support of the various activities incident to the 

 operation and improvement of the National Forests. Unless these 

 funds are reimbursed much important work necessary to continued 

 use of the Forests by the public will have to be suspended before the 

 close of the current year. To prevent this a deficiency appropriation 

 of $700,000 will be required, and will be sought from Congress. 



Whenever the responsibility for a forest fire can be fixed, an 

 attempt is made to collect the damages to the United States result- 

 ing from the fire. There was received last year in settlement of 

 damages in fire-trespass cases the sum of $52,513.6-1:. Most of this was 

 paid by a large railroad company whose negligence in causing dis- 

 astrous fires in 1910 was established in court proceedings and against 

 which a judgment for $50,000 was secured. 



Protection of the National Forests against insect infestation and 

 tree diseases was continued along essentially the same lines as in the 

 past, with the cooperation of the Bureaus of Entomology and Plant 

 Industry. Effective cooperation with private owners was secured in 

 active control measures in some timber, partly in private and partly 

 in Government ownership, threatened by serious insect infestations. 

 In California a study of the insect problem in the yellow-pine region 

 was undertaken in cooperation with the Bureau of Entomology and 

 with private owners. The object of this study is to determine the 

 extent of the infestations and the scale on which control should be 

 undertaken. The California insect attack has brought to the atten- 

 tion of many timber owners the need for protective measures against 

 this important form of menace, and public discussion of the subject 

 has, it is believed, been of material value in pointing out the necessity 

 for better forest sanitation. 



REFORESTATION. 



Reforestation work on the National Forests was hindered in 1917 by 

 difficulty in securing satisfactory labor and by an unusually late spring. 

 Some areas which it was expected to plant in May or June were cov- 

 ered with snow until the end of the fiscal year. The total acreage 

 planted and sown is therefore less than in 1916. As in previous years, 

 the areas reforested were chiefly old burns of such large size that 

 natural seeding from the side has not occurred. Such areas were 

 reforested in the Douglas-fir region of the Pacific Northwest, in the 



