REVIEWS 67 



for tire fighting is very large, the difficuUy of obtaining such transportation 

 sometimes results in failure to reach a fire before it is too late. Adequate equip- 

 ment with motor trucks would save a great many thousand dollars each year. 



(4) Successful fire protection is absolutely dependent on a permanent force 

 of trained men. Without that, fires which should be put out promptly with little 

 loss or cost spread widely and require many thousands of dollars to prevent 

 disaster, let alone extinguish them. 



(5) Public sentiment in many places has not j^et been roused to the need of 

 care in the forest and public co-operation. There are still too many smoking, 

 and too many fires from clearing land. 



The answer to the forest fire problem is, therefore, more roads and trails, 

 sufficient salaries for our forest officers to enable the building up and holding 

 of a well-trained force, greater leeway in furnishing motor equipment for 

 fighting fires which could also be used in road improvements, and a more 

 vigorous campaign to educate the public to better co-operation in fire protection. 



The timber cut on National Forests amounted to 'iOo. 753,000 feet 

 board measure, worth sHghtly more than 1.5 million dollars; the timber 

 sold was 799,476,000 feet board measure, worth over 1.8 million dollars. 

 As Colonel Graves points out, the reason that more timber sales are 

 not made is because most of the virgin timber is inaccessible and cannot 

 be placed on the market. The best that can be done under present 

 legislation is to interest our large operators and sell on long-term 

 contracts. The main disadvantage is that this places the bulk of the 

 timber in the hands of a few, whereas the ideal would be to have a 

 larger number of purchasers. The policy adopted by most other 

 nations has been to assume the task of exploiting, or at least of develop- 

 ing, transport so that the small man can bid on small size scales. It 

 7voiild certainly be more profitable if the Forest Service could be 

 authorized by law to build roads and railroads to tap the virgin timber 

 that is jiozc going to i^'oste for lack of transportation. It is interesting 

 to know that 150 acres (out of 154 million acres) has been sown and 

 6,7(51 acres planted. 



The grazing fees have at last been increased and the revenue from 

 this source is now 2.6 million dollars. But with the need for water 

 l)ower in the West it is suri)rising that the receipts from this source 

 were only $72,;522 and that only ten preliminary new applications were 

 received during the past fiscal year. Un(|uestionably the road work 

 improvement must be speeded up. 'I'liis will come after the war, but 

 with 154 milion acres of National Forests the road work should be 

 counted by thousands of miles instead of by hundreds. According to 

 the report : 



