News and Notes 279 



that specific fires were due to other than railway causes. That 

 this is a progressive and necessary provision is being recognized 

 to an increasing extent on this continent, and it has not yet been 

 shown that it imposes a sufficiently severe hardship on railways 

 to justify the sacrifice of public interest which would be involved 

 in its abandonment. There is, however, no doubt that, in full 

 fairness to the railways, there should be a greater degree of coop- 

 eration on the part of the Dominion and Provincial Governments 

 and timber owners, particularly in reducing the fire hazard result- 

 ing from the large accumulations of inflammable debris on lands 

 immediately adjacent to railway rights of way. A beginning has 

 been made in this direction, but for the most part the situation is 

 urgently in need of attention. 



Forest fire insurance which has been in operation in Norway 

 (see F.Q., XII, p. 282) is now being organized in Sweden in the 

 Swedish Mutual Forest Fire Insurance Company, which proposes 

 to insure soil, ground cover, non-merchantable and merchantable 

 timber. 



Tables of much value to lumber companies and limit holders 

 come from Mr. Piche, Chief Forester, Department of Lands and 

 Forests, Quebec. They are the result of painstaking labor, being 

 the contents of trees in board feet measure based on the measure- 

 ment of 4,525 trees, and giving the amounts which should be 

 deducted for different defects. There are also tables showing the 

 total number of board feet contained in balsam. White and Black 

 spruce trees, based on measurements of 2,187, 2,886 and 1,638 

 trees respectively. 



> 

 Only 7^ per cent of last season's 400 fires in National For- 

 ests of Utah, southern Idaho, western Wyoming and Nevada 

 caused losses in excess of $100. 



Fires registered for this season number 15 more than for that 

 of 1910, yet the cost of extinguishing them was only one third 

 and the damage only one thirtieth of that of the earlier disas- 

 trous year, due to better organization, more roads, trails, 

 telephones. 



