News and Notes. 503 



Sierra National Forest, Cal. When using fire for clearing land 

 for farming, it will be done on a community basis, members of 

 the association being present to prevent the spread of fires. 



The Post Office department of the United States two years 

 ago enlisted in the campaign against forest fires by instructing 

 rural mail carriers to report fires to the proper officials, lists of 

 names and addresses of local fire wardens and patrolmen being 

 supplied the carriers. This year wardens and patrolmen have been 

 instructed to seek out personally the mail carriers to discuss a plan 

 of action to be followed. 



Manufacturers of hunting, camping, and sporting goods are be 

 ing asked for their co-operation also. It has been suggested that 

 their business profits during seasons when fires are fewer, and 

 so it would be well for them to issue with their goods printed 

 slips of warning. Railways print such warnings on time-tables. 

 They would aid still further if sportsmen's and campers' special 

 tickets showed a brief warning printed in red. 



In F. Q., vol. XI, p. 617, reference was made to the enlisting 

 of Indians in the work of fire prevention. The following will 

 be of interest as a result of asking the Indians for co-operation 

 in this important national duty in Canada. 



Owing to the precedent and example of Dominion Forestry 

 Branch fire wardens, the ingrained carelessness of the Indian, 

 for he has frequently and not always unjustly — been accused of 

 criminal carelessness with fire, has been supplanted by an en- 

 thusiasm for forest conservation. Several hundred Indians last 

 summer promised to observe every precaution to prevent forest 

 fires, and, as the Chief Fire Ranger writes, "The fact of no 

 fires this summer is proof positive that the majority of them have 

 faithfully kept their pledge." During the course of the summer 

 63 Indians voluntarily visited the Chief's headquarters to discuss 

 the plans of the Branch in the matter of conserving the remain- 

 ing forest in western Canada. 



Many of these Indians are sufficiently well educated to serve as 

 fire rangers, and the Dominion government has enlisted quite a 

 number of them in the fire-ranging service, finding that their 



