Costs of Forest Protection 29 



refuses to go. But this is not a fixed limit, and when the forester 

 is clearly able to demonstrate to himself and his principals that 

 greater appropriations arc amply justified, that, indeed, they 

 redeem themselves at once, the forester can expect at least a 

 great deal more than he is able to secure at present ; all he needs. 

 The owner of a factory does not put in a sprinkler system until 

 he knows that there is such a thing, knows that it will work 

 under his conditions, and knows that the reductions in the cost 

 of his insurance and the greater security which his business will 

 receive from the increased protection, will be justified. When 

 the forester is able to show the owner that it will pay. and pay 

 well, the owner will be willing to incur any expense whatever. 

 The possibility of the complete elimination of fires and fire 

 damages from most of our forests may at once be given up. 

 While it is theoretically possible, it may never be expected. At 

 the same time, it is more than reasonable to anticipate that fire 

 losses can be reduced to but little more than nominal. "As late 

 as 1778 the necessity of keeping the . . . fire lanes open in 

 the forests of Eastern Prussia is justified by the statement that 

 'otherwise the still constantly recurring fires could not be checked.' 

 . . . 'Not a single acre of forest could be found in the 

 province that had not been burnt in former or later times.' "* 

 "In Prussian forest districts, in fifteen years, 405 fires were re- 

 ported but only 191 acres in 1,000,000 were damaged out of the 

 7,000,000 acres involved."* On the strength of this testimony, 

 and especially on the strength of what American foresters have 

 already demonstrated to be possible under our own conditions, it 

 is obvious that fire losses in our forests can be reduced to a point, 

 which, according to past and present precedents, must be consid- 

 ered nominal. For instance, the St. Joe National Forest lost 

 tremendous areas of its timber during a few days, in 1910. Dur- 

 ing the summer of 1915 Supervisor Holcomb reports: "We had 

 in all a total of 103 fires, 51 of which were reported into head- 

 quarters within a period of 52 hours. All of them were light- 

 ning fires. . . The fires were all handled with absolutely no 

 loss of timber of any appreciable value. The largest fire reached 

 about eight acres. . . . The total expenditures were a little 



' Fernow, History of Forestry, p. 48. 

 * Fernow, Economics of Forestry, p. 133. 



