34 Forestry Quarterly 



that Private Protective Associations are securing a fair degree 

 of protection for their holdings at a total cost (operating cost 

 plus losses) of less than 15 cents per acre per year, equivalent 

 to a rate of about 2.5 per 1,000 on the sale value of the prop- 

 erty subject to damage or destruction (assuming an average 

 stand of 30M feet b. m. per acre and $2 stumpage). It would 

 seem obvious that such a charge is but little more than nominal. 

 It is less than the average rate for commercial insurance. It is 

 also more than likely that much better protection than that 

 secured can be secured for the same expense. Should it be 

 necessary to expend as much as 25 cents per acre per year, in 

 order to reduce the losses to a negligible amount, it w^ould be 

 difficult to show that the cost would be prohibitive or even unrea- 

 sonable in proportion to the sale value per acre of forest. It 

 could probably be demonstrated that this amount would be less 

 than that paid by any other large business for protection plus 

 an insurance policy which would indemnity for losses occurring 

 in spite of the protective system. The fact that such a charge 

 per acre would run into very large sums in the case of certain 

 owners, would only go to prove that certain owners owned very 

 large acreages of valuable timber lands. With the repeated proofs 

 that fire can be prevented and fire losses reduced to indefinite 

 limits, it seems likely that business acumen will shortly realize 

 that, with standing timber, as in the case of factory owners, 

 adequate protection from fire is far cheaper than the bill for 

 poor protection plus losses, and that with good protection losses 

 become negligible. 



With the National Forests and to a large degree the State 

 Forests, the situation is somewhat different, owing to the fact 

 that the total acreage to be protected is very large in proportion 

 to the acreage of highly valuable timber. In other words, the 

 average value per acre of the forest is low as compared to the 

 heavily timbered forests covered by the Private Associations. 

 In the National Forests more than those of the States, the inher- 

 ent difficulties of protection are vastly increased by the rough- 

 ness of the country, its lack of development, the broken nature 

 of many of the stands and the press of current administrative 

 work not associated with protection. In spite of this, the pro- 

 tective work of the National Forests is the model to which all 

 other attempts at fire protection tend to conform. Undoubt- 



