Light Burning vs. Forest Management. 187 



fundamental principles underlying Forestry. To quote one of the 

 foremost timber holders in California: *'If the old Indian custom 

 of burning off the forests is adopted by the white man there 

 will be no repetition of the appaUing losses by forest fires as 

 was the case in Idaho and Montana last fall." Then to quote 

 this holder's foreman, who has charge of about 10,000 acres of 

 "light-burning" every fall, "It is far better to destroy part of 

 the young timber as we are doing and save some and all of 

 mature timber, than to allow the brush and reproduction to grow 

 and get so thick that, in a few years when a fire does start, it 

 will consume everything in the forest, mature timber and all." 



"Light-burning" methods vary a great deal. Sometimes the 

 ground is prepared and more often it is not. In the case of the 

 timber owner quoted above, the ground is usually prepared in the 

 »pring and summer by raking the leaf litter and other refuse away 

 from the mature trees and piling dirt and rocks around their 

 bases, in order to protect these from fire. Thickets of reproduc- 

 tion are cut down and cleared away so that the fire will not 

 spread from the reproduction into the mature trees. Then after 

 the first rains in the fall the fire is set out. Results show that 

 wherever the litter burns at all well, practically all the young 

 trees up to 15 years are killed absolutely, and of the trees from 

 15 to 40 years, one third to one-half are destroyed depending 

 upon the nature of the distribution. Trees older than 40 years 

 are not damaged very much. The old trees which will be har- 

 vested in the near future usually escape injury. This process is 

 repeated every 2 to 4 years. , 



The whole operation it is thought, results in cleaning up the 

 woods and affording the mature timber protection. This how- 

 ever lasts but a few years, for as has been said before, the 

 brush sprouts up more vigorously than before. What has really 

 been accomplished is that the light, fast burning litter has been 

 consumed, but the larger and heavier refuse, which makes the 

 hot, dangerous fires, is still on the ground. The young trees up 

 to 15 years of age, have been killed and the charred stems and 

 branches are still standing in the majority of cases. They were 

 fresh and green before, now they are dead, charred and dry. 

 Those young trees from 15 to 40 years that have been killed, in 

 most cases were killed because the trees were girdled by fire. 



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