52 PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION OF THE 



agriculture because the soil woxild not have been impover- 

 ished by decades of annual fires. 



To decrease forest fires in the State, what is needed most 

 is a vigorous educational campaign, planned and conducted 

 by a State Forester or a forestry commission. This cam- 

 paign should be carried on through the newspapers and 

 other periodicals which reach the mass of the people; by 

 lectures and addresses before Farmers' Institutes and other 

 societies, and in the schools and colleges. In all schools the 

 children should be instructed in the care of forests and 

 taught the vast damage which is annually done by forest 

 fires. 



Until a State-wide sentiment against forest fires has 

 been awakened and an organized system of fire protection 

 has been established, the railroads, to which so many fires 

 are attributable, can not be expected to initiate plans for 

 their prevention. Fires are the direct cause of a great deal 

 of loss to railroads through suits for damage to private 

 property and through the destruction of their own property 

 such as bridges, fences, and buildings. The use of spark 

 arresters and improved ash pans, cleaning the rights of way 

 of all inflammable material, and an effective system of patrol 

 during drought periods would do much to lessen the forest- 

 fire evil. 



A forestry commission should encourage the formation 

 of associations of timber land owners for the purpose of 

 guarding against fires. In some of the northwestern States 

 large timber land owners have formed associations of this 

 kind in which each member pays toward the cost of fire 

 protection on a pro rata basis. In northern Idaho, 1,257 '0°o 

 acres were protected in 1908 at a cost of $52,000, or an 

 average of about 4 cents per acre. The cost was divided as 

 follows: Patroling, 2 cents; fighting fire, 4 mills; making 

 trails, cleaning old trails, and other items, a little more than 

 one and one-half cents. In Mississippi the expense should be 

 very much less because of the lower cost of labor and be- 

 cause very little expense would be incurred for trail building. 



Grazing. — The chief injury in connection with the graz- 

 ing of live stock in the forests has resulted from the fires 



