350 FOEEST FIRES. 



Effects of Forest Fi/res. 



The operations of the Imnberman involve other dangers to the 

 woods besides the loss of the trees felled by him. The narrow 

 clearings around his shmities form openings which let in the 

 wind, and thus sometimes occasion the overthrow of thousands 

 of trees, the fall of which dams up small streams, and creates 

 bogs by the spreading of the waters, while the decaying trunks 

 facihtate the multiplication of the insects which breed in dead 

 wood and are, some of them, injurious to living trees. The 

 escape and spread of camp-fires, however, is the most devastating 

 of all the causes of destruction that find their origin in the oper- 

 ations of the lumberman. The proportion of trees fit for indus- 

 trial uses is small in all primitive woods. Only these fall before 

 the forester's axe, but the fire destroys, almost indiscriminately, 

 every age and every species of tree.* While, then, without fatal 



of cubic feet of timber would require more than half the entire tonnage of 

 England for its transportation. 



I suppose the quantities in the following estimates, from a carefully pre- 

 pared article in the St. Louis Bepublican, must be understood as meaning 

 square or superficial feet, board measure, allowing a thickness of one inch : 



" The lumber trade of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, for the year 

 1869, shows the amount cut as being 2,029,372,255 feet for the State of 

 Michigan, and 817,400,000 feet for the State of Minnesota, and 964,600,00a 

 feet for the State of Wisconsin. This includes the lake shore and the whole 

 State of Wisconsin, which heretofore has been difficult to get a report 

 from. The total amount cut in these States was 3,311,372,255 feet, and to 

 obtain this quantity there have been stripped 883,032 acres, or 1,380 square 

 miles of pine woodland. It is calculated that 4,000,000 acres of land 

 BtiU remain unstripped in Michigan, which will yield 15,000,000,000 feet of 

 lumber ; while 3,000,000 acres are still standing in Wisconsin, which will yield 

 11,250,000,000 feet, and that which remains in Minnesota, taking the estimate 

 of a few years since of that which was surveyed and unexplored, after deduct- 

 ing the amount cut the past few years, we find 3,630,000 acres to be the proper 

 estimate of trees now standing which will yield 32,362,500,000 feet of lumber. 

 This makes a total of 15,630,000 acres of pine lands, which remain standing 

 in the above States, that will yield 58,612,500,000 feet of lumber, and it is 

 thought that fifteen or twenty years will be required to cut and send to market 

 the trees now standing." 



See also Bryajstt, Forest Trees, chap. iv. 



* Trees differ in their power of resisting the action of forest fires. Differ 

 ent woods vary greatly in combustibility, and even when the bark is scarcely 

 scorched, trees are, partly in consequence of physiological character, and 



