374 LEGISLATION ON THE FOEEST. 



soil, ajid of any leaves or twigs wliicli may remain upon it, and 

 the greater facility for the passage of wind-currents through a 

 regularly planted and more open wood, are circumstances un- 

 favorable to the security of the trees against this formidable 

 danger. The natural forest, unless isolated and of small extent, 

 can be protected from fire only by a vigilance too costly to be 

 systematically practiced. But the artificial wood may be secured 

 by a network of ditches and of paths or occasional open glades, 

 which both check the running of the fii'e and furnish the means 

 of approaching and combating it.* 



The experience of 18 71 ought not to be wholly without value as 

 a lesson. It is not possible to estimate the damage by forest fires 

 in that disastrous year, in what were lately the Northwestern 

 States, and in Canada, but as the demand for lumber, and con- 

 sequently its market price, are rising in a geometrical ratio at 

 a rate higher than the interest on capital, one may almost say it 

 is probable that ten years hence those fires wiH be thought to 

 have diminished the national wealth by a larger amount than 

 oven the terrible conflagration at Chicago.f 



There is no good reason why insurance companies should not 

 guarantee the proprietor of a wood as well as the o^vner of a 

 house against damage by fire. In Europe there is no conceivable 

 liabiKty to pecuniary loss which may not be insured against. 

 The American companies might at first be embarrassed in esti- 

 mating the risk, but the experience of a few years would suggest 

 safe principles, and aU parties would find advantage in this ex- 

 tension of security. 



Forest Legislation. 



I have alleged suSicient reasons for beheving that a desolation, 

 like that which has overwhelmed many once beautiful and fertile 



* It is stated that in the pine woods of the Landes of Gascony a fire has 

 never been known to cross a railway-track or a common road. See Bes In- 

 <:^ndies, etc., dans la Region des Maures in the Revue des Eaux et ForHs for 

 February, 1869. Many other important articles on this subject will be found 

 in other numbers of the same very valuable periodical. 



f The forest fires of 1881, in our Western States, were destructive almost 

 beyond precedent, the damage being estimated by some as even greater than 

 in 1871. 



