FOREST PRESERVATION GRAVES. 437 



Real progress began when it was seen that it is much more im- 

 portant, and less expensive to the community in the long run, to aim 

 at fire prevention than to begin to act only after the fire has become 

 formidable, and that to prevent fires main reliance should be placed 

 not on punitive measures, but on an organized, disciplined, and 

 efficient protective force, under a technically trained forester, and 

 regularly employed in watching for fires and cutting down the 

 causes of fire. In heavily forested regions this means patrol during 

 the fire season. It also means such protective measures as the pro- 

 hibition of brush and fallow burning during the fire season, except 

 under permit, the education of the public as to the harmfulness and 

 the prevention of fires, and watchfulness against such special sources 

 of danger as railroads, campers and fishermen, logging and sawmill 

 outfits, etc. Such a fire-protection system can not, of course, be 

 established without an adequate appropriation. The States of Con- 

 necticut, Idaho, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hamp- 

 shire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington 

 now have more or less effective systems of organized fire protection, 

 either partly or wholly at the expense of the States. 



In certain western States a system of fire protection under author- 

 ity of the State has developed along a somewhat different line. Tim- 

 berland owners in the group of heavily forested States in the North- 

 west, from Montana to the Pacific coast, have on the whole been in 

 advance of the local public sentiment in recognition of the need of 

 systematic fire protection. It is perhaps not to be wondered at that 

 in this region State legislatures were at first not able to see any reason 

 for spending public money to protect private timber which was 

 mainly in large holdings, or that timberland owners should have 

 organized to do at their own expense what the States were not willing 

 to do. The laws of Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and California make 

 it possible for owners, or associations of owners, of timberlands to 

 nominate persons in their own employ for appointment as State 

 firewardens. 1 These wardens receive no pay from the State, but 

 have the authority of the State behind them in enforcing the laws 

 against starting fires. Fire, protective associations of timberland 

 owners now exist in Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon; of 

 these the Washington association was the pioneer. Where their 

 holdings border on or are inclosed by national forests they are lit- 

 erally joining forces with the Forest Service, whose protective meth- 

 ods they have closely followed ; they generally wish, however, to 

 spend more per acre on protection than the funds at the disposal 

 of the Forest Service permit it to spend in protecting national forest 

 timber. 



1 North Carolina in the East has a similar law. 



