38 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



successful protection of the forest three things are desirable : — 

 I. The watch-tower. 2. Fire-paths. 3. Extra watchers during 

 the fire season. 2 and 3 have been in force for some years in 

 Victorian forests. 



Both South Australia and Victoria are doing good work in 

 fire-protection, but want of funds has hitherto not allowed the 

 initiation of the first, and most important measure, in either 

 country. Without it fire-work must necessarily be incomplete 

 and risky. The watch-tower is a feature in many Australian 

 towns ; it is more necessary in the forest. In South Africa and 

 in Southern Europe the forest watch-tower business has been 

 carried out for many years. On Mont Vinaigre, in the South 

 of France, I stood on a mountain some 3500 feet high, where 

 was the chief watch-tower for the now completely fire-protected 

 forest of Estarelle. The whole forest can be seen from Mont 

 Vinaigre, and telephones extend from there to every part of the 

 forest. The Estarelle forest some years ago was nearly burnt 

 out. The local man said it could never be saved. It is to-day 

 a conspicuous monument to the energy and enterprise of the 

 French Forest Department. 



The now successful fire-protection of the fine State forest of 

 Leiria, in Portugal, has been achieved by means of four watch- 

 towers. I visited this lately — only a few weeks before leaving 

 for Australia. Parde, the eminent French forest writer, describes 

 the fire-protection of Leiria as perhaps the most remarkable in 

 Europe. The forest here is a flat area near the coast, and four 

 watch-towers are necessary. These watch-towers and all the 

 forest stations are linked up by telephone. There has been no 

 bad fire there for thirteen years. 



In 1883, in South Africa, when the forests were organised, a 

 forester was placed in charge of each of the more accessible 

 valuable forests, and the fire watch-towers were economically 

 planned by placing each forester on the highest point of his 

 forest, or the point from where he could get the best view. He 

 was given a comfortable home, with a good, substantial, 

 generally stone-built house, and enough ground round his house 

 for the purpose of a home farm. Near him, or at any rate within 

 call, would be the forest nursery with its staff of labourers. 

 Then, with the first whiff of smoke by day or the first spark of 

 fire by night, there would be an alarm from the forest station, 

 and the forester and his men would hurry off down hill to put 



