98 North American Forests and Forestry 



forests. The greatest burden of guilt rests on our 

 public authorities, which is only another way of say- 

 ing that it lies upon all the people of the United 

 States. The question of the relation of the legisla- 

 tive and executive authorities of the country to the 

 forestry problem is treated in another chapter. But 

 here is the place to show how, through the almost 

 utter neglect of its duty to take proper police meas- 

 ures, the people of the United States has given un- 

 checked opportunities for the work of the worst 

 enemy of our forests, an enemy that has caused a 

 great part of the undesirable decrease of area and 

 nine tenths of the deterioration in value of the area 

 still covered with woodland. 



Nearly every reader must have guessed by this 

 time that the enemy here referred to is the fire. 

 For, unfortunately, the American public is very 

 familiar with forest fires. Not a year elapses when 

 tales of disaster from this source in one part or an- 

 other of the country do not fill the columns of news- 

 papers. If this familiarity has not bred contempt, 

 it has at least caused a prevalent belief that forest 

 fires are inevitable events, incidental to the exist- 

 ence of forests, and to be submitted to as visitations 

 of Providence against which one can guard no more 

 than against tornadoes and earthquakes. 



Yet this belief is utterly wrong. No proposition 

 in connection with American forestry is better es- 

 tablished than that forest fires, practically without 

 exception, are the result of human agency. It is 

 sometimes said that lightning causes forest fires. 



