1 84 North American Forests and Forestry 



means that they are first kindled for legitimate pur- 

 poses, but afterwards abandoned and left to go out 

 or spread as accidental conditions favor. In the 

 term " legitimate purposes " we must here include 

 even such uses of fire in the woods as are in them- 

 selves injurious, but are excused by the necessities 

 of making some use of the forest while economic 

 conditions are such that more profitable forms of 

 management are not available. In this category 

 belongs, for instance, the burning up of valuable 

 logs by settlers in clearing their lands, because they 

 can find no market for them on account of lacking 

 transportation facilities. The burning of under- 

 brush to improve the pasture may also be sometimes 

 excused on the ground that pasture is the best use 

 the land can be put to. This practice, the results 

 of which have already been dwelt upon, is but too 

 prevalent in portions of the Appalachian region, 

 where most of the mountain farmers are miserably 

 poor, ignorant, and shiftless. It is the condition of 

 the people in this section rather than the economic 

 circumstances which makes this wastefulness appar- 

 ently necessary. The firing of underbrush to im- 

 prove the pasture is also indulged in to some extent 

 by the owners of the great flocks of sheep in the 

 far West. These people have much less excuse for 

 doing so than the poor mountaineers of Tennessee 

 and North Carolina. Their business is at best one 

 of the worst causes of forest destruction, and their 

 immense herds, scattering, as they do, over hun- 

 dreds of square miles to bite off every vestige 



