134 FOREST PLANTING. 



vented from settling upon the surface stretching over 

 the tops of the conifers. 



Damages caused to forests by an excess of humidity in 

 the soil, which has to be drained, and by drifting sands 

 of adjoining sandlayers are not infrequent. We shall 

 treat of them at the proper places in Part II and III. 



Fire is the most pernicious agent in the destruction of 

 our forests. It is seldom that such fires can be traced to 

 incendiarism. They mostly result from the carelessness 

 of lumbermen, tourists and their guides. True, the es- 

 tablishment of the State Forest Commission, in 1885, has 

 done much to prevent fires, and the principle that pro- 

 tection is better than cure has proved also in this case to 

 be the best guard against fire. But often fires originate 

 in the woods without human agency. Lightning has 

 been the most frequent cause of wood-fires, although in 

 some cases they may have originated from other causes 

 as for instance from the spontaneous combustion due to 

 the decomposition of pyrites, which is known to have set 

 fire to beds of lignite in the Saskatchewan region.* 



It is, therefore, very necessary that besides precaution- 

 ary measures stringent rules regarding the extinguishing 

 of fires occurring in forests and denuded woodlands 

 should be adopted. The establishment of a proper road- 

 system, and the division of a large forest into districts 

 and plots separated by paths and avenues contributes 

 much to confining forest-fires. Commonly they origin- 

 ate upon light, dry soils, when overgrown with conifers 

 and covered with a thick layer of resinous needles ; while 

 a disaster of this kind hardly is ever known in forests 

 with heavy clay or loamy soil upon which foliaged trees 

 grow.f A discarded cigar or a blown out pipe bowl 



* See American For. Congress 1888, page 50. 



t Therefore in Germany, where railways pass through coniferous for- 

 ests, and it is feared that the spark u flying from the locomotives may 



