54 



If he remove all that he desires and destroy the rest by fire, the re- 

 establishment must pass through nearly all the phases of evolution, which 

 the virgin woods had to pass. Where the denudation had been complete, 

 the lower vegetation of weeds and brush must occupy the ground first, and 

 only after long struggle can tree growth re-establish itself. 



Thousands of acres are in this condition ; wooded, sometimes densely 

 wooded, but the value gone, from the supply point of view. With the tim- 

 ber of present value gone, the interest of the lumberman is gone, and with 

 the slash left on the ground and the carelessness to which our people are 

 bred with things that are apparently useless, the almost unavoidable se- 

 quence in such slashings is the forest fire. 



While the direct damage to the future which the lumberman inflicts by 

 his harvesting process, in reducing valuable aftergrowth, is considerable, 

 it is altogether small in proportion to the much greater indirect damage 

 which is the consequence of these fires. And here again let me impress 

 you with the thought that, from the standpoint of the community, the lea.st 

 damage of these fires is the destruction of the standing timber, although 

 many millions of dollars worth of timber are annually destroyed ; the much 

 greater damage is that to the future, to the coming generations. A light 

 fire running over the ground, if it were confined to the slash itself, during 

 a season when it is burning with the least fury, as in the early spring when 

 snow is still on the ground, might be even a benefit in reducing the brush 

 and thus giving better chance for an after-growth. But usually these fires 

 start at the most dangerous season, dry and drouthy, and are not confined, 

 but run into the green timber. In the deciduous-leaved forest they run 

 slowly, injuring the mature trees at the base and causing decay to set in, 

 which may finally result in death. In the coniferous forest, some species, 

 with a thick bark, will withstand a.light running fire without injury, but 

 usually in dry seasons the timber is killed outright, and if not cut at once, 

 insect pests, the secondary result of forest fires, will finish it. In many 

 cases the first fire does only partial damage, but a repetition is then so much 

 more disastrous, and finally, with windstorms throwing the damaged 

 trunks, the repeated fires not only clean up all the timber, but burn up the 

 surface soil itself, at least the fertile surface portion of it. 



The carelessness of hunters and farmers continues, burning over 

 again and again the scanty vegetation until finally the bare rock is reached 

 and nothing grows a man-made desert is the result. 



In Wisconsin at least 8 million acres have thus been reduced to waste* 

 and now efforts are being made to recover the land by reforestation. 



Erosion of soils, landslips filling rivers, floods, and drifting sands, are 

 some of the consequences of this devastation. 



One evil which has hardly ever been pointed out is the increase of 

 windfalls. By opening up the forest, the trees which had learned only to 

 stand up in union, become exposed directly to the sweeping winds and are 

 laid low. Insects follow. 



