THE FOREST 189 



sheds. Sustained yield means a stable and prosperous popula' 

 tion, productive soil cover, and protected watersheds. 



CONTROL OF FOREST FIRES 



The causes of fire in timber are divided into four groups: 

 carelessness, lumbering operations, lightning, and incendiarism. 

 The astonishing thing about all the statistics that have been 

 gathered about fires in forests is that about 70 per cent of 

 them are deliberately set. The reasons for setting fires are 

 a false belief that fire promotes plant growth or some grudge 

 against the timber owner or manager, or, as has some' 

 times happened in National Forests, in order to get a job to 

 help put it out. In the South, particularly, where a lot of grav 

 ing is done in woodland, many graders believe that by burning 

 over the forest every year the quality of the grass is improved. 

 It is true that land which has been burned over one or two 

 years does have a better crop of grass the succeeding year. But 

 after a number of burnings the humus in the soil is destroyed 

 and plants of little or no grazing value take the place of the 

 grass and trees. Unfortunately, people are more apt to remem' 

 ber that on last year's burning there is good grass rather than 

 that the piece which has been burned for many years is a barren 

 waste land. 



Smokers and campers are the primary cause of fires set by 

 carelessness. Many people from the city passing through the 

 forests have no idea how easily a forest fire can be set, or how 

 quickly it can spread. Inexperienced campers often forget that 

 their camp fires may set a whole forest ablaze. The great Tilla" 

 mook fire in eleven days burned over 244,706 acres of timber. 

 This was America's largest remaining virgin stand of privately 

 owned timber. It was worth approximately $375,000,000. 

 One Civilian Conservation Corps boy was killed fighting the 

 fire, and a score were injured. "So dense was the smoke'fog 

 during the days that lights in the coast towns had to be turned 



