FIRETHE GREAT DESTROYER 195 



real sense, we are paying toll for the fires of past centuries since 

 even in the uncut forests, fires over many a square mile have 

 impaired the growth of trees, reduced their density, and de- 

 graded the quality of their wood. There is a great difference 

 between what nature produces on the average forested acre, 

 and what she should produce if fires were kept from marring 

 the perfection of her work. We are paying for that difference 

 in the increased cost of every forest product. 



Fires in a sense brew fires. The effect of each fire, no matter 

 how light, is to prepare the land for another, since each suc- 

 cessive burning leaves dead trees, and charred limbs behind it, 

 that under the hot summer sun dry out like tinder and furnish 

 more and more fuel for the flames that follow, until at last 

 the land becomes a barren waste, unfit for tree growth, unfit 

 for anything but to serve as a reminder and a warning. 



Nor is vegetation the only thing that suffers from fire. Under 

 repeated burning the very ground soon becomes impoverished, 

 for fires consume the leaf litter and the microscopic soil life, 

 and so completely change natural conditions that trees at best 

 exist with difficulty and often give up the struggle. In parts of 

 the Adirondacks fires have burned trees, leaf litter and soil 

 down to the bare rock, utterly destroying both the forest and 

 the possibility of future forests. 



Fires tend to increase the worthless brush-covered areas. 

 Here and there, especially in the West, a ceaseless battle for 

 supremacy is being waged between brush growth and forest. 

 Gradually, if undisturbed, the forest will succeed in crowding 

 out the undergrowth, but forest fires by destroying the young 

 tree reproduction may turn the battle in favor of the brush 

 and delay or doom the forest's victory. 



