A NATIONAL I'LAN KOI: AMKIMCAN KOllKSIIIY J 437 



face area. Forest conditions on the, area are not; destroyed, (ircen 

 trees are left green, and the typical moisture-loving vegetative 

 Around cover of the, forest is not re, placed by inflammable firewoods, 

 grass, and thistle, as after a broadcast huni. The, dud' cover on the 

 CTOund is not consumed except where the, piles are burned, which may 

 he, ;m important factor in obtaining white, pine reproduction. 



Great care in the, burning of piled brush is essential, however, to 

 keep the fire from scorching living trees or running over the ground 

 between piles. A considerable degree of skill and judgment is 

 required in selecting the proper time for burning. Conditions must 

 be, such that the piles are dry enough to burn, but that the ground 

 surfa.ee is too damp for fire, to run. Such conditions are most com- 

 monly found in the fall after the- September rains. 



COSTS 



Large, private operators who have believed in the efficacy of piling 

 and burning as a method of protecting their standing timber have 

 done a fairly effective job for their purpose at a cost of 40 to 70 cents 

 a thousand ($10 to $17. 50 an acre) under normal conditions. ^ Under 

 the, influence of present conditions, one, good job of private piling and 

 bur/iing is known to have been done, for 36 cents a thousand. If i 

 important to note, however, that the, private owner i -i not concerned 

 with occa-ional spread of fire that might partially injure residual 

 growth. Altogether, it is probable that disposal adequate to pre- 

 vent devastation can be, effected at a cost closer to 40 cents than 70 

 cents a thousand board feet. 



Most private operators who pile and burn slash in this way do so 

 purely as a protection measure for their standing timber. They have 

 been convinced that it costs less in the Jong run to pile and burn than 

 it does to fight fires resulting from broadcast burns. One company, 

 for example, has done, good piling and burning since 1924 as a result 

 of the very costly lesson it learned from fires in 1922 and 1923. 

 These fires, spreading in slashings and old brosj.flcsj.st burns, covered 

 10,000 acres of virgin forest arid entailed direct money Joss of improve- 

 ments, logs, standing timber, and fire-fighting costs which amounted 

 to nearly -S 1 ,000,000. Up to about 1 9'25 this company's cut amounted 

 to approximately 300,000,000 feet. At the rate of 50 cents a thousand 

 the slash resulting from this cut could have been piled arid, burned 

 currently for $150,000. If piling and burning had been followed 

 consistently from the beginning of the operation, there is every 

 reason to believe, that there would have, been, no serious fire losses. 



Inasmuch as effective, slash disposal in most instanecs is also the 

 cheapest and most effect.ive measure of protecting an owner's standing 

 timber, there, is often no slash-disposal cost chargeable purely to 

 keeping the land productive. 



It should be pointed out that although economic selection of trees 

 to be cut, or any other change in usual commercial cutting practice, 

 is not regarded as necessary to prevent devastation in this type 

 (particularly larch-fir; it will often result in savings commensurate 

 with cost of slash disposal . 



LARCH-FIR 



The larch-douglus fir forest has usually originated as an even-aged 

 forest following fires, obviously not extensive enough to have de-t roved 

 all local sources of seed. Subsequent fires have opened up the original 



