A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 1441 



is thoroughly cleaned up around machine settings, log landings, and 

 camps, and on strips along roads, railroads, ridges, and creeks to break 

 up the area into compartments of about 100 acres. On these areas 

 and strips the slash is destroyed either by swamper or progressive 

 burning (burning as the felled trees are limbed), or by piling and later 

 burning. The area covered may amount to 10 to 30 percent of the 

 slashing. 



SPECIAL FIRE PROTECTION 



Better protection than is now usual on private lands is necessary 

 for 10 years or more after logging. There should be an efficient, well- 

 equipped prevention and suppression organization, fire lines must be 

 maintained, and transportation routes must be kept open. 



COSTS 



There is obviously no cost attached to leaving in the woods, trees it 

 does not pay to log and mill and often a distinct gam. Assuming a 

 stumpage rate of $2 a thousand board feet, the investment in seed 

 trees is $2 to $3 per acre. This is undoubtedly a maximum, and if 

 the trees were barely over the merchantable limit the investment 

 would be negligible. In most cases the value will be recovered with 

 interest at the next cutting. Regulation of animal and tractor 

 logging to prevent unnecessary damage to advance reproduction or 

 young growth will cost little. Regulation of machine logging may 

 cost 10 cents a thousand board feet, or $1,80 an acre. Partial disposal 

 of slash will cost about 15 cents for each thousand board feet cut, or 

 $2.70 an acre. Intensive fire protection will add about 75 cents an 

 acre, spread over the 10-year period following logging. 



The total of the last two items is $3.45 an acre. However, these 

 expenditures may be the means of avoiding much greater ones. For 

 example, in 1919 and 1920 one company logging in this forest type 

 spent an average of nearly $10,000 a year on its cut-over lands for 

 suppression of fires resulting from its own operations. In 1921, it 

 started clearing along rights of way, with patrol following all trains, 

 and its suppression bill dropped to less than $1,000 and total fire 

 cost, including prevention, to $3,600. Practically every slash fire 

 must be fought sooner or later, and usually by the operator. Any 

 investment which prevents such fires, or facilitates their control, saves 

 much larger investments in fire fighting. 



Total costs under the most favorable conditions will include only 

 the items of brush disposal and special fire protection, or $3.45 an 

 acre. A maximum total of all items might rarely reach $8 an acre. 

 The average is probably $4.50, or 25 cents a thousand board feet cut. 



PONDEROSA PINE TYPE 



This type, as will be seen from the map, has a very wide distribu- 

 tion, and some local variations in average size of the timber and 

 heaviness of stand. The stands are ordinarily nearly pure ponderosa 

 pine, and uneven-aged, although even-aged groups are common. 

 Most of the type occurs on plateaus or gently rolling country. Where 

 fires have been excluded for decades there is usually a fair understory 

 of seedlings and saplings, but reproduction after logging is slow and 

 on the less favorable sites uncertain. On some areas it has been kept 



