Yearbook of Agriculture 1949 



need for burns to be carried out over a 

 large area and under varied conditions. 

 In considering the program under- 

 taken, certain facts and principles must 

 be kept in view : 



1. The term "prescribed burning" 

 is meant to describe and apply only 

 when on-the-ground examination and 

 analysis has revealed some unsatisfac- 

 tory condition that can be bettered if 

 fire (of a specified intensity and under 

 prescribed conditions of season, fuel 

 moisture, wind direction and velocity) 

 is applied at the proper time and only 

 to the designated area. 



2. Timbered land should be pro- 

 tected from wildfire at all times. 



3. The burden of proof is on the 

 land manager each time he uses fire 

 as a tool. Use of fire on timber stands 

 must be viewed as akin to surgery on a 

 human being. It is justified only after 

 competent diagnosis of an unsatisfac- 

 tory condition indicates that oppor- 

 tunity for gain will be in excess of losses 

 and cost and must presuppose accept- 

 able skill in execution. 



4. Generalizations, such as "south- 

 ern pines," must be avoided; in all 

 cases reference must be made to the 

 tree species involved on any one area 

 considered for treatment by fire. 



5. In evolving prescribed-burning 

 practices, it is equally as essential to 

 determine where and when use of fire 

 is detrimental as it is to clarify when 

 it can be beneficial. 



WHEN THE PROGRAM of prescribed 

 burning was started, available infor- 

 mation indicated that it should be 

 tested for its value in meeting the fol- 

 lowing situations: 



1. Preparation of seedbed. Long- 

 leaf pine yields a good seed crop at 

 intervals of 5 to 8 years. Characteristic 

 ground cover in this timber type, 2 

 years or more after being burned, is a 

 mat of dead grass and pine needles so 

 dense that it prevents all but a small 

 part of the seed fall from reaching 

 mineral soil and becoming established. 



2. Sanitation burning to eradicate 

 brown spot needle disease from long- 



leaf pine seedlings in the grass stage. 

 Where the disease is prevalent and not 

 cleaned off, either on the natural or 

 planted seedlings, infected plants fail 

 to make growth, gradually lose health 

 and vigor, and in 5 to 8 years may 

 suffer 90 to 100 percent mortality. 



3. Subjection of healthy longleaf 

 grass-stage seedlings to a smothering 

 cover of grasses and overstory of brushy 

 plants. Root competition for food and 

 moisture, coupled with shading from 

 sunlight, starve a seedling from start- 

 ing height growth for as much as 12 

 years. Fire can remove the shade and 

 reduce competition. 



4. Encroachment of any undesirable 

 growth. Edges of ponds, bays, swamps, 

 and streams support growths of titi, 

 gallberry, myrtle, and other commer- 

 cially worthless species. Under com- 

 plete fire exclusion, this growth en- 

 croaches and occupies good pine sites 

 with thickets so dense as to exclude 

 pine reproduction. In Florida such en- 

 croachments have taken over as much 

 as 25 percent of the best pine sites. On 

 the drier longleaf sites, volunteer lob- 

 lolly can become an undesirable species. 

 Fire can reclaim such areas for estab- 

 lishment of productive growth. 



5. Protective burning. This phase 

 of burning is full of divergent inter- 

 pretations and misunderstanding and 

 controversy. The basic idea in the in- 

 vestigation has nothing to do with the 

 periodic light burning of woods as a 

 substitute for full protection against 

 fire. The simple fact that over Coastal 

 Plain pinelands a wildfire will again 

 burn rapidly within 6 months or a year 

 after having been burned would ren- 

 der any such protection scheme futile. 



Opportunities for protective burn- 

 ing are typified by the Osceola Na- 

 tional Forest in Florida. There the 

 ground cover is such that an intensive 

 fire-protection organization would fail 

 frequently and to the extent that the 

 sum of fire losses could equal the in- 

 crement of the area over a rotation 

 period. 



Fire exclusion was practiced there 

 for 15 years. It is an area of lush and 



