102 PRACTICAL FORESTRY IN 



just as required by the progress of dry weather and reduce 

 again in the fall. Men can be centralized at danger points 

 better than through individual effort. Exceedingly important 

 is the means they afford of bringing in the non-resident 

 owner, the small owner who is not warranted in employing 

 anyone alone, and the non-progressive owner who would other- 

 wise do nothing but is ashamed to stay out of a general 

 movement. 



No tract can be safely considered as an independent unit. 

 No protection confined to it alone is as good insurance as the 

 removal of risk from the district ivithin which it lies. Fire is 

 no respecter of section lines. There is always danger of un- 

 usual weather in which it may travel a long distance. It is 

 far better to secure the maximum general safety in the local- 

 ity than to have guarded tracts alternating with fire traps. 

 Moreover attention to individual tracts does not improve sur- 

 rounding conditions, and the latter may easily become so bad 

 as to make the cost of individual patrol, as well as the risk, 

 far overbalance any financial disadvantage at present through 

 co-operation. 



Again, the public is far more likely to take kindly to the 

 enforcement of fire laws by an association than to the action 

 of an individual owner against whom some prejudice may 

 exist. Associations greatly simplify co-operation with State 

 and Government in fire work and tend to bring about ap- 

 propriations for the purpose. They enable uniform and con- 

 centrated effort to improve sentiment and legislation. This 

 booklet and the other work done by the Western Forestry & 

 Conservation Association was made possible by the existence 

 of the local organizations it represents. Their independent 

 local and State effect has been marked. 



The bad fire season of 1910 was a supreme test of the asso- 

 ciations of the Pacific Northwest. They kept the bad fires 

 in their immense territory down to a number which can be 

 counted on the fingers and their losses were comparatively 

 insignificant. Yet under the weather conditions which ex- 

 isted the thousands of fires they extinguished would certainly 



