THE IRRIGATION AGE. 89 



camping places known, and he could be held responsible for all his 

 acts. 



In southern California many of the worst fires are in autumn, start- 

 ing at the base of the mountains and sweeping upward. While this 

 is not so common as it was it is still common enough. In almost every 

 case it is done by the farmer who wants to burn some brush or rub- 

 bish on his own land and selects one of the dry, hot days with a 

 desert wind in the fall that makes every thing burn well. It is too 

 much work to run a fire guard around the outside. It is also too much 

 trouble to do the thing at night when the wind is down or do it in 

 sections so that each can be managed. It is far cheaper, especially 

 for the dry rancher whose time is so valuable for rolling cigarettes, 

 to wait for a day when there is nothing to do but to touch a match 

 and let the whole thing go off by itself. Why of course he didn't do 

 it on purpose. And surely he has a right to make a fire on his own 

 land. He couldn't help it either, the wind shifted on him, or nature 

 interfered with his handling of it, and why shou]d he be punished for 

 what he could not help when doing a lawful act on his own land? 



It is plain that convictions can not be had in such cases, or of the 

 hunter, fisherman, sheepman or tenderfoot just as long as the burden 

 of proof is on the prosecution to show that the burning of the public 

 forest was wilful, malicious, negligent or careless, or can it be done if 

 the defendant can offer in evidence due care on his part, for. he will 

 always be ready to swear that he was careful and there will rarely be 

 any evidence to the contrary. 



To meet this I drafted a law some three years ago the effect of 

 which would be to make every one absolutely responsible for the con- 

 sequences of any fire made or used by him after being left by any one 

 else. To prevent any hardship as well as to aid in its enforcement 

 the fine was put at only one hundred dollars, the idea that if one does 

 not know enough to make a fire that cannot escape from him, one 

 hundred dollars is cheap tuition. If he does not want to pay it, all he 

 has to do is to keep out of the woods and practice on making fires that 

 he can control before he goes into them. This was unanimously ap- 

 proved and recommended to congress by the forestry convention that 

 met in Los Angeles three years ago. It passed the house all right 

 but in the senate was changed some. The essential features are in one 

 way or another preserved but the fine was raised to a possibility of a 

 thousand dollars which is too great for western juries. It also lets 

 out the man who burns up the country by reckless making of a fire on 

 his own land. This was probably not intentional. The law is a great 

 improvement over the old one as it is not necessary to prove negli- 

 gence in all cases and it makes it the duty of every one to extinguish 

 a fire that he makes. But it still allows him to make a fire of any 



