Canadian Forestry Journal, February, 1920 



Pirst — That the Woodlands Section of the 

 Canadian Pulp and Paper Association wish to 

 place on record their deep appreciation of the 

 commercial utility of the work of the Dominion 

 Entomological Branch of the Department of 

 Agriculture, particularly the Forest Insects sec- 

 tion, under Dr. Swaine, which directly concerns 

 our industry and recommend sufficient funds be 

 provided in the estimates and placed at the dis- 



posal of this department to at least double the 

 number of field parties in 1920. 



Second That in view of the large number of 

 fires caused by coal-burning locomotives passing 

 through our forest areas and the great losses 

 resulting therefrom, that this meeting recom- 

 mend that such railways be electrified where the 

 water-falls in the forest areas are ample to 

 supply the necessary power." 



**LIGHT BURNING" CONDEMNED BY U. S. 



SERVICE. 



FOREST 



By H. 5. Craves, Chief Forester of the United States. 



Light burning advocates assert that by firing 

 nine forests every few years the woods will be 

 kept clean and inflammable debris without in- 

 jury to the merchantable stumpage, even with- 

 out substantial injury to the young growth. The 

 constant cleaning out of small stuff, under- 

 brush and litter supposedly would thus protect 

 the woods from serious conflagrations. It has 

 even been claimed that pine forests protected 

 by this system will no burn, and he whole thmg 

 is to be done at a cost of a fraction of a cent 

 an acre. 



BRUSH PATCHES ARE RESULT. 



As a matter of fact it is precisely the repeated 

 firing of the woods which has steadily eaten up 

 the pine forests of California. Our national 

 forests of that state contain close to two 

 million acres of brush patches, which once were 

 heavily timbered. Wiping out the forests on 

 these areas in the national forests alone has 

 cost the timber resources of California on the 

 basis of average figures, around 37 billion feet 

 of stumpage, and probably $75,000,000 in value 

 at the present time. This loss is not the result 

 of a few large conflagrations. Largely it 

 has come about from one ground fire after 

 another, extending over a total period of 50 

 or 100 years. Not only does each of these 

 ground fires destroy much or all of the young 

 grt>wth; the butts of the old timber are eaten 

 out, inch by inch. After every burning a few 

 more of the old trees tople over in the wind. 

 The ultimate result is a brush patch. 



To me it is an absurd proposition that we 

 can now go into the pine forests and fire large 

 areas deliberately at a negligible cost per acre, 

 which is one of the main claims of the advo- 

 cates of the system, without continuing the 



same process of gradual but irresistible de- 

 ■Jtruct'on. The light burnins is supposed to be 

 "controlled." In practice this control apparent- 

 ly amounts only to choosinp^ the time of year 

 when the woods are fired. The Forest Service 

 has studied every area which it was able to learn 

 about where intentional light burni':'g has been 

 practiced. Its effects have been substantially 

 the same as those of the unintentional ground 

 fire in the California pine forests. In every case 

 at least a large part of the young growth is 

 killed. In every case more or less injury has 

 been done to old timber, except, where large 

 trees have been protected by costly methods, 

 such as raking debris from the butts or piling 

 earth around them, methods so costly that the 

 light burners have now abandoned them. 



NO YOUNG GROWTH TO SPARE. 



The Forest Service has no young growth to 

 burn up. Neither has it any merchantable 

 stumpage to sacrifice to a theory of protection 

 which is essentially destructive. Hundreds of 

 thousands of acres of national forest land in the 

 western pine belt, which have been protected 

 successfully for 12 or 15 years, now furnish 

 a practical demonstration of what these forests 

 can be made to produce under a genuine system 

 of fire protection. Their brush patches are dis- 

 appearing in thickets of pine saplings. The net 

 growth per acre has been tremendously in- 

 creased. The timber which the whole country 

 will need when our virgin forests are depleted is 

 now being produced. The Forest Service must 

 oppose with the utmost vigor any system of pro- 

 tection which will wreck these growing forests 

 or which will make it impossible to produce 

 similar forests in the western pine belt gener- 

 ally. 



