CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 105 



During the last year the debris from logging some twenty-five million feet cut in a 

 Minnesota pinery has been successfully burned when conditions were favourable for a 

 safe burning with all the care necessary to safeguard the seed trees left standing and 

 the younger trees which were already on the ground, but which were not sufficiently 

 mature to be removed. The cost of this brush burning was about fifteen cents per 

 thousand of the timber cut. In some cases where the weather was too dry to do the 

 burning aa the logging proceeded, and it was on that account necessary to make a 

 second operation of it, the cost was somewhat more, but in no case exceeded twenty- 

 five cents per thousand. The lumberman who had charge of the brush burning told 

 me that if he were open for an engagement he would be glad to take a contract to burn 

 the brush in any Canadian pinery cutting eight thousand per acre at twenty-five cents 

 per thousand. The most important feature of brush burning after lumbering is the 

 safety it gives the forest from accidental burning later. A second and very great 

 advantage is that a slight burning off of the moss and needles on the surface of the soil 

 makes conditions very much more favourable for the pine seeds to make a ' catch,' as 

 the farmers say of their clover. It has been repeatedly found that a very much more 

 abundant catch of pine seedlings is to be found on areas having the surface burned over 

 than where no fire has run. This is because the pine seed on germination has less dif- 

 ficulty in reaching mineral soil and thus coming in touch with permanent moisture. 

 That the absence of tree tops and brush piles on the ground gives the seedlings a better 

 chance to develop after they are once rooted is of course self evident. There are two 

 features of this appearance of fire as a friend of the forest which will bear emphasiz- 

 ing. The utmost care must be taken to burn only when the soil itself is wet, that is, 

 at a time when the burning may be controlled, and in the second place we should not 

 forget that the operation is for the benefit of the future forest, hence the cost should be 

 borne not by the lumberman whose interest is only temporary, but by the state which 

 must look upon it as an investment which will return with large dividends when the 

 crop which it saves or helps to reproduce will have become ready for the axe. 

 It is of course self evident that the practicability of such a forestry measure for any 

 given locality will depend on local conditions, more particularly on the value of the 

 stump age on. the tract concerned. 



While there are many instances in North American forests where fire has through 

 accidentally favourable circumstances proven a friend to the forest, there are pro- 

 bably a hundred times as many cases on ten thousand times as many acres where it 

 has proven a terrible foe. Although most of our forest fires follow the lumberman 

 and are a direct result of the condition he brings about in the woods, they are by no 

 means all chargeable to this account. There are in our northern coniferous forests 

 vast areas which have been burned over where no lumberman has ever swung an axe. 

 These fires are in most cases due to the carelessness of the Indians and to lightning, 

 though not a few are to be attributed to the white man who has made his way through 

 these forests as surveyor, explorer, hunter, or tourist. 



Fire in the forest is alike the greatest enemy of wood production and water con- 

 servation. Light surface fires are not uncommon in pineries, especially in the South, 

 which do no harm to the large timber but which destroy all small trees and seedlings, 

 and by burning the litter on the surface of the ground do a temporary injury to the 

 soil both as regards its fertility and water holding capacity. More severe fires fre- 

 quently kill all the standing timber althoiigh it is exceptional for the large trees to be 

 so completely destroyed as to be worthless for lumber if cut within a year. This, 

 however, sometimes happens, the very trunks of the large trees being burned. Over 

 much the larger part of our northern woodlands the soil contains a very large propor- 

 tion of organic matter. Should the fire occur during a prolonged drought the soil 

 iiself may and often does burn clear to the rock beneath. Subsequent rains wash the 

 ash and the remaining residue of mineral soil into the crevices or carry it quickly 

 down the slopes leaving the rock bare. 



The forest may quickly recover from the destruction of the undergrowth if the 

 old trees still live, for a reseeding will presently follow. The destruction of the young 



