greater acreage of timber than there was forty or more years ago 

 just after the original growth had been removed. But since this 

 reforesting is a slow process, and under present conditions the 

 danger from fire so great, few pay adequate attention to the mat- 

 ter. It does not seem to be worth what it will cost. 



While the value of this second growth is a prime reason for 

 using all means necessary to secure it, there is another reason for 

 so doing, namely, because of the generally beneficial climatic 

 value which a moderate proportion of woodland gives. This cli- 

 matic influence, difficult to state exactly, consists in part in the 

 mechanical protection which a well-wooded surface affords against 

 very rapid melting of snow, and the the eroding, plowing ac- 

 tion of mountain torrents, in protection from severe winds, and, 

 in part, in the more uniform moisture and heat imparted to the 

 surrounding atmosphere. Small and difficult of measurement as 

 such influences may be over an acre of ground, they become great 

 over square miles of territory, and no better bulwark can be se- 

 cured against the periodical washing and gullying of freshets 

 than through the maintenance of our mountain and other forests. 

 Forest fires thus destroy the new growth which would in time be 

 of direct money value, and also open the way to and permit those 

 extremes of flood and drought, and those destructive winds which 

 render more precarious and uncertain all our labors. Not only 

 this but there is still a third reason why they are such a serious 

 injury, namely, because they destroy those conditions of soil and 

 surface which make forest growth possible. For, on mountain 

 and rocky land particularly, the most serious bar to tree growth 

 is the extreme thinness and poverty of the soil, derived from rock 

 disintegration and the accumulation of organic matter. Any- 

 thing which interferes with this natural process by which all soils 

 have been produced, by so much prolongs the time before trees 

 can gain a foothold, and by so much retards their rapidity of 

 growth. Fires, by consuming the leaves and twigs, leave a mere 

 film of ashes in place of the decomposing mass which is so po- 

 tent in the production of a soil. This is swept away by the first 

 rain or strong wind, and any district periodically burned over 

 loses more or less fully this beneficial covering. For these rea- 

 sons the destructiveness of forest fires, although not readily esti- 

 mated in dollars and cents, is none the less real, and the necessity 

 for their prevention or better control none the less imperative. 



The accompanying illustration shows in a very striking man- 



