Five Things Up to Service. 



Knowing this, the service was confronted at the outset 

 with these propositions: 1. To educate the people of the dan- 

 ger resulting from the careless use of fire. 2. To reduce that 

 danger by preventing the accumulation of debris in the for- 

 ests 3. To provide the necessary means of travel to facilitate 

 patrol work and the conveyance of the fire-fighting force. 4. 

 To provide a means whereby fires can be readily detected and 

 located; and 5, to provide the quickest means of communica- 

 tion, so that sufficient help can be obtained with the least 

 delay. 



These are the main parts of the scaffolding from which the 

 building is being erected. 



Public's Education Is Being Accomplished. 



Let us take the various planks as it were, and study them 

 briefly. 1. The education of the people has been and is be- 

 ing effected in several ways, by literature, by earlier expe- 

 riences of forest fires, and by contact with an organized state- 

 maintained-fire-fighting force. This is the most important 

 part of the scaffold, the foundation which must be continually 

 attended to. The fact that people have been told once of- the 

 aims and object of the service is not sufficient. We are one 

 and all forgetful, and unless vitally interested in any par- 

 ticular project we invariably forget anything that has only 

 been told to us once. The importance of the fact that forestry 

 must progress must be borne in mind. People must be kept 

 informed of our progress, they must not forget the lessons 

 inculcated at the outset, and this is best accomplished by an 

 active and intelligent field force, together with an up-to-date 

 literary record. This then accounts for the appointment by 

 the forester of the rangers and patrolmen. 



Duties of the Forest Ranger. 



2 The duties of these men are principally the prevention 

 and suppression of forest fires. They are given authority to 

 enforce the forest law, and as prevention is better than cure, 



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