Fires Came at End of Season. 



In the middle of the fire season, that is in July, the service 

 had high hopes of small fire damage during 1913, and this 

 hope kept up until the middle of September, when the fire 

 season on the national forests ordinarily is about at an end. 

 At that time there was less damage than had ever been re- 

 corded, and only 2,260 fires as against 2,470 in 1912, with 

 about 60,000 acres burned as compared with 230,000 in 1912 

 and 780,000 in 1911. At the end of the month, however, the 

 electric storms in California and one or two outbreaks of 

 incendiarism changed the whole situation. 



But even in the face of these difficulties, the fire-fighting 

 force, with its plans and experience from preceding years, 

 was able to cope with the situation. In California, in partic- 

 ular, it was as if a military leader, represented by the dis- 

 trict forester at San Francisco, was holding, with a compar- 

 atively small number of men or a mere skirmish force, a line 

 of defense extending 750 miles in a north and south direc- 

 tion. This force received, as if from an attack by the heavy 

 artillery of an opposing army, the electric storms, generally 

 unaccompanied by rain, which played havoc all along the 

 Sierras and the Coast Range. That the California force was 

 able to cope with the situation was, according to Mr. Graves, 

 an evidence of the efficiency of the men and the organization. 



Juniper from New Mexico and Arizona may prove an excellent 

 source of material for lead pencils. Manufacturers are searching 

 the world for pencil woods. 



New Jersey has a timbered area of about two million acres, on 

 which the timber is worth about $8,500,000 on the stump. It is 

 mainly valuable for cordiuood. 



Forest fires in the United States have caused an average annual 

 loss of 70 human lives and the destruction of 25 million dollars 

 worth of merchantable timber, to say nothing of the tremendous 

 loss in small trees killed. 



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