260 ECONOMICS OF FORESTRY. 



Our present conditions in that respect discour- 

 age, and rightly so, all efforts to provide for future 

 crops, and encourage rapid exploitation in order to 

 secure the value of the existing crop before the fire 

 has swept it away. 



The principles most needful to keep in view 

 when formulating legislation for protection against 

 forest fires l are : 



(1) A well-organized machinery for the enforce- 

 ment of the laws must be provided, in which the 

 state must be prominently represented, since the 

 damage done by forest fires extends in many cases 

 far beyond immediate private and personal loss. 



(2) Responsibility for the execution of the law 

 must be clearly defined, and must ultimately rest 

 upon one person, an officer of the state ; but every 

 facility for ready prosecution of offenders must be 

 at command of the responsible officer. 



(3) None but paid officials can be expected to 

 do efficient service, and financial responsibility in 

 all directions must be recognized as alone produc- 

 tive of care in the performance of duties, as well as 

 in obedience to regulations. 



(4) Recognition of common interest in the pro- 

 tection of this kind of property can come only by 

 a reasonable distribution of financial liability for 

 loss between the state and local community and 

 the owners themselves. 



Only when the state has made ample and reason- 



1 See Appendix for draft of a forest fire law. 



