EDITORIAL 



OPENING OF THE FOREST FIRE SEASON 



LETTER just received from one of the oldest and best known forestry 

 workers in the East says : ''I am about crazy over forest fires which seem 

 to rage hereabouts with more destruction and over greater area than ever 

 before. We are doing the best we can to control them, but control is not the 

 thing. Prevention is what is needed, and that will not come until public opinion 

 deems a forest fire on a level with barn burning or the destruction by fire of 

 any building not occupied by persons residing therein." 



This is written from long experience and forms a good introduction to the 

 numerous dispatches in newspapers from all sections of the country which 

 give ample evidence that the forest fire season of 1911 has opened with a 

 rush and that every resource will have to be called into action if we are to 

 prevent a repetition during the coming season of the tragic experiences of last 

 year. A long succession of increasingly dry years have supplied in our woods 

 and forests all the conditions favorable to combustion. It remains to be 

 seen how much we have profited by the lessons that have been administered to 

 us with such unsparing severity. 



Southern New England has been hard hit this spring, but the woodlands 

 of Massachusetts and Connecticut are not of such magnitude as to offer the 

 spectacular conflagrations of the lake states and the Northwest. Maine has its 

 fires under comparative control, and we look for similar efficiency under the 

 new state system in New Hampshire, combined with a strong organization 

 of the large timberland owners. Vermont has not been a heavy sufferer, and 

 it, too, has strengthened its defences. But none of these states are free from 

 the scourge, and the words quoted at the beginning of this article are from a 

 state that has been a leader in the efficiency of its forestry organization. 



In the lake states much study has been given to the subject of fire control 

 since the terrible visitation of last year and improved state organizations, 

 especially in Minnesota, and the Northern Protective Association, made up of 

 timberland owners of Wisconsin and Michigan, are new factors that should 

 prove their worth this season. 



In the national forests everything has been done to strengthen the weak 

 spots in accordance with the lessons of last summer, as far as an inadequate 

 appropriation will permit, but it is an unequal struggle that is forced by 

 present conditions upon the efficient and courageous men of the Forest Service. 

 From a straight business standpoint a larger investment would bring better 

 returns. Mr. Allen's article in this magazine shows what the Western Forestry 

 and Conservation Association, the pioneer protective organization of timber- 

 land owners, has been able to accomplish in the northwestern forests. These 

 results, it must be remembered, have been obtained by following Forest Service 

 methods, under men trained in the Forest Service; but these private owners 

 apply these methods thoroughly, as good business demands, while Congress 



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