408 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



cases 30 to 70 per cent of the seed was destroyed. One oliipmiink was seen to 

 visit 38 seed spots in four minutes. Further planting operations were useless 

 unless some means could be discovered to check these rodents. Accordingly, 

 several methods of treating the seed were tried. First, comparatively harm- 

 less solutions were applied to render the seed distasteful to the animals. This 

 did not prove successful, because the rodents would hull the seed and get 

 rid of the shell and the distasteful chemical at the same time. Consequently 

 more deadly poisons were tried, but as yet no really effective means have been 

 discovered of checking the ravages of the rodents. Experimentation alon'' 

 these lines is still being carried on. 



The work of reforestation is slow, tedious, and costly. At best it will 

 take many years before the trees now planted grow large enough to be of 

 commercial value for timber. In no business is the old adage more true than 

 in forestry, that ''an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Efficient 

 and adequate protection of the forests from fire, and the regulated cutting of 

 timber are, after all, the most effective means of maintaining a perpetual 

 forest growth. Still, a certain amount of artificial reforestation by planting 

 or sowing will always be extremely important. 



USE OF TELEPHONE LINES IN FIGHTING FIRES 



XN FIRE fighting a minute may mean millions. To realize the truth of 

 this statement, one has only to inspect a trained fire department, used 

 to guard the lives and property, in any city. Most of us are more or 

 less familiar with their time-saving devices; we have admired the splendid 

 horses taught by months of patient labor, to spring to their places at the 

 sound of the gong ; have seen them harnessed to the truck in the time it takes 

 to press a button ; observed men drop to their places from the floor above. 

 All this training and expense to save a minute's time in the battle against 

 the fire demon, in a city where man has used his utmost ingenuity to build 

 so as to thwart the ravages of this element. 



Compared with such a well organized system, the Forest Service methods 

 seem crude indeed. One man with an ax and shovel guards from one to 

 two hundred thousand acres of timber land, worth from one-half to five million 

 dollars. In the greater part of these forests, nature seems to have invited 

 their destruction by strewing the ground with a carpet of dry leaves and 

 resinous needles, and covering the branches and trunks with moss, that, 

 when dry, burns almost as quickly as gun-powder. For one man to attempt, 

 single-handed, to check a conflagration under such circumstances seems worse 

 than foolhardy; and yet, let it be told to the credit of the tribe who wear 

 the Forest Service badge, that when necessity demands, they pit their strength 

 and cunning against the flames, and sometimes, aided by night dews and 

 bull-dog endurance, win out. The Forest Service records could reveal many 

 such cases of which the public has never heard. It is only when the battle has 

 been lost and the fire becomes a public menace that the matter gets into print. 



It is obvious that chances are all against conquering a fire of any magni- 

 tude under these conditions; consequently, every human endeavor is used to 

 prevent the starting of such conflagrations. During the dry summer months, 

 a ranger's waking hours are spent in patrolling the routes frequented by 

 travelers, to extinguish neglected camp fires, and in searching his district with 



