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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



VOL. 27 



NOVEMBER, 1921 



NO. 335 



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FOREST FIRES A NATIONAL PROBLEM 



BY WALLACE HUTCHINSON 



AS national prosperity is ravaged at times by economic 

 waste, so forests are ravaged by fire. The red 

 plague of conflagration, which has been long present in 

 our fair land, has left its sinister effects on every state 

 and every com- 

 munity. But 

 the day of 

 reckoning i s 

 close at hand. 

 A m e r i c a 's 

 vast natural 

 forests, ex- 

 ploited with 

 lavish indiffer- 

 ence and left 

 u n p r o tected 

 without 

 thought of the 

 morrow, are 

 Hearing a point 

 of exhaustion 

 which spells 

 disaster if the 

 rate of cutting 

 and burning is 

 not summarily 

 checked. Par- 

 ticularly dis- 

 quieting is the 

 fact that there 

 is a steadily in- 

 creasing cost 

 to practically 

 every product 

 into which 

 wood enters, 

 from the 

 humblest cot- 

 tage to the 

 great indus- 



THE FOREST PRIMEVAL 



The finest forest timber in the world was the heritage of the American people, 

 prosperity of the Nation has been built. 



of something like 5,200 billion feet of as fine timber as 

 ever grew. Only two-fifths of this original supply re- 

 mains, and our forest lands have been reduced nearly 

 50 per cent in acreage. But this is not all of the sad 



story. 



Taking stock 

 of our forest 

 resources t o- 

 day, we find 

 that 81 million 

 acres an area 

 nearly as large 

 as the com- 

 bined states of 

 Ohio, Indiana 

 and Illinois, 

 are an unpro- 

 ductive waste, 

 which together 

 with the lands 

 partially 

 stocked with 

 young growth 

 constitute an 

 area of over 

 214 million 

 acres of poten- 

 tial forest land 

 that no longer 

 bears useful 

 timber. Why 

 don't they? A 

 large part of 

 the answer is 

 F-I-R-E. 



A situation 

 of this kind 

 appeals to the 

 i m a g i n a - 

 tion with pe- 



On it the 



trial plants, and from plow handles to print paper. This culiar force. It is easy to picture hypothetical happenings 



burden is shared in common by the people of all that might follow in the trail of the flames. 



America. If the United States was a private corporation dealing 



The virgin forest area of the United States, experts in natural resources on a large scale, it would receive 



say, was not less than 822 million acres, bearing a stand once a year a bill reading something like this : 



