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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



The United States of America, 

 TO VULCAN, GOD OF FIRE (Forest and 

 Otherwise), Dr. 



Jan. 1 For 33,000 forest fires 

 to covering 12,000,000 

 Dec. 31 acres $20,000,000 



Received Payment, 



No business could stand such a yearly drain on 

 its resources without facing financial ruin, and that 

 is just what our own country is headed for, as far as 

 forests and timber supply are concerned, unless our 

 legislators and citizens wake up to the fact that the 

 nation's fire problem is in urgent demand of imme- 

 diate solution. 



The Federal Government, in its National Forests at 

 least, has faced the problem squarely and is in a fair 

 way of solving it. The protection of 156 million acres 

 of forest land, much of which is in mountainous and 



remote regions, is a Herculean job in itself, and no 

 one knows this better than the United States Forest 

 Service. Therefore, it has set about carefully and 

 painstakingly to work out a protection system that 

 will be, from the very ground up, as nearly "fire- 

 proof" as is possible to devise. Experience is an ex- 

 cellent teacher, and forest officers have had anii)le 

 opportunity these last few years to learn many a hard- 

 earned lesson in the fixe game. 



The workings of this fire-fighting organization, 

 which is without doubt one of the most efficient in the 

 world in the combating of forest fires, is worthy of note 

 The nucleus around which the fire force is organized 

 is the permanent force of 2,000 administrative officers, 

 supervisors, rangers, and forest guards on the National 

 Forests. The more experienced of these men direct the 

 fighting, furnish tools, subsistence and transportation 

 to fire crews, pay off the laborers, and, in short, have 

 general supervision over all forest protective measures 

 within their local jurisdiction. 



In all National Forests and there are 147 of them 

 scattered from Atlantic to Pacific and from Gulf to Bor- 



HILLS CLOTHED WITH VERDURE, FAIR TO SEE 



The virgin forest area of the United States was eight hundred and twenty-two million acres. Today there remains but 50 per 



cent of this total forest area. An ugly fact, but a fact nevertheless. 



