132 



these forests ami the State itself are expected to help, 

 and the National Government, it is earnestly hoped, may 

 acquire its own National Pak. 



The great need now, however, is the awakening of the 

 people to the emergency, and the wide expression of 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



their sympathy. In that cause every practitioner and 

 student of forestry may find a nationally useful and a 

 congenial field of work, one where his influence will 

 count manyfold because of his personal interest in for- 

 estry and his knowledge of trees. 



R 



EDUCING fire loss by means of fire prevention edu- 

 cation for the boys and girls in public, private, and 

 parochial schools throughout the country is the latest 

 and should prove one of the most effective methods of 

 fighting the fire evil. The stand taken by the Fire 

 Marshals' Association of North America in favor of the 

 passage by all State legislatures of laws for the com- 

 pulsory teaching of fire prevention in the schools of their 

 respective States is assuredly a move in the right direc- 

 tion. Not only can the importance of fire prevention be 

 impressed on children more readily than on grown-ups, 

 but the grown-ups themselves can be reached most effec- 

 tively through the children. 



The Fire Marshals' Association has proposed a model 

 law empowering the State Fire Marshal and Commis- 

 sioner of Education in each State jointly to provide a 

 course of study in fire prevention and requiring each 

 teacher in public, private, and parochial schools to devote 

 not less than one hour during each month of the school 

 year to the instruction of the pupils in the prevention of 

 loss and damage to lives and property through preventable 

 fires. New Jersey has already enacted legislation along 

 these lines, and assurance that the proposition will receive 

 respective hearing in other States is given by the fact that 

 in addition to the Fire Marshals' Association the move- 

 ment has the support of the National Board of Fire 

 Underwriters, the National Association of Credit Men, 



BOYS, GIRLS, AND FIRE 



the United States Bureau of Education, and the Forest 

 Service. 



The part that a movement of this sort may play in 

 reducing losses from forest fires, which now aggregate 

 nearly $20,000,000 a year, is difficult to overestimate. In 

 teaching the children ways and means of preventing for- 

 est fire losses it is also important that they should be 

 taught the reasons why such protection is essential and 

 one of the prime duties of all good citizens. They should 

 be taught in a general way, for instance, the place which 

 forests and forest products play in the life of the Nation 

 and that the protection of the forests, including both 

 virgin timber and cut-over lands, is essential for their 

 perpetuation. If these facts are brought home to them 

 there will be no question as to their readiness to do their 

 share in increasing our forest protection by reducing to 

 a minimum the number of man-caused fires and the dam- 

 age done by them. Co-operation of the children of the 

 country, both now and after they cease to be children, will 

 be one of the important factors in making really effective 

 any comprehensive forest policy. The movement to 

 secure this co-operation through forest fire prevention 

 education throughout the schools is deserving of the 

 heartiest support from educators, newspapers, commercial 

 organizations, timberland owners, foresters, and the 

 public generally. 



AN UNTENABLE POSITION 



D u , 



URING the winter the Washington State Board of 

 "orestry has issued a detailed statement of forest 

 policy which is in the main a reiteration of the principles 

 outlined by it last March. While this statement of policy 

 contains many excellent features, such as emphasis on 

 fire protection, land classification, study of forest taxa- 

 tion, research in forest production and the utilization of 

 forest products, and acquisition of State forests, it is 

 marred by its opposition to the National Forests. This 

 is an unfortunate and untenable position for any State 

 to take. 



As Colonel Greeley stated in commenting on the decla- 

 ration of the board last spring, "The problem of supplying 

 this country with newsprint, lumber, and other forest 

 products is not a State problem or a local problem ; it 

 is just as much a national problem as our railroad trans- 

 portion system and our merchant marine. . . . With 

 so much idle forest land, with all the difficulties which 

 are making private owners slow to take up the business' 

 of growing timber, I do not see how there can be any 

 question that the Federal Government, as well as the 

 State Governments, should go into this enterprise on the 



largest scale of which they are capable. I therefore feel 

 that the policy of extending federal forest holdings, both 

 by purchase and by land exchanges, particularly with a 

 view to acquiring cut-over land capable of growing tim- 

 ber, is absolutely sound and will commend itself to the 

 great majority of people in the West." 



In the 16 years that the National Forests have been 

 under the administration of the Forest Service the policy 

 underlying their creation has found ample justification. 

 In its handling of them the Forest Service has proved 

 that publicly owned forest lands can not only be admin- 

 istered efficiently, but in such a way as to retain their 

 productivity and to contribute to the stability and perma- 

 nence of local communities dependent in whole or in part 

 on lumbering and other wood-using industries. Thanks 

 to the creation of the National Forests, the country 

 has a large body of forest lands under public owner- 

 ship which will become increasingly valuable as a 

 reserve for supplying the needs of the country as the 

 timber in private ownership becomes more and more ex- 

 hausted. Furthermore, they furnish the most conclusive 



