FOREST GUIDES DEPARTMENT 



SOLAN L. PARKES, CHIEF FOREST GUIDE, EDITOR 



The Editor recommends that Forest Guide Troops and also Boy Scouts, who are not 

 yet organized as Forest Guides, read this department carefully every month; study the 

 advice and the information it gives, and discuss it so it will be thoroughly understood. 

 If any further information is desired write to the Editor. 



FOREST Guides should know what a forest 

 is. They should be able to identify all of 

 the trees not only in the woods, but along 

 the roads and in the streets of towns and cities. 

 They should also know about forest plants and 

 animals, and everything else in relation to the 

 forests. 



This is a big order for any boy but not an 

 impossible one. It will require both study and 

 actual experience in the forest. It will not come 

 quickly, but slowly and surely. There is much 

 to learn. 



What a forest is is well and briefly told by 

 Professor J. S. Illick, one of the best known for- 

 esters in the country, who says : 



"A forest is a complex community of living 

 things. It is more than a mere collection of 

 trees, for associated with the trees are many 

 other plants and animals, all of which live in 

 close relationship with one another. 



"There is a right and wrong way for Forest 

 Guides to find out what a forest really is. Many 

 hours may be spent in schoolrooms, libraries, 

 and parlors studying about the forest and its 

 inhabitants. Such a method has some good 

 points, but there is a better way. The right 

 way to become acquainted with the inhabitants 

 of forests consists in getting ready, going out, 

 hiking right into them, and* there beginning a 

 first-hand acquaintance with the many and in- 

 teresting members of which it is made up. 



"Do not plan to become acquainted with all 

 the forest inhabitants on the first trip for there 

 are too many of them. Just as it is impossible 

 to become acquainted with all the inhabitants 

 of a city in a single day, so it is beyond the realm 

 of the possible to learn to know all of the 

 many members of the forest on a single hike. 



"A good plan for the first hike to the forest 

 is to list or make a census of all the different 

 groups or classes of plants and animals which 

 you may observe, that is, make no special at- 

 tempt to name the individuals. This may be 

 done by making a table of two columns, the one 

 with the heading Plants and the other Animals, 

 and listing under each all the living things 

 observed. Only two columns are required, for 

 all living things are either plants or animals." 



THE FOREST FIRE SEASON 



This is the season of forest fires and the For- 

 est Guides will find much to do in protecting the 

 forests from fire and fighting those which start. 

 The Guides should know how to do both. Pro- 

 fessor Illick makes the following suggestions : 



i. Do not start a forest fire. 



2. Tell all your companions about the damage which 

 forest fires do. 



3. Report all forest fires to the nearest forest officer. 



4. Learn how to fight forest fires, and take a hand in 

 putting them out. 



5. Plant forest trees in vacant corners, waste places, 

 abandoned fields, on barren mountain slopes and other 

 unoccupied forest land. 



6. Destroy insects which injure and kill forest trees. 



7. Destroy rots, blight, and other fungous foes of 

 the forest. 



8. Help clean up the forest by using the dead wood 

 found lying on the forest floor. 



9. Cut out only undesirable trees and guard the more 

 valuable ones. 



HOW FOREST FIRES START 



Someone may have told you that lightning 

 causes many forest fires or that spontaneous 

 combustion may furnish the spark which starts 

 the fires on their mission of destruction. In 

 order that we may get at the very bottom of this 

 important subject, and not be misinformed, let 

 us take advantage of the results of a careful 



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