470 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



side, they have from afar witnessed the smoke columns 

 towering over an orgy of the Demon, or they have trav- 

 eled suflicienty to see in old fire scars that, once turned 

 loose, fire will ruin, not alone economic values, but 

 scenic values as well. 



It is another fellow that does the damage. And so I 

 told Corey that night we talked. It is the man insensible 

 to beauty who lives with it all the time and never reacts 

 to its stimulus that cannot see more in a green timbered 

 hillside than in a row of charred stubs. He is of two 

 types. The first of which is the man who has no sense 

 of the beautiful whatever and the second is the man who 

 has so often beheld beauty that he is surfeited with it all. 

 Either are to be pitied, but pity will not excuse their many 

 crimes against beauty through not being careful with fire. 



Then there is another recreation man who is much 

 more innocently dangerous 

 than the man who does not 

 care for beauty. He is the 

 fellow who loves all out- 

 door.s for he is out in it for 

 the first time. But he does 

 not yet know how to handle 

 himself in the hills and has 

 not yet come to know the 

 work of the Demon. He is 

 "the man who doesn't know 

 it is loaded." He is always 

 warned before he gets on the 

 camp areas but he goes se- 

 renely along with the idea 

 somewhere in his mind that 

 while it happened to others 

 it will never happen to him, 

 for he is a "regular whizz" 

 as an outdoor man. He will 

 sooner or later learn not to 

 fool with fire but it may 



FOREST SERVICE CAMP FIREPL.\CE 



landscape man sees the whole loss from the human use 

 side of the problem. The landscape is no longer habi- 

 table and it no longer can serve human beings and for 

 that reason he most swiftly condemns the man who 

 comes to the forest and through the grossest careless- 

 ness turns loose the fire fiend. 



Beauty is one thing of great value which cannot be 

 dissipated through proper use. The pleasurable reac- 

 tions experienced from an out'.ook when viewed by one 

 person detracts from that scenic panorama not a whit 

 more than when the same is looked upon by thousands. 

 The laughing gurgle of the stream may be heard by five 

 or fifty and still have the same cheery or mysterious 

 quality about it. In fact the one big commodity which 

 can be used time after time without taking anything oflf 

 of or out of the ground is scenery. Scenic qualities have 



been said to be the only 

 things which one could sell 

 time after time and still keep. 

 But misuse will soon dis- 

 sipate scenic beauty and its 

 values. Poorly constructed 

 developments, ill-a d v i s e d 

 ])lanning, grotesque and de- 

 formed structures all soon 

 dispel beauty in a scene and 

 supplant it with unsightli- 

 ness. But greatest of all de- 

 stroyers is fire. For while 

 one person can make one 

 little park a thing which is 

 no more beautiful by putting 

 up a cast iron or other inap- 

 propriate structure, it spoils 

 only that one small section. 

 In contrast, one foolish, 

 thoughtless, careless individ- 

 ual by not putting out the 



... . .^ few dollars invested in one of these simple structures may 



cost much m labor, materials, ^^^^ thousands of dollars worth of lumber and great beauty "ttle glow left m a match 



supplies and last, but not values. They are always located so no fire can get away from when he throws it away 



1 . , . Ti them if at all properly handled and thus help protect the Forests. , . , ;, 



least, beauty. He is a men- turns loose a mighty evil 



ace equal to the man who never will care. power which at almost one breath sweeps everything of 



Can you conceive of the fierceness of the loathing beauty out of existence in hundreds, often thousands, of 



which the painter of a beautiful canvas might entertain acres of ground. 



against a thoughtless amateur dabbler who considered -'^"d so we talked of this that night. Of the coming 



himself a judge of art and who in pointing out some ^i the people to the forests, of the many, many good 



point of technique smeared the fresh paint which after campers and woodsmen, of the great values which the 



many days of work had just taken final form under the whole population receives from coming into forest lands, 



mdster hand? If you can you may have- some idea of ''"^ "^^'^ ^ ^" ^^ ^^^^^'^ ^ the risk some take in utterly 



the real personal feeling the landscape man might enter- '"'"^ ^^'"""Sh carelessness the very thing which ^it- 



tain against the thoughtless lout who ruins a whole natu- 

 ral beauty composition with a cigarette stub not extin- 

 guished before he throws it away. The whole loss from 

 all standpoints affects the artist makeup of the landscape 

 architect, but he reacts more than anyone else to the loss 

 in bc'uity. 



The entire loss in beauty may be sensed by many, the 

 difYcrtiit factors may be reckoned by a few, but the 



tracts them to the spot. The fallacy of the thing is 

 appalling. It is like killing this beauty because it is so 

 dearly loved. Almost in wondering amazement that peo- 

 ple would do such a thing as risk that beauty, the question 

 came, "Why do they do it?" And as I answered my very 

 dear friend that night, I must say I cannot for the life of 

 me see why the recreation seeker will ever take the slight- 

 est chance of placing his own playground in jeopardy of 

 the holocaust. 



