FIRE 165 



spirit. It is a true statement, but a little too condensed, too hard to follow, 

 perhaps, for a really good slogan. IT'S BAD LUCK TO SET THE WOODS AFIRE is 

 another slogan recently suggested by John P. Shea, a psychologist, speaking 

 before the Southern Society of Philosophy and Psychology, at Chapel Hill, 

 N. C. This has possibilities 



Dr. Shea has made a special study for the Forest Service of man-made 

 forest fires the country over. He finds an obscure, deep-seated feeling on 

 the part of many that to set the woods afire cleans things up for a new 

 start, puts down diseases and jungle menaces, and in general changes one's 

 luck. "Popular attitudes, habits, folkways, morals, and resentments," wrote 

 a reporter for Science Service, compressing the findings, last April, "are 

 mainly responsible for the burning each year of 'enough timber to build 

 a row of five-room frame houses 100 feet apart from New York to Atlanta.' " 

 The investigators (James W. Curtis of Kentucky, and Harold F. Kaufman of 

 Missouri collaborated) suggest six points of appeal: 



1 . Legal. Stop burning the forests or you will be prosecuted. 



2. Economic. Better forests mean more jobs. 



3. Aesthetic. Why destroy beauty? 



4. Sentimental. Don't destroy the wildwood habitats of birds and 



beasts and the outdoor haunts for children. 



5. Sports and recreation. Keep fire out of the forests and enjoy better 



hunting, fishing, and recreation. 



6. Bad luck. Finally, inculcate manufactured superstitions to battle 



against disastrous ones causing fire setting. 



"Could taboos be inculcated?" Dr. Shea asked his colleagues at the 

 meeting. "Would ballads and folk songs, if such could be made to order, 

 prove effective in correcting unsocial behavior patterns that are proving 

 suicidal to the people of the South?" 



BAD LUCK it is, indeed, when forests, grassland, or muckbeds burn; and the 

 bad luck continues for years on end. A whole complex of natural factors is 

 thrown with each successive burn still further out of joint. When over- 

 drainage in the Florida Everglades dried muck soil to powder, and the 

 powder was fired, and a million acres of it burned for weeks on end in the 



