068 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



"One of the conditions inserted 

 in every Government timber-sale con- 

 tract/' replies Mr. Hodge, "is to the 

 effect that the brush, limbs and other 

 debris caused by lumbering operations 

 shall be piled in such a way that it can 

 be burned when the logs have been re- 

 moved from the area." Mr. Hoxie 

 further says: "Milling operations in 

 practical forestry, would consist of 

 simply a harvest of the ripe and rha- 

 ture timber and cleaning thereafter by 

 the use of the servant fire." "It would 

 be difficult," returns Mr. Hodge, "to 

 summarize the Government policy more 

 accurately"* 



With regard to Mr. Hoxie's state- 

 ment that practical men do not approve 

 of the protective methods employed by 

 the Government, Mr. Hodge writes as 

 follows : 



"This is very far from being the case. The 

 most important lumbermen of the state arc 

 in complete accord with the Government pol- 

 icy (which is also the policy of this office), 

 and some of them whose holdings are inter- 

 mingled with those of the Government turn 

 over the matter of fire protection to the Gov- 

 ernment, simply paying the cost of patrol 

 and fire fighting according to their acreage, 

 t ractically all of the big lumbermen have 

 some of their employes appointed state fire 

 wardens. These men have power to arrest 

 for violations of the state fire laws, to sum- 

 mon assistance in fire fighting, and to issue 

 permits to burn dangerous areas under such 

 restrictions as will prevent the escape of the 

 fire." 



Frank H. Short, of Fresno, the well- 

 known attorney for power companies 

 in California, and the confessed oppo- 

 nent of Federal control over natural 

 resources, has recently come forward 

 as one representative of the extensive 

 interests which are attacking the spe- 

 cific methods of conservation while 

 commending it in general terms. In a 

 communication addressed to the Presi- 

 dent of the California Board of Fores- 

 try, and printed in the San Francisco 

 Chronicle for October 2, Judge Short 

 even goes so far as to recommend, 

 among other things, "intelligent back- 



*Further details of this policy may be 

 found in the current installment of Mr. 

 Henry Graves' discussion of "The Protec- 

 tion of Forests from Fire." Ed. 



firing and other methods of removing 

 inflammable material." Does Judge 

 Short know what back-firing is, or is 

 he simply helping out his allies by bor- 

 rowing their method of talking at ran- 

 dom ? 



Another active participant in the or- 

 ganized assault is T. B. Walker, of 

 Minneapolis, whose holdings in Cali- 

 fornia embrace some 2,000,000 acres, 

 with a stand of not less than 40,000,- 

 000,000 feet valued at $80,000,000, and 

 who is not cutting his timber, but keep- 

 ing it locked up most effiectively. Mr. 

 Walker's holdings are equal to one- 

 half of the total stand of timber owned 

 by the Federal Government in the 

 State of California. 



The San Francisco Chronicle pub- 

 lished on August 17 a further install- 

 ment of the propaganda devoted to the 

 spread of this advanced doctrine that 

 the way to conserve forests is to protect 

 the standing timber for speculative 

 advances by burning up the young 

 growth, and leave the future of the 

 forest, after the profits have been 

 pocketed, to the care of any agency, 

 public or private, that may like the 

 looks of the investment. 



The absurdity and mischievousness 

 of this doctrine apparently did not 

 prevent its gaining the endorsement of 

 Secretary Ballinger, who is quoted in 

 the Washington Evening Star of Aug- 

 ust 25 as having said : "We may find it 

 necessary to revert to the old Indian 

 method of burning over the forests an- 

 nually at seasonable periods." 



If this sort of thing were the alter- 

 native of public protection of forests 

 from fire, the life of the forests in 

 private lands would be brief indeed. 



But the state forester of California, 

 G. M. Homans, knew very well what 

 was going on, and he was watchful. In 

 the Sacramento Union of August 22 

 he entered prompt and vigorous pro- 

 test against the theory put forward by 

 these foresters of the counting-house. 

 His communication is as follows : 



In one of the San Francisco dailies of 

 August 17, an editorial appeared attacking 

 the practice of patroling and preventing 

 forest fires from raging through the for- 

 ested lands of the countrv. The article 



