260 HANDBOOK OF NATURE STUDY 



Can forest fires be prevented ? Many states have passed 

 laws to prevent forest and prairie fires, and are making an 

 earnest effort to enforce them j but that it is difficult to 

 punish offenders who commit crimes fifty or a hundred 

 miles from the nearest settlement is easily appreciated. 

 The writer is forced to believe that, unless all the states 

 concerned speedily enter upon the work of a forest adminis- 

 tration as scientific and as effective as that of the German 

 States, Austria, and France, these terrible fires will con- 

 tinue to burn as long as there are forests left to feed them. 



The teacher should impress upon the pupils that any 

 man or boy who carelessly leaves a camp fire burning en- 

 dangers human life and property, is not worthy to be a free 

 citizen in a free state, but should be treated as a criminal 

 or as insane. 



See John Muir, The American Forests, Atlantic Monthly, August, 

 1897. 



58. Value and Use of Pine Lumber. 



MATERIAL : Pieces of pine wood and hard wood ; rosin ; a bottle 

 of turpentine ; a resinous piece of pine. If practicable, the pupils 

 should also visit a sawmill and a lumber yard. 



OUTLINE FOR LESSON 



1. Nearly all the lumber used in the building of houses, 

 barns, factories, sidewalks, etc., in the prairie states came 

 from the pineries. The trees are cut in winter, hauled to 

 the banks of streams on sleighs, and in spring they are 

 floated down to the sawmill, and cut into lumber, which is 

 distributed by the railroads over the whole country. The 

 operation of logging, booming, and rafting should be de- 

 scribed by the teacher, and illustrated by pictures procured 

 from magazines or other sources. 



