1899. 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



179 



one hundred dollars, without regard to 

 the amount of care used to prevent such 

 damage." 



"As this is an innovation on all pre- 

 cedent it may at first arouse some oppo- 

 sition. But the records of our courts 

 will show the present law almost worth- 

 less, because the words "negligently" 

 or "carelessly" throw on the prosecu- 

 tion the burden of proof, which is almost 

 impossible to secure. Even the sheep 

 herder who fires the woods on purpose 

 always shelters himself behind the asser- 

 tion that the fire escaped in spite of his 

 care. 



Every one should be made absolutely 

 responsible. If any one does not know 

 how to make a fire that is safe, or how 

 to put it out when done with it, let him 

 pay for the lesson or stay out of the 

 woods. There is absolutely no excuse 



for a fire escaping. There is so much 

 rebudding of fires left by others that 

 one should be responsible for that also. 

 There is no hardship in this, for there 

 is everywhere plenty of ground on which 

 it is safe to make a fire, and where it is 

 fit for camping there is plenty of water 

 to extinguish it. It is nearly always pure 

 recklessness, or else is caused by the 

 stupid building of fires so large that they 

 cannot be extinguished. No one of ex- 

 perience ever does this for cooking or for 

 comfort. It is only to look at it. If so, 

 it is worth one hundred dollars 



The fine should be made light so that 

 there wdl be no objection to its enforce- 

 ment. Fifty dollars might be better. It 

 is always easy to find who made or left 

 a fire. Proving the manner in which it 

 was handled is quite another matter. 



T. S. Van Dyke. 



The State and Forestry. 



Being an Address Delivered at the Summer Meeting, Los Angeles, Cal., 1899. 



(NUMBER ONE OF THE SERIES.) 



Although hailing from a city and a 

 valley whose life-blood is in so large a 

 measure dependent on the protection of 

 her contiguous forest reserves; realizing 

 that our shortened water supply to-day 

 is the direct result of the disastrous con- 

 flagrations which last year and three 

 ) ears ago swept through those canons 

 and over those mountains, ruthlessly 

 destroying thousands of acres of those 

 water conserving forests; and standing 

 now in the peril of having the balance 

 of those watersheds stripped of their 

 snow-catching and rain-holding foliage, 

 it would be idle to read to this interested 

 body an essay on the necessity of forest 

 protection. 



Your presence and the splendid pro- 

 gramme provided are evidence enough 

 that you realize that the axe of industry 

 and the torch of ignorance and of care- 

 lessness must be stayed, if our orchards 

 and our homes are to be maintained 

 with the life-giving waters. 



The American Forestry Association, 

 perhaps more than any other body, 

 realizes that America, especially arid 

 America, must awaken and throw off her 

 cloak of carelessness and chance, put 

 on her robes of system and watchfulness, 

 and go forth to protect and propagate 

 before it is everlastingly too late. 



This convention, then, needs not so 

 much the alarm of fire and destruction 

 sounded as that we should formulate a 

 system of protection and propagation in 

 forestry and then awaken the slumbering 

 people by the trumpet of education and 

 legislative action. 



Perhaps every one here will agree 



First. That forests are of vast impor- 

 tance in the economy of nature. 



Second. That forests influence the 

 humidity of the air and the earth (a) by 

 screening the soil from the sun's heat; 

 (/>) by the large surface of the leaves 

 exposed in radiation, and (/) by the 

 copious evaporation from the leaves. 



