242 



THE FORESTER. 



October, 



many owners of timberland make it a 

 practice to burn over their land every 

 spring soon after the snow melts and 

 before the surface of the ground has be- 

 come so dry that light fires cannot be 

 kept under control. The object of this 

 annual burning is to destroy the layer of 

 leaves, twigs, etc., which has accumu- 

 lated on the ground during the previous 

 year. If the work is done soon after 

 the snow melts, the ground is somewhat 

 moist so that the fire burns slowly and 

 can be kept under perfect control. The 

 season of growth has not fairly started 

 at this time and the fire is less liable to 

 injure the timber than if the burning 

 were done after the sap had begun to run. 

 Most land owners who treat their for- 

 ests in this manner burn the entire area, 

 merely with the view of protecting the 

 standing timber. In Chis they are suc- 

 cessful, but at the same time a large 

 amount of young growth is destroyed. 

 If the owner of an open Pine forest 

 wishes merely to save the standing tim- 

 ber without regard to the future value of 

 the land, no better plan can be recom- 

 mended than to burn the area every year 

 in the manner just described. The ulti- 

 mate effect on the forest is, however, 

 disastrous 



The effect of repeated fires on the 

 productive power of forest land was 

 studied in Southern New Jersey in 1897 

 by Gifford Pinchot, the results of whose 

 investigations have been published by 

 the New Jersey Geological Survey. In 

 this report it is shown that repeated 

 fires, combined with steady cutting of 

 merchantable timber, reduce the forest 

 so completely that the land is practically 

 worthless. Many figures are given to 

 show that burned areas in New Jersey 

 are producing not more than one-sixth 

 of the amount of wood they might have 

 yielded, and that the quality of the pro- 

 duct is vastly inferior to what would 

 have grown on unburned land. It is 

 shown also that even this small amount 

 of timber would not have grown were it 

 not for the marvelous power of the 

 Pitch Pine to resist fire and to sprout 

 after the trees were killed back. 



Careful observers in the Sierras re- 

 port that there were formerly many 

 open parks and meadows which, since 

 the occupancy of the country by the 

 whites, have been covered with forest 

 trees. Knowing as we do that in former 

 times the Indians burned the forest reg- 

 ularly, the inference must be drawn that 

 these openings were caused by fire; in 

 other words, that the forest was gradu- 

 ally becoming less dense in burned sec- 

 tions and, on the edge of the timber 

 belt, was probably gradually retreating 

 from the prairies. It is obvious that if 

 the young growth is constantly de- 

 stroyed by fire, there will be no trees to 

 replace the old specimens which die or 

 are cut down. 



In advocating the annual burning of 

 the California forests the mountaineers 

 are considering only the protection of 

 the standing timber and are ignoring the 

 future production for coming genera- 

 tions. A private owner may be justified 

 in pursuing such a policy, but the Gov- 

 ernment or State must make provision 

 for the future as well as for the present. 

 A measure which destroys the founda- 

 tion of the future forests must not be 

 thought of for a moment on Federal 

 lands, and some different method of 

 protecting the forest from fire must be 

 devised. 



The mountaineers are entirely right in 

 stating that the material, which accumu- 

 lates on the ground where the land is 

 not burned, makes a very hot fire, and 

 that the danger would be lessened if 

 there were areas where there is no in- 

 flammable material. No intelligent man 

 would, however, advocate indiscriminate 

 burning without a force of men to con- 

 trol the fire. 



If burning were resorted to at all as a 

 protection against heavy fires, it should 

 be confined to areas where there is no 

 valuable young growth ; but our belief is 

 that it would be possible to organize a 

 system of forest police which would be 

 effective in protecting the standing tim- 

 ber as well as the young growth. 



H. S. Graves, 

 Washington, D. C. 



