150 REPORT OF ONTARIO GAME No. 52 



the superintendents, lie can issue his orders, make his dispositions and 

 arrangements, receive reports and, where necessary, enroll additional 

 assistance and despatch it to the scene of the fire. Two of the greatest 

 difficulties encountered in dealing with forest areas are thus largely 

 eliminated, observation and communication, and it goes without saying 

 that an organization, numerically inferior, but equipped with means of 

 observation and in constant communication with its chief, will be vastly 

 more effective than one which, although greater in numbers, lacks 

 cohesion and convenient direction. While some additional expense 

 would be entailed in the adoption of such a scheme throughout the for- 

 est area of the Province, especially in the initial installation of the 

 field telephones, it would not appear likely to be very considerable, for 

 undoubtedly under such conditions a staff numerically less in propor- 

 tion to the area patrolled than at present employed would be found suf- 

 ficient efficiently to discharge the duties. It must be remembered that 

 while already the Province is expending great sums annually on ranging 

 the forests, these sums will be bound to increase very rapidly as fur- 

 ther tracts of forest area are rendered accessible through the advent 

 of new railroads, and, consequently, that an additional present expendi- 

 ture Tvhieh will tend to reduce the charges under this head in the future 

 cannot but be fully justified. There can be no doubt but that in the 

 Province the difficulties of observation and communication have played 

 a large part in enhancing the destruction wrought by fire in the past. 

 Rangers, by long days' journeys out of touch with their chief, have re- 

 mained unconscious of fires starting and gathering leeway at, perhaps, 

 no great distance from their camps, because, surrounded by forests and 

 with no facilities for observation provided for them, they were unable 

 to see, and then, when they became aware of the conflagration, it was 

 already long past the poAver of two men to cope with, while the very 

 -distance to be travelled precluded the possibility of obtaining sufficient 

 help in time. Although a pair of energetic men reaching a fire before it 

 has attained great proportions can often extinguish it, or, at least, con- 

 fine the extent of its spread, it wonld seem that, in many cases, where 

 facilities for observation are not provided, and where the men are 

 separated by long distances from their chief, as also from assistance, 

 their presence in the Avoods as fire rangers, pure and simple, is almost, 

 if not quite, useless. Means of observation and rapid communication 

 are and ever will remain prime factors in the protection of the forests 

 from fire, and it would indeed appear that the time has come when at 

 whatever expense Ontario's fire ranging service should be equipped and 

 organized in such a way as to facilitate the efficient discharge of its 

 duties at all times and in all places under adequate direction and con- 

 trol. 



Having regard to security of the forests from fires various States 

 of the Union have enacted a measure requiring the lopping of branches 

 from all timber felled. Except in seasons of prolonged drought the bed 



