EXHAUSTION OF THE FOREST. 



253 



when it is fanned by the wind, Fig. 105. Even these ground fires 

 do incalculable damage to seeds and seedlings, and the safest plan is 

 to put out every fire no matter how small. 



Altho it is true that the loss of a forest is not irremediable be- 

 cause vegetation usually begins again at once, Fig. 106, yet the actual 

 damage is almost incalculable. 

 The tract may lie year after 

 year, covered with only worth- 

 less weeds and bushes, and if 

 hilly, the region at once begins 

 to be eroded by the rains. 



After the fire, may come 

 high winds that blow down the 

 trunks of the trees, preparing 

 material for another fire, Fig. 

 107. 



The statistics of the actual 

 annual money loss of the tim- 

 ber burned in the United States 

 are not gathered. In 1880 

 Professor Sargent collected 

 much information, and in the 

 census of that year (10th Cen- 

 sus, Vol. IX) reported 10,000,- 

 000 acres burned that year at 

 a value of $25,000,000. 



In 1891, the Division of 

 Forestry collected authentic 

 records of 12,000,000 acres 

 burned over in a single year, 

 at an estimated value of $50,- 

 000,000. 



In the Adironacks in the 

 spring of 1903, an unprecedent- 

 edly dry season, fire after fire caused a direct loss of about $3,500,000. 



In 1902, a fire on the dividing line between Washington and Ore- 

 gon destroyed property amounting to $12,000,000. Within compara- 

 tively recent years, the Pacific Coast states have lost over $100,000,- 

 000 worth of timber by fire alone. 



Fig. 106. Burned Forest of Eng-elmann 

 Spruce. Foreground, Lodgepole Pine Com- 

 ing- in. U. S. Forest Service. 



