258 THE PRINCIPLES OF HANDLING WOODLANDS 



higher than this, it has been attributable either to poor 

 work in piling or to inefficient management in the work 

 of burning. The average cost of both piling and burn- 

 ing should range in coniferous forests between 10 and 50 

 cents, and as the lumbermen become more experienced 

 in performing the work, the cost will be correspondingly 

 reduced. 



In a Montana logging operation shown in Fig. 52, 

 where the brush was burned just after a slight snowfall 

 under particularly favorable conditions, the actual cost of 

 burning was only a fraction of 1 cent per thousand feet. 

 No watching of the piles to see that fire did not run 

 was necessary; it was simply a case of walking from one 

 pile to another and starting the fire. 



In some coniferous forests careful records were kept 

 at the area actually burned over. Where the stands per 

 acre ran from 10,000 to 50,000 feet per acre, the aggre- 

 gate area burned over by the brush fires was found to be 

 approximately 7 per cent, of the total area cut over in the 

 logging operations. Where the brush is burned as the 

 logging proceeds, the percentage of the area burned over 

 is less. 



Disposal of Hardwood Brush. Most of the work 

 of piling and burning brush has been in coniferous for- 

 ests. Of late, however, there has been considerable dis- 

 cussion of burning the slash after logging in hardwood 

 forests. So far as the author is informed, systematic 

 brush burning after hardwood logging has not been con- 

 ducted anywhere on a large scale or in a manner to justify 



