156 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



40 per cent, is still wasted, nor is it the worst. These 

 choppings, with their continuous piles of tinder, are 

 ready to flash into flame from the spark of a match, and 

 when conditions are right they burn with a heat so 

 intense it reaches to adjoining green trees, and they, 

 burning like torches, create a whirlwind that, with 

 the roar of an avalanche, twists the tops from the 

 trunks. 



As before stated, the application of any method of 

 forest perpetuation adapted to eastern woods is im- 

 possible, yet most of the country where these forests 

 grow, is valuable only for a timber crop, and could it 

 be reseeded with fir and spruce when cut, and fire 

 kept out, at the end of fifty years there could be har- 

 vested a second crop of 50,000 to 100,000 feet per 

 acre. The things necessary to accomplish that end 

 appear at present almost impossible. They are : 



First, that all timber growing on the land be cut. 



Second, that all timber be removed. 



Third, that all left be burned. 



Fourth, that the seed, of the timber wanted, be 

 sowed in the ashes. 



After this is done, the danger of fire is so small it 

 need not be considered. 



Our seasons are sometimes divided, by strangers, 

 into two, the wet season and the month of August. 

 Vegetation, therefore, is of very rapid growth, and 

 before another August, the ground would be too well 

 covered to become dry, therefore no fires would run. 



To teach the people to utilize the product of our 

 forest, so as to clear the land of all things of value, 

 is one of the great duties of those who are anxious to 

 see our forests perpetuated. The fir tops of our 

 woods are sound, and sound knotted, and more durable 

 for mining timber and railway ties than are the hearts 



