TIME OF DAY FOR FIRING TRACES. 435 



firing operation an easy matter. If at certain points the bed of 

 the watercourse is overgrown with grass, such grass must also be 

 cut early in the season, spread out evenly and fired as soon as it is 

 inflammable. 



Only one more case of internal traces, viz., that in which the 

 grass is to be cleared on both sides of a much frequented road, 

 remains to be considered. The firing of the grass on the wind- 

 ward side of the road falls under one of the cases discussed in the 

 preceding paragraph, so that we are concerned here only with the 

 part of the trace to leeward of the road. It is evident that the 

 firing of this part of the trace must offer no little difficulty if the 

 grass on it does not dry before the adjoining protected grass. The 

 only w r ay to overcome this difficulty is to clear early in the season 

 a wide guide line, form the cushion of cut grass carefully, beating 

 down if necessary the standing grass on which it is to be laid, and 

 firing this cushion before, if possible just before, the grass in the 

 forest becomes inflammable. By this means the guide line will 

 be sufficiently widened to prevent any risk at the second firing, 

 which should be undertaken as soon as most of the remaining grass 

 is in a condition to burn. It will generally be possible and advan- 

 tageous to effect the first firing of the trace on the windward side 

 of the road simultaneously with this second firing of the lee side, 

 thus 'combining the two operations into a single one and economising 

 both time and money. 



From what precedes it will have been observed how essential 

 to the success of fire-conservancy the proper choice of the time for 

 firing the various traces in a forest is and on how many changeful 

 circumstances, that require to be carefully and intelligently noted 

 and studied, that choice depends. How often do we not read, in 

 the Annual Progress Reports of our Forest Department, of largo 

 conflagrations due solely to fire having got out of control and 

 spread away into the forest from a trace that was being cleared. 

 Most of these conflagrations might have been avoided had the traces 

 been fired at the right time. It is evident that the less experienced 

 and steady, and the less inured to face a high-blazing mass of grass 

 the fire-tracers are, the greater is the necessity for care and judg- 

 ment in choosing the right time for firing. 



4. Time of day for firing, 



The time of day during which to fire-trace will depend on the 

 season of the year, the nature of the Cold and Hot weather in the 

 locality, and the absolute and relative condition of the grass in 



