FOREST FIRES. 279 



but, as has been shown, the destruction of trees is only a 

 small part of the real damage caused by forest fires. Still 

 the railroads cannot be held responsible under the law for 

 the prospective damage represented by a partial or entire 

 destruction of the plant-producing capacity of soil which they 

 have burned ; nor can they well be made to pay for the loss 

 of confidence in forest property which such fires cause. Such 

 damages can neither be estimated nor collected. Fires set by 

 locomotives can, however, be largely prevented by the gen- 

 eral adoption of some efiectual spark-arrester. 



It is true that such a contrivance has not yet been per- 

 fected to the entire satisfaction of railroad experts ; but if 

 the railroads were compelled to adopt some of the existing 

 patents, American ingenuity and mechanical skill can be 

 depended on to perfect them. 



It is a case where supply will quickly follow the demand. 

 As a first step, then, towards checking the spread of forest 

 fires, the legislature should compel all railroad corporations 

 operating within the State, to provide their locomotives with 

 spark-consumers. Such appliances are in general use in 

 Europe, and locomotives should not be longer operated with- 

 out them in this State. 



One of the principal dangers to the forest, and more es- 

 pecially to the coniferous forest, which we in Massachusetts, 

 when we increase our lumbering operations, shall soon learn to 

 dread more generally than at present, comes from the custom 

 of leaving scattered about the ground, the tops and branches of 

 the trees cut down during the winter. This debris becomes, 

 by the middle of the following summer, as dry as tinder, 

 and furnishes the very best material to feed a fire started in 

 the woods. Any enactment intended to prevent forest fires 

 should contain a provision compelling, under penalty of fine, 

 the collection and careful burnino; during the winter in which 

 the trees are cut, of all parts of them not actually carried 

 from the ground. The possibility of successfully dealing 

 with persons carelessly setting fire to forests, is more diffi- 

 cult and more remote. Such persons rarely confess their 

 carelessness, and still find protection in public indifference. 



But until public sentiment makes it possible to convict a 

 person setting cai'dessly or wantonly a forest fire, and to 



