CHAPTER XIII 



Three-quarters of the Way 



The first step — elimination of the forest-fire menace. 



We cannot afford to restrict our consumption of 

 wood. What is the alternative? The right course 

 — the only remaining plan to pursue — is to grow- 

 more trees. The chief of all impediments to forest 

 growing is the forest fire. Every year forest fires 

 devastate some eight or ten million acres of land. 

 Incidentally, they destroy enough good timber to 

 build a row of five-room frame houses spaced one 

 hundred feet apart on both sides of a highway from 

 New York to Chicago. But the mere destruction of 

 existing trees is by no means the worst feature. 

 When fires re-occur periodically on the same land, 

 finally even the soil humus disappears and every 

 chance for natural reproduction is thwarted. 



Effective fire protection, according to a recent In- 

 vestigation undertaken by our Federal Forest Serv- 

 ice, is therefore not only the first necessary step, but 

 actually comprises three-quarters of all that is 

 99 



