Canadian Forestry Journal, August, ipij. 



155 



all agree that fire protection is our 

 crying need. We should, therefore, 

 apply it in every imaginable and 

 sane form. 



A Clean Forest Floor. 



France and Germany have perfect 

 fire protection, or "fire proof" for- 

 ests because of the cleanliness of the 

 forest floor, accessibility to every 

 part and the system of fire guards 

 or open lanes. 



To undertake a cleaning of our 

 forest floors would cost as much as 

 the -commercial value of the timber 

 lands for the under bush, dead falls 

 and dry brush are so thick that an 

 ordinary "bush whacker" will rare- 

 ly exceed one mile an hour walking 

 without a pack in the 'forest prime- 

 val.' Consider then how inflamma- 

 ble this under brush becomes in dry 

 weather and how important it is — 

 and how difficult — to check a fire 

 that once gets a start therein. 



If it is too costly to clean our 

 forest floors there seems to be no 

 economical reason why the other 

 two European methods, viz., trans- 

 portation facilities and fire guards, 

 should not be employed at once in 

 whatever measure we can, especially 

 as the benefits sought begin to be 

 realized with the expenditure of the 

 first dollar, growing further in pro- 

 portion to the amount expended and 

 remaining as an asset that requires 

 very little maintenance. 



Mr. R. H. Campbell, in a recent 

 number of the Canadian Forestry 

 Journal has so succinctly and force- 

 fully directed attention to the urgent 

 need of transportation facilities and 

 means of rapid communication with- 

 in the forest that nothing further 

 need be said on the subject except 

 to ask any member who has not read 

 Mr. Campbell's article on "A Fire 

 Proof Forest" to do so at the first 

 opportunity. 



The ciuestion of establishing fire 

 guards in our forests is not new nor 

 dead, but was never thoroughly 



awakened. Mr. C. R. Coutlee, C.E., 

 (member Conservation Committee, 

 Can. Soc. C. E.), made one or two 

 spasmodic attempts to awaken the 

 interest of engineers on the subject 

 of the urgency of cutting lanes 

 through the forest so that bush fires 

 once started could not go on licking 

 up miles of timber 'ad infinitum.' 

 Our haphazard method of opening 

 up the country leaves enormous 

 areas of forest with no fire cut-off 

 except that offered by natural geo- 

 graphical conditions, which in Que- 

 bec — thanks to nature's lavish scat- 

 tering of lakes, — have on scores of 

 occasions saved the Province from 

 such disasters as the Porcupine fire 

 though not from devastating fires 

 that have destroyed in a couple of 

 days two or three hundred square 

 miles of virgin forest. 



Necessity of Lanes. 



Taking advantage of geographical 

 features, with a judicious selection 

 of fertile strips, lanes can be cleared 

 from lake to lake or lake to river, 

 etc., and with government co-opera- 

 tion these strips, which should be 

 about a mile .wide can provide ex- 

 cellent farms which if found advisa- 

 ble could be owned by the limit 

 owner, thus assuring care in burning 

 of slash. 



This system of farm lanes could 

 be constantly extended gaining in 

 efficienc}^ Nor would the system be 

 dependent upon the completion of 

 any elaborate scheme before its ob- 

 jects become effective, for each 

 dollar spent in the work becomes 

 immediately not only protective in 

 sylviculture but productive in agri- 

 culture, furnishing products so es- 

 sential in lumbering operations. The 

 highways that must obviously be 

 developed along these lanes would 

 extend facilities of movement and 

 transportation the lack of which is 

 one great cause of retardation in 

 adopting the more progressive and 

 intensive methods of European 

 forestry. 



