382 



Canadian Forestry Journal, February, ipi6. 



pensive for the measure of protec- 

 tion it gives and I think the only 

 solution" will be in brush piling and 

 burning. The cost of this will be 

 very little more than for simple lop- 

 ping as the brush has to be piled in 

 any case, and the protection will be 

 absolute. In my experience the 

 great majority of fires originate in 

 slashings and such fires cause the 

 most damage and are the hardest to 

 fight. If all woods operators are 

 required to dispose of their slash it 

 will be no hardship as it will put all 

 on the same basis and the cost will 

 be added to the finished product. 



Would a farmer set fire to his 

 wheat crop? What a question! 

 Would he burn his seed wheat for 

 years to come? Would he let his 

 emplovees smoke if it endangered 

 his crop? Would he allow hunters, 

 fishermen and campers to freely 

 travel over his land, making fires 

 and scattering lighted tobacco from 

 their pipes? Would he let his 

 neighbor light bonfires where the 

 fire would spread to his standing- 

 grain? He would not. Is he wiser, 

 more practical, more hard-headed^ 

 than the lumberman? Is he a keen- 

 er business man? You will say no. 

 But I can point to dozens of men 

 whose bread and butter depend on 

 their supply of raw material from 

 the forest who do just such things 

 and worse. I could multiply in- 

 stances enough to make a volume. 



Fire protection is not forestry any 

 more than it is logging or milling, 

 but is the foundation, the absolute 

 essential of all these. Without it. 

 they cannot exist. If we are not 

 prepared to protect our forest, in 

 heaven's name, as practical men let 

 us cut them down and use them up 

 before they are burnt. 



Fire protection is not a matter of 

 cost, it must be done as cheaply as 

 possible but it must be done at any 

 cost. 



The Interest of Stock-holders. 



Remember, in Canada we are not 

 dealing with privately-owned for- 



ests but with government owned 

 ones ; they are the property of the 

 people ; every man, woman and 

 child has a direct interest in them 

 which extends to generations yet un- 

 born. It is the duty of our public 

 servants to see that they are pro- 

 tected and that the licensees, who 

 are but tenants, should not be al- 

 lowed to shirk their responsibilities. 

 Quebec is the only province in Eas- 

 tern Canada to fully realize this and 

 its fine of $5.00 per square mile for 

 the licensee who fails to properly 

 protect his limits has done much 

 good. The average man does not 

 realize how closely fire protection 

 touches him. Every stock-holder of 

 timber-owning- companies should 

 take an interest in fire-protection 

 and see that his directors are taking 

 care of their forests. Bond-holders 

 are vitally interested, as a good part 

 of their security may be wiped out 

 in one large fire. Banks should not 

 loan money on timber limits as col- 

 lateral until they have investigated 

 the fire prevention provided by the 

 borrower. Don't trust any concern 

 which does its own fire protection, 

 unless it is done by a department 

 which has no other duties. The tim- 

 berlands departments have too many 

 other duties, they have men they 

 want to "take care of" from one sea- 

 son to the next, from the end of the 

 drive to the beginning of the fall 

 cut. They leave their patrol to 

 cache-keepers, dam-keepers, and if 

 there is any exploring, any repairing 

 or other odd jobs, fire rangers are 

 taken off to do them. Then too it 

 runs up the logging cost and you all 

 know what a terrible thing that is. 

 Fire protection is a business by it- 

 self. It requires special knowledge, 

 special trainiirg and special tools and 

 methods and the man who is killed 

 in logging or driving is not neces- 

 sarily a good fire discoverer or fight- 

 er, rather the reverse. The same 

 thing applies to railroad fire-fighting 

 which is usually left to section 

 crews. These men have other work 

 to do and many of them do not take 



