424 



Canadian Forestry Journal, March, ipi6. 



seen blazoned in the newspapers 

 and on the bill boards as being good 

 for pale people. It is simply a case 

 of the efficacy of affirmation and re- 

 iteration. 



I spent some time ten years ago 

 on a prairie ranch in a dry season 

 and I may say that the affirmation 

 and the reiteration on the ranch re- 

 garding care with fire rapidly de- 

 veloped in me a habit of carefully 

 extinguishing matches and cigars 

 which persists to-day as strongly as 

 it was then. I automatically extin- 

 guish matches, cigars. The habit is 

 such that I really do the act with- 

 out any conscious thought. 



Match Box Warnings. 

 As practically all fires originate 

 in the final analysis from matches 

 we decided it would be good policy 

 to reach the people who use matches 

 by having a fire warning notice put 

 on the match boxes. All the match 

 companies in Canada : The Eddy 

 Company, Hull ; the Canadian 

 Match Co., of Drummondville, Que. ; 

 the Dominion Match Co., of Deser- 

 onto, Ont. ; the Eureka Match Com- 

 pany of Halifax, very promptly act- 

 ed on our suggestion and the result 

 is that every person who uses 

 matches is bombarded by the affir- 

 mation and reiteration of the fact 

 that he should save the forest by 

 being careful to extinguish burning 

 matches. There is also a notation 

 that the notice is printed at the re- 

 quest of the Dominion Government. 

 This, I believe, gives additional 

 weight to the warning and at the 

 same time constitutes a recognition 

 on the part of the Government that 

 the Company is co-operating with 

 the Government in an important 

 campaign. I should add that the 

 match companies made the neces- 

 sary label changes entirely at their 

 own expense. 



Warning Sportsmen. 



We recognized that large num- 

 bers of people annually go hunting 

 in the -vroods and that it was desir- 



able to specially educate them in re- 

 gard to fire. So we asked the 

 Dominion Cartridge Co., and the 

 Remington Arms-Union Metallic 

 Co. — the two large ammunition com- 

 panies of Canada to insert a fire no- 

 tice in their shell boxes. As in the 

 case of the matches the reply was 

 favorable and the result is that to- 

 day every box of shells issued by 

 these companies contains an effec- 

 tive fire notice. No hunter can get 

 away from the warning. Every time 

 he opens a box of shells he finds a 

 warning to be careful in regard to 

 fire. The warning is thus given at 

 the psychological moment. More- 

 over, the warning is worded to 

 show him that, as a hunter he has a 

 real personal interest in helping pro- 

 tect the forest. 



Notices in Tents. 



Not only hunters but also many 

 others go into the woods and camp 

 in tents so we decided tents would 

 be a good medium of education. The 

 result is that nearly all the tents 

 manufactured in Canada to-day have 

 a fire-warning notice sewn into 

 them. Every time a man awakens 

 in the morning this warning is star- 

 ing him in the face. Every time he 

 enters the tent the notice reiterates 

 the fact that he must be careful in 

 regard to fire. 



Notices on Axes. 

 The next person we thought 

 might cause forest fires was the man 

 who works in the woods with an. 

 axe. We offered to supply a firm 

 label to the Walters Axe Company 

 of Hull and the Company very 

 promptly agreed to stick them on 

 their axes. The label contains a 

 picture of a forest fire and the fol- 

 lowing legend : 



"No work for the Axeman 



If the forests are destro3^ed 

 by fire, — save them by extin- 

 guishing completely camp-fires, 

 cigar, cigarette butts and live 

 ashes of pipes." 



