Canadian Forestry Journal. July, ipi6. 



627 



Turning Slash into Dollars 



Utilizing Refuse of Logging Operations for Fuel, Ashes 

 and Pulp would Bring Riddance of Fire Problem 



By Thomas B. IVyinan, 

 Secretary-Forester of the Northern Forest Protective Association, 



Munising, Mich igan 



paper requires the 

 two conceptions : 

 of the general term 

 the second, the idea 

 a problem connected 

 of slash from 



The title of thi 

 consideration of 

 the one that 

 "Slash,"; and 

 that there is 

 with the presence 

 forest operations. 



Slash- -in the broadest sense of 

 the word, means the refuse from the 

 harvesting of timber, and includes 

 tops, branches, hollow butts, and all 

 such material as is commonly left 

 after taking out the so-called Mer- 

 chantable Timber. 



Slash may be created by clear cut- 

 ting operations, in which all mer- 

 chantable timber is removed, or 

 through the selection system of 

 operating, by which only certain 

 species or certain sizes are utilized. 

 In the first case, nothing is left upon 

 the timbered area except Slash, un- 

 less perchance, the natural deposit 

 of seed from standing timber has re- 

 sulted in the establishment of a 

 seedling growth. Usually, how- 

 ever, such a growth is entirely un- 

 noticed by the lumbermen, and 

 entirely ignored as to value, either 

 present or future. In the second 

 case, a certain amount of Merchant- 

 able Timber stands among the Slash 

 ready for the harvest, and whether 

 or not this standing timber will ever 

 be utilized for commercial purposes 

 depends entirely upon the proper 

 solving of this slas hproblem. 



The problem of slash is in reality 

 a problem of fire control within the 

 slash ; or of preventing the burning 

 of operated areas and the consuming 



of the refuse material. As yet, we 

 have made no actual strides toward 

 the elimination of the menace of 

 slash and it is this menace, more 

 than any other, against which we 

 must guard to prevent destruction 

 to standing and harvested timber by 

 fire. 



Slash, the Great Menace. 



The state of Michigan has been 

 the scene of logging operations for 

 many years, and during this time, 

 thousands upon thousands of acres 

 of slash have been created — and 

 burned, ^^'ith the burning, destruc- 

 tion has spread to standing timber, 

 either killing it outright or damag- 

 ing it to such an extent that unless 

 immediate operation could be insti- 

 tuted, a large financial loss must 

 necessarily accrue. 



The area of slash through which 

 fire has not spread is hard to find. 



Michigan embraced within its 

 area thousands of acres of standing 

 Pine — White, Norway and Jack — 

 either in pure groups or in mixture 

 with each other. The day of the 

 original Pine in Michigan has passed, 

 and we have left, to jog our mem- 

 ories, thousands of acres of these 

 so-called Pine Plains. These Pine 

 Plains are simply areas of pine slash 

 destroyed by fire and consistently 

 reburned. until all soil cover has 

 been consumed and the vegetable 

 content of the upper soil largely 

 depleted. With the burning of the 

 pine plains occurred the destruction 

 of seed trees, unthinkingly left and 



