FOREST FIRES 



supply of humus. The destruction of the humus and litter 

 affects the fertility of the soil in a marked degree. This 

 effect is especially manifested through the relation which 

 exists between humus and litter and soil moisture, the humus 

 and litter tending to conserve soil moisture. 



Fourth, a forest fire may result in a change in the com- 

 position of a stand of trees. Fire is often followed by an 

 undesirable growth of poplars, birches, scrub oak, blueberry, 

 and sumac, which growth has little or no value and is hard to 

 get rid of. 



Fifth, the young growth or reproduction is nearly always 

 killed by a forest fire. In the long run this is probably the 

 greatest injury of all to the forest, although it is not usually 

 reckoned into the account at all. Suppose, for example, a 

 woodlot is covered with a stand of white pine, ten years old ; 

 and suppose that a fire runs through the lot and that the 

 young stand is killed, as it always is in such a case. Now, if 

 cut and put on the market that stand would have no value; 

 and consequently, the loss is estimated to be either nothing 

 or next to nothing. But the time that it has taken that stand 

 to reach its present size is lost. Suppose the owner intended 

 to cut the crop when it should reach an age of forty years, 

 and that the crop would have been 40,000 feet of boards 

 worth $5.00 on the stump, or $200.00 an acre. Then, if 

 $33.50 for interest and taxes be deducted from $200.00 

 and the remainder, $166.50, be discounted for 30 years at 4% 

 compound interest it will be seen that the loss amounts to 

 $51.34 per acre, or a little over one-fourth of the gross returns. 

 Although the individual owner may not appreciate such a 

 loss it is not a whit less real. The loss is just as real as if 

 one-fourth of the crop should be burned in the thirty-ninth 

 or fortieth year. And yet the item of young growth is rarely 

 or never counted when the loss through a forest fire is being- 

 estimated. 



A mere statement, therefore, of the value of the mer- 

 chantable timber destroyed by a fire does not include some 

 of the most important items of loss, such as change in com- 

 position of stand and injury to soil and young growth. 



