124 ELEMENTARY FORESTRY. 



allow one person to burn the property of another, which right 

 is practically claimed by those who advocate the unrestricted 

 use of fire. 



With a desire in the minds of people to keep out forest 

 tires, there are many precautions that could be taken that would 

 lessen the chances of their starting and when started would 

 aid in controlling them. The first thing is a good fire law 

 such as now stands in Minnesota, which recognizes the fact 

 that the state and county should protect forest property from 

 fire for the same reason that a town or city protects the prop- 

 erty of its citizens from fire. This law puts one-third the 

 expense of enforcing it on the state and the other two-thirds 

 on the county. The chief reasons why a part of this burden 

 should be borne by the state and not by the counties alone 

 are that fires spread from one county to another and the 

 state must be organized to extinguish such fires when they 

 have once started, since it is the only competent author- 

 ity that can do this. Then again, the state of Minnesota owns 

 or will own, when surveys have been completed, about 

 3,000,000 acres of land scattered through the forested area, 

 besides possibly nearly as great an area that has been bid in 

 by the state for delinquent taxes. A large part of the land 

 the state owns has a valuable growth of trees on it, much of 

 which is liable to injury or destruction by fire at any time 

 and the state can well afford to provide protection for it. 



Fire-breaks in the shape of clean earth roads, plowed strips, 

 etc., are effective as-ainst ordinary forest fires. Very often by 

 clearing up and widening the course of a brook a very 

 efficient fire break may be made which will supplement other 

 fire breaks. It is stated on good authority that fairly satis- 

 factory and very cheap fire-breaks may be made in rough 

 stump land by fencing off a strip about three rods wide and 

 pasturing it with sheep which will kill out all the brush in the 

 course of a year or two. The sheep do this most effectually 

 if the land is rather over stocked and they receive a little 

 grain to make up for their lack of pasturage. Figure 33 

 shows a fire-break or lane on Le Grande Dune in France. 



The Burning of Trash left on the ground at the time of log- 

 ging is recommended by some of our best woodmen as a means 



