34 BULLETIN 234, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



fire. Data obtained in actual woods work show that piling brush in 

 winter without burning it costs 69 cents per thousand board feet. 

 With this method, however, the brush must always be repiled when 

 the snow goes off in the spring. Burning as the cutting proceeds 

 costs 74 cents per thousand, but is really cheaper than the other 

 method because it saves the cost of repiling and of burning the 

 following fall, and reduces the cost of skidding. 



In summer cutting, brush is gathered in large piles on the clean-cut 

 areas, and in smaller piles in the selection cuttings. Even in the 

 latter case the piles are usually made at least 5 or 6 feet high, with a 

 comparatively narrow base to permit them to shed rain and snow. A 

 small brush pile can only be lighted in the fall if weather conditions 

 are right. In the fall of 1911 the first snowfall on the Deerlodge 

 National Forest occurred in early October, covering the ground to a 

 depth of from 25 to 30 inches, and making it quite impossible to burn 

 small piles. Piles of standard size, however, were lighted without 

 difficulty. On the French Gulch sale the fighting of such piles under 

 approximately 30 inches of snow cost about 6 cents per thousand feet. 

 Another difficulty with small piles is the large number which have to 

 be lighted — a circumstance which naturally tends to increase the cost. 



At one time it was the practice to fork into the fire the ends of 

 sticks and other projecting pieces left in the ring at the outer edge 

 of the pile after the fire had burned down. With proper piling, 

 however, only a small amount of such material should remain — not 

 enough to constitute a fire menace. For this reason it is unneces- 

 sary to incur the comparatively large expense of having a second 

 crew follow the lighters to fork in the unburned ends. In selection 

 cuttings, large piles of brush can be burned within from 5 to 6 feet 

 of green trees, provided such piles are covered with a good depth 

 of snow. If there is room, however, piles are always built at a 

 greater distance than this from the remaining timber. On the whole, 

 it has been found that fall is the best time to burn brush, though 

 weather conditions in the spring may occasionally be favorable. In 

 the spring of 1912, for example, about 600 acres of old brush on 

 clean-cut areas, at French Gulch, were burned at a cost of 2 cents 

 per thousand feet. 



On the Bighorn National Forest, in Wyoming, where selection 

 cuttings have been the rule, the ideal brush pile is considered to be 

 one about 8 feet in diameter at the base and about 5 feet high. The 

 piles are built tepee fashion, with the larger sticks of unmerchant- 

 able material stacked up around the outside. With a cut averaging 

 6,700 board feet per acre, the number of brush piles per acre aver- 

 aged about 40. In 1910 an area of 1,500 acres was burned on the 

 Bighorn Forest at a cost of 6.9 cents per thousand feet; the next 

 year 3,700 acres were burned at a cost of 3.8 cents per thousand; 

 and in 1911, 4,200 acres were handled at a cost of 3.6 cents per 



