REPORT ON FORESTS. 273 
large amount of money which is lost in fire-fighting will be 
saved. 
Just as there was opposition in the beginning to the new road 
law, so there will be opposition to such a scheme; but let the 
State inaugurate it in a trial district and soon others will follow. 
It will not, of course, stop all forest fires, but it will certainly 
reduce their size, stop their fury and save the loss of much 
valuable material. The new State road from Atlantic City to 
Camden is a fair sample of what is needed. It serves at the 
same time the purpose of fire-lane and thoroughfare. Formerly 
it was a bed of hot, dusty sand. Many new buildings have been 
constructed along the road, and owing to the ease of communi- 
cation and transportation it has brought the people along it 
closer together and has instilled into the old residents a certain 
amount of life and spirit which they never would otherwise 
have obtained. If cleared of brush along their sides, many of 
the gravel roads of South Jersey, which are often now the points 
from which fires start, would serve as fire-lanes in preventing 
the spread of fire and as vantage grounds in combatting it. ‘The 
local officials who have charge of these roads and lanes could, if 
required, extinguish many fires in their incipient stages. 
The consideration of these fire-lanes as future roads leads to 
the second important condition—markets and transportation. 
This question needs but little consideration. A glance at the 
map is sufficient to convince anyone that no region could be 
more auspiciously located in this respect. With plenty of good 
gravel with which to construct roads, with many railroads, with 
many navigable rivers and with two of the largest cities of this 
country near at hand, but little more in this respect could be 
desired. At the same time, however, we must not fail to con- 
sider the fact that other great wood-producing regions are near | 
at hand and that in Pennsylvania there are immense quantities © 
of coal. This state of affairs naturally suggests that the pro- 
duction of wood for fuel, as is now generally the case, is the 
least profitable of the forest industries which may be practised 
in South Jersey. 
The third condition relates to land and labor. ‘This question 
also needs little consideration. There are thousands of acres 
which may be had at a ridicuously low figure, considering the 
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