11s ELEMENTARY FORESTRY. 
Then again, it is the greatest injustice to 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 fires, 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 property 
of its citizens from fire. This Jaw 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 organ- 
ized to extinguish such fires when they have once started, since 
it is the only competent authority that can do this. Then again, 
the State of Minnesota owns, or will own, when surveys have 
been completed, about 3,co00,000 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. 
Firebreaks, in the shape of clean earth roads, plowed strips, 
etc., are effective against ordinary forest fires. Very often by 
clearing up and widening the course of a brook a very efficient 
firebreak may be made which will supplement other firebreaks. 
It is stated on good authority that fairly satisfactory and very 
cheap firebreaks 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 31 shows a firebreak or lane on Le 
Grande Dune in France. 
The Burning of Trash Icit on the ground at the time of 
logging is recommended by some of our best woodmen as a 
means of doing away with one of the sources of our worst forest 
or at other 
fires. ‘This trash can be burned early in the spring, 
