SLASHING, PILING, AND BURNING 23 
SLASHING AND Princ.—Before any of these various 
methods are put into force, it is usual to cut down all 
the scrub or smaller bushes, young trees and saplings, 
and all kinds of undergrowth, and pile it up for burning, 
as well as saw through the bigger forest trees. Some people 
burn these last along with all the rest, but that is wasteful 
and extravagant. If there are a sufficient number of 
these logs of suitable size, it is better to cut them up for 
railway sleepers, known in Canada as “ ties,’ or into 
cordwood for domestic use. Or they may be drawn to 
one side and stacked up for future use at home, or for 
making into fence posts and rails, or for constructing 
pigsties and other outhouses. 
Burnine.—When the scrub has been slashed and piled 
—and there are one right way and several wrong ways of 
piling it—it is burnt. In the process of burning the scrub 
the stumps of many of the bigger trees that have been 
cut down will become charred. In several of the irrigated 
districts there is an absence of scrub, and the big trees 
are fewer in number. To that extent the initial costs are 
consequently reduced. Owing to the many and seriously 
destructive forest fires which ranged throughout the 
province of British Columbia in 1910 and previous 
years, the Government in 1911 took extra precautions 
to prevent this danger and minimize the great loss that 
resulted by greatly increasing the number of fire wardens 
throughout the province. A further consequence of this 
and of the other precautionary measures adopted was 
that no bush fire or clearing fire was allowed to be lighted 
between the beginning of May and the end of September. 
This proved in many cases a decided hardship to new 
