SILVICULTURE. 189 



inexpensive as it appears, when care is to be taken 

 not to damage the remaining growth and especially 

 when natural regeneration is to be practised, or a 

 young crop, already in part provided by nature, is 

 to be saved. 



Where the culling is made light, only here and 

 there a tree being taken, especially in the mixed 

 forest, the amount of ddbris also is small and it 

 may be left to natural decay, with the only pre- 

 caution that the branches of the top are lopped 

 so as to have the whole mass come into as close 

 contact with the ground as possible, when the 

 decay proceeds more rapidly. 



But where the culling is severe, as is often 

 called for in pure woods and also in mixed stands, 

 and a large amount of debris results, even this 

 lopping of tops is of no avail; the fire risk con- 

 tinues for many years. Incessant watching dur- 

 ing the dangerous season is necessary, and even 

 this proves futile, for a fire, easily started by the 

 slightest carelessness or by lightning,^ will run in 

 the ddbris so fast that no human power can stop it. 



• 1 Although undoubtedly most fires are the result either of malice, 

 foolishness, or carelessness, namely, by smokers, campers, farmers 

 in clearing brushlands, and others using fires, locomotives throwing 

 sparks from smoke-stacks and ash-pits, the writer can attest that light- 

 ning is occasionally the cause of fires. The old " snags," dead 

 trees, the result of previous fires, are especially liable to be struck by 

 lightning, and being dry, they burn, and propagate the fire either by 

 the fiames burning down to the ground, or else by sparks and burn- 

 ing limbs falling to the ground; but the writer has also seen live 



