XIV. AUSTRALIAN RECOMMENDATIONS. 
_ 116. Detailed cost-keeping records should be kept, and there should be a 
close study and careful recording of results for further guidance. 
_ 117. Annual nursery and planting reports on United States of America 
lines should be adopted. 
118. The collection of seed for afforestation purposes should constitute 
part of the duty of forest overseers. 
(6.) Fire Protection. 
The practice of silviculture must be preceded by fire protection. 
Bush fires in Australia have thinned the timber stands, injured or 
stunted the survivors, rendering them branchy, and opening the 
door to white ant infestations, and finally routed regeneration and 
impoverished the soil. 
Yet to bush fires has been ascribed the alleged prolific repro- 
duction in Australian forests. One fire at the right time may be 
useful; it is the recurrent firing that has wrecked the Australian 
timber lands. 
The solution of the bush fire problem is not difficult if we give 
up the search for miracles. 
Achievement is possible only through patient organisation. 
The measures to be taken are those relating to prevention, 
detection, and suppression. 
There must be an active promulgation among the general public 
and forest users of an attitude towards forest fires and forest 
incendiarism parallel to that felt in regard to a burning house: 
I recommend :— 
119. Persistent publicity, through signs and posters, books and notices, 
issuance of forest fire news for publication, education in the school, personal 
appeal. 
oF 4 The fire liability should be reduced as far as possible. 
The forest user must do his part. 
I propose— i 
120. The attachment, whenever advisable, of conditions to licenses, 
permits, and timber sale agreements, to provide for (a) lopping, stacking, and 
burning debris; (4) the cutting of dead trees which by their height constitute 
a fire menace: (c) the clearing of the right of ways of railways and logging 
railroads ; (d) the use of spark arresters on engines ; (e) the regulation of camp 
fire building. 
121. The establishment of depdts of fire-fighting tools at forest stations 
and at likely places in State forests. 
122. The opening up of every part of a State forest by roads and tracks, 
to provide access and firebrakes. 
The cost of establishing a 100 per cent. system of divisional 
firebreaks to control a 2 per cent. or 3 per cent. burn would be 
overwhelming. 
The construction of firebreaks, other than roads, should not 
ordinarily be undertaken. 
One of the main difficulties of the situation is to ascertain 
quickly the outbreak of a fire. 
I do not advocate any such costly system of lookouts as that 
adopted in the United States of America. The forest oversecrs’ 
stations should ordinarily be fire lookouts. Further extension of the 
lookout system should not usually be necessary. 
