FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 397 



disposed of by cutting into logs, firewood or other merchantable timber. * * * * 



The limit of the clearing will be staked out by the engineer, and the contractor must carefully 

 preserve all stakes set to indicate said limits. In any case, all the timber included within the 

 limit included by the stakes will be considered the property of the contractor, but any of it 

 which he wishes to utilize or save must be entirely removed beyond the limits of the work before 

 the expiration of the contract. All timber not so excepted by the contractor and removed by 

 him must be piled in proper windrows and completely burned. In general the area on which 

 the said timber is situated is on side hill slopes and the timber may be conveniently windrowed 

 down the hill toward the water. * * * Along the line of the new margin as wide a space 

 as possible must be cleared of timber, tree tops, brush, etc., and at least four furrows plowed to 

 prevent the spreading of fire. In any case, the contractor will use all and every precaution 

 against the spreading of fire during the period of burning, and any damage which may be Caused 

 by the fire spreading into adjoining areas must be borne by him. 



The burning, so far as carried, has been accomplished without damage to the 

 adjoining forest. One outcome of the work was to show that it is exceedingly difficult 

 to burn the bodies of the trees. Whenever this was attempted a mass of fire was 

 made which held for several days, and was very liable to run outside the limits of the 

 clearing whenever the wind blew strongly from off the lake. This point being 

 satisfactorily determined by several trials, certain slight modifications of the 

 specifications were made. Among others it was concluded better to not attempt to 

 burn the heavy timber, but rather to, so far as possible, float it out after the reservoir 

 has become full. The brush and tree tops, on the contrary, were easily burned, they 

 making a quick fire which burned itself out very soon after being started. These 

 points are referred to in somewhat greater detail in the accompanying special 

 account of the clearing. 



It has seemed proper to the author to go into this matter of the methods used and 

 results obtained in clearing the margins somewhat more extensively than would 

 otherwise have been done because, so far as known to him, no such extended clearing 

 of a reservoir margin in the forest area has been previously carried out in this State. 

 Generally those citizens who go to the woods for health and pleasure have justly 

 considered the leaving of the standing timber about the margins of new reservoirs a 

 great detriment, and in order to meet the natural opposition of those holding this view 

 every attempt has been made to have the clearing at Irdian Lake well done. The 

 non-completion of the burning during the year 1898 is due entirely to the fact of 

 constant rains during the months of October and November, in which months it 

 would have otherwise been completed. 



