Forestry and the National Forests fet 
present crop. Many operators are not owners and do their logging 
at the least possible cost without regard to the use to which the land 
may be put afterwards. Heavy grazing of forest lands, which can 
not be overcome at once because of enormous investments in range 
improvements that require long-continued use in order to pay out, 
interferes with the greatest production of timber. Forest fires, par- 
ticularly those caused by human beings, constitute a tremendous 
obstacle in the way of successful management of both publicly and 
privately owned forest land, as years of effort may be lost in a few 
hours of conflagration. 
Seed trees and proper disposal of brush make possible a new stand of timber after 
logging 
FIRES: THE ARCH ENEMY OF FORESTS 
From 500 to 1,000 fires are put out by Forest Service employees 
in the Southwest each year. Rangers and fire guards reach a great 
number of these fires and extinguish them while they are small, but 
each fire is a menace to public property and welfare. 
Two-thirds of the fires are caused by lightning and are unavoid- 
able. Those comprising the other third are due to carelessness and 
could be entirely eliminated if every citizen would regard the 
national property as he does his own house and would exercise the 
same care. ‘The average person is not wilfully careless, but he is 
often woefully uninformed. It is for his benefit that the “Six 
rules” are given on page 16. 
The damage wrought by crown fires—that 1s, fires that get into 
the tops and burn even the grown trees—is obvious and requires 
no comment. The blackened wastes speak for themselves, but the 
damage done by ground fires that burn only along the surface of the 
earth is less well known. These ground fires kill the little seedlings, 
and these little seedlings are the keystone of forestry. Especially is 
