WOODS BURNING IN THE SOUTH 



Prepared by the Forest Service 



The South needs productive forest and range lands to maintain its 

 prosperity but it can not have them while woods-burning continues. 



Yearly burnings in the South cover about 20,000,000 acres of forest 

 and cut-over land, or about four-fifths of the total forest area burned 

 in the United States. This represents a loss running into many 

 millions of dollars. 



The woods burner, like the boll weevil, the malaria germ, and the 

 cattle tick, drags down business and undermines the general welfare. 

 Because of him only a small percentage of merchantable second- 

 growth timber which could have replaced the virgin stand is now 

 available on cut-over lands. Because of him land values have suf- 

 fered, industries and population have moved out, and idle acres 

 have multiplied. Because of him every year millions of young for- 

 est seedlings, which in a short time would have constituted a valuable 

 asset to land-owners, have been licked up by the flames. 



The South, unlike the West where serious fire losses are caused 

 by lightning, has the power to eliminate its forest fires ; for they are 

 man-caused and can be prevented by curbing the careless fire user 

 and dealing firmly with the malicious fire setter. Sound economic 

 policy demands that this power be exerted and that the brand of the 

 woods burner be extinguished. The South can not afford to let the 

 woods burner block economic progress. 



Fire Causes 



Most of the woods fires in the South are started by hunters, 

 smokers, stockmen, and others upon lands which they do not own. 

 To these fires are added the fires escaping from railroad engines, 

 logging operations, field clearings, and " warming fires." There has 

 thus grown up the belief in many quarters that woods burning is as 

 inevitable as the seasons. Landowners feel that it is hopeless to try 

 to keep fires from their land. So they become, in their helplessness, 

 advocates of spring and fall burning. And one of the chief reasons 

 they advance is that spring and fall burning is a means of defending 

 their property against fires set by others. Yet often these protection 

 burners make a bad situation worse by permitting their fires to spread 

 beyond their own land. 



Other reasons are advanced in support of the practice of woods 

 burning, such as the desire to improve grazing for cattle or to destroy 

 cattle ticks. It is not by fire, however, that the grazing can best be 

 improved but by proper regulation of the number and distribution 

 of stock on an area. Furthermore, repeated fires run out valuable 

 forage plants like switch cane, Lespedeza, and carpet grass. And as 

 for eradicating the cattle tick, woods fires will not do the job; the 

 only effective method known is systematic clipping. 

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