188 FORESTRY INVESTIGATIONS U. & DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 



places) shall make strict inquiry into the causes of fires within wooded lands, and prosecute the 

 offender without delay. Town selectmen shall, where a forest fire of more than one acre has 

 occurred, report to the forest commissioner the extent of fire and the amount of loss, and the 

 measures found efficient in subduing fire, for which purpose blanks shall be furnished by the forest 

 commissioner. 



Railroad companies are required to have their employees burn or cut and remove all grass, 

 etc., from their right-of-way once a year 5 to use spark arresters on their locomotives; to refrain 

 from depositing live coals, fire, or ashes on their track; and to report fires along right-of-way at 

 the next stopping place that is a telegraph station. Eailroad companies are held liable for all 

 damage to forest growth by any person in their employ during road construction. During con- 

 struction of such roads through woodland, abstracts of the laws relating to forest fires shall be 

 posted along the roadway at distances of 200 feet. Anyone so employed who fails to extinguish 

 a fire made by him is liable to a fine not exceeding $500 or imprisonment not exceeding sixty days, 

 or both, and it is made the duty of all persons having charge of men in such railroad construction 

 to see that the provisions of this act are complied with, any negligence subjecting them to the 

 punishment above named. Violations of this act by railroads are punishable by a fine of $100 for 

 each offense. The forest commissioner shall encourage an interest in forestry in the public schools, 

 and shall prepare circulars of information giving advice for the care of woodlands. He shall have 

 copies of this chapter and all other laws of the State relating to forest fires printed and freely 

 distributed to the selectmen of all the towns of the State, who shall post them up in schoolhouses, 

 sawmills, logging camps, and other places, and to forest owners, who may post them at their own 

 expense. Anyone defacing or destroying such notices is liable to a fine of $5. 



Eeports of the commissioners all bear testimony to the beneficent effect of the legislation, 

 especially in educating people to consider the value of forest property, although the execution of 

 the laws is still difficult and unsatisfactory. 



That it is not necessary to have forest fires, or that they can be at least reduced to insignificant 

 dimensions, may be learned from the experiences of other nations, who exercise the first function 

 of the State, namely, the more thorough protection of life and property of its citizens. 



In a recent report we read that in 1896 "very considerable damage by fire" occurred in the 

 Prussian State forests (some 6,000,000 acres), and then the reporter brings a table showing that 

 altogether less than 2,500 acres were burnt over. One "extensive" fire is reported as destroying 

 1,000 acres of "hopeful" pine and spruce plantation 20 to 25 years old, the result of incendiarism. 



In the following year (1S97) the entire loss was not over, 100 acres. During the ten years 

 1882 to 1891 there were 156 cases of fire reported: 96 from negligence, 53 from malice, 3 from 

 lightning, and only 4 from locomotives; and seven years out of the ten are without any record of 

 fire due to this last cause. And this on an area of 6,000,000 acres, of which more than half is on 

 dry sandy soil stocked with pure pine forest, where the pine litter is never burned or removed, 

 and with large bodies of sapling timber and young growth interspersed. 



Comment is unnecessary as to the possibility of protecting forest property from fire. 



The Indian forest administration, under circumstances not less difficult, nay, perhaps, more 

 difficult than those prevailing in the United States, still more strongly refutes the assertion that 

 forest fires may not be suppressed. 



Not only have the people of all timbered parts of India practiced the firing of woods for 

 many centuries, both for purposes of agriculture and pasture, but the natural conditions in most 

 of the Indian forests are such as to discourage the most sanguine. 



In most parts the forest is a mixed growth, of which a considerable portion is valueless and is 

 left to die and litter the ground with dry and decaying timber, furnishing ready fuel. To this is 

 added a mass of creeping and climbing vegetation, a dense undergrowth, largely composed of 

 giant grasses and bamboos, covering the ground with standing or fallen canes, green and dry. It 

 is a dangerous forest; and yet the forest department fights and prevents fires, and succeeds. 



The number of fires has been diminished to an astonishing degree, the efficiency has grown 

 with perfection of methods, and the expenses have been constantly reduced, and have never been 

 over $10 per square mile in any year. And this in a country where heat and moisture stimulate 

 a rank growth, where a clearing will be covered in one year with grass in which an elephant can 

 hide, and where hot, dry winds make a most dangerous foreskfire combination every year* 



