NOTES ON OUR FOREST SERVICE 



37 



Photo from U. S. Forest Service 



BUILDING FIRS UNF AROUND A BLAZE IN HELENA NATIONAL FOREST, MONTANA 



is worth $2 per thousand feet, was about 

 ~as 4 cents to $i,ooo. The entire cost of 

 -national forest administration was equiv- 

 alent to a charge of one-third of I per 

 ■cent on the value of the timber pro- 

 tected — surely a cheap insurance rate. 



This immunity from fires must be as- 

 cribed chiefly to the results of the con- 

 sistent efforts made in the past to inform 

 the public as to the danger of careless- 

 ness in the use of fires in the forest and 

 to the recognized necessity of vigilance 

 to put out small fires. With reasonable 

 cooperation on the part of the public to 

 prevent fires and reasonable provision for 

 •discovering and fighting fires when they 

 start, really heavy losses are entirely pre- 

 ventable. The widespread forest fires of 

 recent months are a case in point. Rela- 

 tively little damage was done to the 

 national forests at a time when the air 

 was thick with smoke almost from the 

 Atlantic to the Pacific coast, and most of 

 the national forest loss which was suf- 

 fered, amounting to perhaps $1,000,000, 



was due solely to the fact that the area 

 to be protected is so vastly out of pro- 

 portion to the resources at the disposal of 

 the Forest Service. 



Examinations of lands under the act of 

 June 11, 1906, led to the listing for settle- 

 ment of about 240,000 acres of national 

 forest land. 



IMPROVING THE FORESTS AND RANGES 



Reforesting of large areas of the 

 national forests is called for primarily in 

 the interest of the water supply of the 

 West, but also, though less pressingly, for 

 the sake of an enlarged timber supply. 

 Broadcast sowings were made during the 

 year in 27 forests, in 8 states, to test by 

 experiment the extent to which reforesta- 

 tion may be hoped for through the use 

 of this method. The national forest nur- 

 series, in which are being grown stock 

 for transplanting, were enlarged and 

 about 700,000 trees were planted. Over 

 2,000,000 trees will be ready for planting 

 in 1909. 



