37 



ing a total difference of damages for the two years, of $2,796,- 

 458.90, which amount of money would pay — not only the cost of 

 maintaining the department of Forest, Game and Fish, for a 

 term of three hundred years, but would also pay the expenses of 

 a permanent State Forester for hundreds of years. 



In the year 1909, the forest fires numbered 223, burning over 

 90.407 acres, damaging forest products to the amount of $43,- 

 874.09. 



The cost of extinguishing these fires for the year, 1909, the sum 

 of $1,305.76, and for the year 1910, the sum of $3,677.52. We 

 never fxilly realize the great blessing that has been so bountifully 

 bestowed upon us by nature until we are deprived of them. This 

 is the reason that the people of West Virginia are so slow to real- 

 lize the great wealth that we possess in our great forest areas. 

 To one who has not made a study of this problem it would seem 

 that our forests are inexhaustible, and scarcely a thought has 

 been given to this great question by the ordinary citizen of West 

 Virginia. 



It may not be necessary at this time to engage in the planting 

 of trees as is being done by many states in the Union, but it is 

 absolutely necessary, if we are to save our forests from total de- 

 struction in the next twenty-five years, to protect them from the 

 destructive fires, and to take some action and formulate some 

 policy to properly control the cutting of timber in the State of 

 West Virginia. 



It is useless to lock the stable door after the horse has been 

 stolen, sp will it be of little avail to enact forest legislation after 

 our splendid woodlands have been depletel. The time for some 

 effective action is here, and if we are to profit by the mistakes 

 that other States have made in delaying the work of protecting 

 and saving their forests, it must be done at once. 



"A stitch in time saves nine," is true perhaps, in a greater de- 

 gree in extinguishing a forest fire than in any other work, so is it 

 true with regard to our forests in protecting the young timber 

 from the useless destructive methods in cutting, and in carelessly 

 breaking it by cutting larger timber. 



Much can be done to aid in this work if taken in hand and con- 

 ducted from a scientific standpoint, by men who have made the 

 subject of forestry a profession. 



