37 



A SYSTEM OF FOREST PROTECTION. 



JAMES E. McNEAL, Forester. 



Considering the short time which Forestry has been practiced in 

 this State, and the condition of our land at i^resent, the primary and 

 most essential thing with which we have to deal is the protection of 

 forests from damaging agencies. 



Dr. J. T. Rothrock, in an article printed in the 1897 Report of the 

 Division of Forestry, has written, — 



"The one central point among existing conditions is that there is 

 no use in attempting to save what forests we have, or to restore them 

 upon ground from which they have been removed, until a reasonable 

 protection against fire is assured. Neither the State nor the in- 

 dividual can hope for success until a thorough, radical change has 

 been effected.'' 



Fire protection, together with protection from other damaging 

 agencies, precedes all benefits which we can receive, either directly 

 or indirectly from our forests, and should be dealt with accordingly 

 We should not only fight the danger after it has made its appearance, 

 but should take measures for the prevention of all dangers to the 

 forests. These dangers are numerous, and may, in a way, be divided 

 into three classes: 



1. Dangers from human agencies. 



2. Dangers from organic agencies. 



3. Dangers from inorganic agencies. 



Under the first class, or dangers from human agencies, fire is cer- 

 tainly the greatest and most dreaded. Its source may be in so small 

 a thing as a match, carelessly thrown aside by a smoker, but whose 

 damage may be almost beyond computation, depending upon the con- 

 dition of the weather, the efficiency of a protective system, or the 

 nearness of a rain. 



In calculating the amount of damage done by fire to forest land, 

 usually only the destruction of good trees is taken into consideration, 

 but indirectly the forest expectation value is seriously affected and 

 the productive capacity of the soil lessened. Through the agency of 

 fire the drain on our forests has been almost beyond belief, and 

 although there have been large areas cut over, the amount of land 

 burned over, in many places greatly exceeds it. This may be illus- 

 trated by a *^ase in Oregon, where, during the past fifty years, there 

 have been nearly 1,000,000 acres more land burned over than cut over. 



