02 BULLETIN 1294, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
All such possible uses of fire must be examined with certain specific 
questions in mind in order that a correct and balanced picture of the 
benefits and costs may be obtained. (1) Is the specific purpose of 
the burning attamed, and what is its value? (2) What is the money 
cost of the burning operation, and can the operation be carried out 
with certainty that the desired results will be obtained? (3) What 
are the indirect costs of burning, such as damage to merchantable 
timber or to reproduction? (4) How do the total costs and gains 
compare ? 
USE IN SLASH DISPOSAL 
The first and most obvious field for the use of fire as a means of 
forest protection lies in the disposal of slash following cutting. As 
long as slash exists on cut-over areas, it constitutes a menace to the 
adjacent timber as well as to the seed trees or young growth. Until. 
it has been mashed down and disintegrated by winter snows and the 
action of fungi, it is tinder for fires of unsurpassed intensity and capa- 
ble of great damage. Such fires, as has been pointed out in the dis- 
cussion on cut-over lands, always leave the burned-over areas in a 
cans condition and pave the way for a prompt invasion of 
rush. 
Efforts to reduce this danger and thus remove the likelihood of 
rapid spread of fire have naturally taken the form of efforts to sub- 
stitute deliberate, controlled burning for the more dangerous acci- 
dental burn. No method of slash burning can be said to be free from 
some damage to young growth and seed trees. The methods gener- 
ally practiced strive to reconcile maximum effectiveness, mimimum 
burn, and economy of operation. ‘These aims tend to be mutually 
exclusive, and the result is that now one and now another is favored 
at the expense of the others. The three most clearly defined methods 
in use are broadcast burning, burning in place, and piling and burning. 
BROADCAST BURNING 
The usual result of broadcast burning of slash as it les, such as 
has been common on private lands for the past few years, is that the 
fire not only removes the slash itself but covers the rest of the ground, 
at the very least destroying the advance reproduction which is so 
essential for full productivity of the area. (Pl. XIII.) Broadcast 
burning on a large scale has been employed in spring, in summer, and 
in fall from the earliest time when fires will burn until the storms of 
early winter make burning impossible. The conviction of those who 
have studied the method, as well as those who have used it, is that 
it is so uncertain, both in getting the results desired and in indirect 
cost or damage, that it can not be accepted. It is, at best, but of 
minor value in affording protection to adjacent bodies of timber. 
The previous discussion of the effect of fire on cut-over lands has 
made it clear that with conspicuously few exceptions the effects are 
disastrous. Broadcast burnings of slash in the pine region may be 
dismissed with the statement that the indirect costs or damages to 
the remaining timber and young growth are excessively high, and 
that the broadcast use of fire induces occupation of the burned area» 
by brush, 
