TIMBER GROWING IN THE LODGEPOLE PINE REGION 19 
developed. This situation gradually brought about a sentiment 
strongly in favor of protection. At present the damage from forest 
fires starting on privately owned land is no longer serious during 
normal years. However, during years of unusual fire danger, oper- 
ations on private lands may become a serious menace to adjacent 
publicly owned timberlands. 
Of late, State laws have brought about improvement in slash dis- 
posal. In Montana slash has been burned broadcast, largely in com- 
pliance with the State law. A recent revision of this law provides 
for piling and burning debris resulting from clearing rights of way, 
and for disposal of slash resulting from logging operations in the 
manner prescribed by the State forester, subject to a maximum ex- 
penditure of 15 cents per thousand feet of timber cut. In Idaho in 
1925 a law was passed requiring that all slash resulting from timber 
cutting be piled and burned, except where the State forester approves 
the application of some other method. Other improvements in 
method have occurred on State lands in Colorado and Wyoming, 
where the slash-disposal methods employed on national forests have 
been followed. 
The effects of these different methods of slash disposal vary in 
the lodgepole pine and Engelmann spruce types. In the lodgepole 
pine type broadcast burning of slash results in too dense reproduc- 
tion, as may be seen by examining cut-over areas over which fire has 
run for the first time. Burning the slash in piles, or "piling and 
burning," as it is termed, a practice which has been followed exten- 
sively on national-forest cuttings in this type, does not ordinarily 
result in so much reproduction as to be detrimental, but it is clear that 
the expense of this practice is warranted only where it is necessary 
for fire protection. (PL 6.) Furthermore, studies made on cut- 
over areas show that even where piling and burning are carefully 
done, large standing trees suffer appreciable damage through the 
scorching of their trunks and the killing of roots located under the 
slash piles. Also some small trees are killed outright. Scorched 
trees grow much more slowly than those which are uninjured, and 
fire scars are also entrance points for rots. 
On the other hand, wherever in the lodgepole type slash may be 
left on the ground without constituting too great a fire hazard, it is 
important as an aid in building up the productivity of the soil, and 
in many places it aids materially in preventing erosion. Nor will 
tops left in place nor limbs lopped and left obstruct appreciably a 
sufficient growth of seedlings — as studies (3) on the Medicine Bow 
National Forest in Wyoming and on the Gunnison National Forest 
in Colorado have demonstrated. In fact, less-crowded reproduction 
usually results where slash is not piled and burned. The needles 
drop off the lopped limbs in about two years, and the lighter portions 
of the slash disintegrate materially in from three to five years, thus 
removing within a comparatively short period an important part of 
the fire risk. 
This is well illustrated by conditions on the Wyoming Tie & Timber 
Co. operation on the Washakie National Forest in northern Wyo- 
ming, where this plan has been followed with satisfactory results 
since the summer of 1916 in connection with an annual cut of about 
12,000,000 board feet; also near Pitkin, on the Gunnison National 
