the larder. The wild game would make it possi- 
ble occasionally to supply the family with delica- 
cies without paying high tribute to the butcher, 
which would be a genuine satisfaction. 
But a more important reason for the mainte- 
nance of wild life lies in the benefits that come as 
by-products of the hunt and the fishing trip. There 
is more blessing for the human being in bringing 
down a wily old mallard with a gun that must be 
handled with skill to turn the trick, and all that 
such a performance implies and demands, than in 
‘decapitating a pet chicken with an ax. And the 
bird would prefer the former death to the latter. 
Long life to hunting and fishing! 
~~ @ UW 
NEARLY 92,000 FOREST FIRES SWEPT 
COUNTRY DURING 1924 
EARLY 92,000 forest fires swept 29,000,000 
N acres of public and private lands during the 
calendar year 1924, according to a report 
just compiled by the Forest Service, United States 
Department of Agriculture. The actual money 
damage was $38,000,000 exclusive of damage to 
young growth, watershed protection, wild life, and 
recreational facilities. 
The figures, say forestry officials, clearly refiect 
the bad forest fire conditions which prevailed last 
year, especially in many Southern States and in 
California. Compared with the calendar year 
1923, the 1924 figures represent an increase of 
24,000 fires, and compared with the 9-year average 
an increase of 45,000 fires, or nearly 100 per cent. 
In acreage swept by the flames the 1924 figures 
are only slightly larger than those for 1923, but 
are almost double the acreage figures representing 
the 9-year average. 
Money damage in 1924, estimated at $38,000,- 
000, is $10,000,000 above the 1923 estimate, and 
$18,000,000 higher than the 9-year average of 
$20,000,000. Damage to young growth, water- 
shed protection, wild life, and recreational facili- 
ties, and losses to the lumber industry, including 
wages and other economic values, are not included. 
William B. Greeley, Chief of the Forest Ser- 
vice, states that the material increase in the num- 
ber of forest fires reported during 1924 is partly 
the result of more complete reports, although 1924 
was a very bad year in many sections of the coun- 
try. 
“Excessively dry weather was experienced in 
California and in the Gulf States,” said Chief 
Forester Greeley, “and in these States the 1924 
_ average. 
fire figures show great increases over the 9-year 
Smaller increases are also shown in most 
other States.” 
An analysis of the 1924 statistics shows that in- 
_cendiary fires top the list with 21,000, or about 23 
per cent of the total. 
Brush burning comes next 
with 16,000 fires, or 18 per cent, and fires caused 
by smokers is third with 13,000, or about 14 per 
cent. 
Other chief causes of forest fires in 1924 
were railroads, camp fires, lumbering and light- 
ning. Lightning is considered the only natural 
cause of forest fires. Only 6 per cent of the 1924 
fires were started by lightning. 

“The greatest single agency with which to com- 
bat fires,” said Colonel Greeley, “‘is public opinion. 
No thoughtful citizen can read the 1924 figures 
without coming to the conclusion that the fight 
against forest fires is his personal fight. The Fed- 
eral and State Governments are doing their utmost 
with the funds and equipment allotted to them. It 
is high time that a more effective weapon is placed 
at their disposal, and that weapon is an outraged 
public opinion,” 
w Ww w 
SIGNS AND SIGNALS 
HE first kisses of a new mood of the year are 
touching the clearings, the growth along the 
water courses. The blood-red blades of 
sumach light the trails and the borders of old 
pastures. Asters nod a purple mass up and down 
grassy brooks, and the goldenrod flaunts yellow 
flags in the meadows and along the shadowy wood 
roads. The smells of earth are rampant. Fire and 
gold are tinting the leaves of the trees, the bushes 
around the blue ponds. Signs point to ebb-tide. 
And magic and mystery are beginning to paint 
the woods and stream banks with gleams of furtive 
color. Illusive, intangible, inscrutable, autumn is 
revealing a fugitive presence with here a shimmer 
of gold, there a bank of fire, yonder a flash of 
orange and soft brown. The mornings are com- 
pelling, elemental, strong with the tang and tingle 
of innumerable scents, the subtle emanation of a 
frost-kissed earth. Leaves come whirling down, 
singly, lonely bits of color—signs of forerunning 
events. 
With a muffled thunder of wings brown grouse 
burst from the undergrowth of bracken and go 
hurtling through the white birches. Squirrels 
romp in the pines, busy with a harvest of seeds. 
And birds flutter silently from branch to branch, 
feeding, ever shifting and moving toward austral 
points. Soon the great trek begins. 
Sa wf 
IT HAPPENS TO EVERY MAN 
HE silence and solitude breeds in the woods 
lover a delicate sense of hearing, seeing, 
smelling—it also develops another sense, the 
sixth sense of feel, of finding one’s direction, of 
steering clear of danger, of sensing the presence of 
an unseen animal. On the trail, man is the lis- 
tener, the watcher, and so must be the woodsman 
ever cautious and expectant. And in the high, 
lonely mountain-fastnesses he does not hear the 
far, dim sound and echo of Menalcas’ song nor the 
faint pipes of Corydon—he hears a silence that is 
brooding eternity, an unshattered peace where 
time and rhythm and valley beauty are unknown. 
Swinging over the range he drops steadily down- 
ward, his moccasin feet treading lightly the needled 
ground, the mossy roots, the lichen-freighted down- 
timber, of a sudden he stops to listen. There was 
no sound nor movement—just a strange impulse. 
The forest is still as death, not even the wind 
sways the spruce plumes, not even the rustle of 
a vole, not even the lost and musical call of a 
bird. Like a flash a cold, strange feeling sweeps 
him; it runs up and down his back, and the hair 
on the back of his neck moves in an irritating 
manner. He has the feeling of being watched. 
Uncomfortable yet unafraid and unarmed, he 
shakes off the dread as a long glance up the dark 
trail reveals no movement. And so he moves on 
once more. At some time it happens to every man. 
533 
