PRACTICAL FORESTRY IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST PROTECTING EXISTING FORESTS AND GROWING NEW ONES, FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THE PUBLIC AND THAT OF THE LUMBERMAN, WITH AN OUTLINE OF TECHNICAL METHODS TEXT

very wet. Brush can be burned more easily the first fall after cutting than it can the second year, when many of the leaves have fallen off. Brush burning has been done for 13 cents a thousand in lodgepole, in the Medicine Bow National Forest, while it has cost 22 cents in similar timber in the Yellowstone, and estimates of 40 cents a thousand have been made for it in the Rockies. It is generally admitted that brush can be most economically burned by the same people who pile it. Recently several contracts have been made in which the purchaser of the timber is required to pile and burn the brush under the direction of forest officers, as has been the practice in the Minnesota forest for some time. This will lighten the total cost, and when the weather allows the brush to be burned, as logging proceeds, the cost of burning will be offset by the subsequent reduction in the cost of skidding. "_Piling Without Burning_ "Brush piled properly, even though it is not burned, is a great protection to the forest. Inflammable material is removed from among the living trees, and should a fire occur it would be much easier to fight. This is especially true where reproduction is dense. Where openings are scarce piles should be made in the most open places, and may be larger than those made to be burned." SLASH BURNING In many regions, especially in western Oregon and Washington, logging debris is too great to make piling practicable. But except for the damper localities close to the Pacific, the danger from these immense accumulations is all the more excessive and, as we have seen elsewhere, their removal is often desirable in order to further reforestation by desirable species. Here the only course is to burn the slashing clean. This is a dangerous process unless every safeguard is employed. Burning must be at a time in spring or fall when the slashing is dry enough but the surrounding woods are not. Spring burning is theoretically preferable, for it leaves less inflammable material during the fire season. The first fire is also easier to control then, because repeated experiments may be made, as the slashing dries, until just the right conditions exist. On the other hand, it is dangerous if there are many old stumps and logs in which fire may smoulder to make trouble later. The exponents or fall burning also argue that with care they can be ready to fire a very dry slashing safely at the beginning of a rainstorm. Spring burning seems to have the most advocates, but it is doubtful whether any rule for all localities and conditions can be given with confidence. Frequently failure at one season leads to postponement until the next. In either case the slashing can be given the advantage of the greatest dryness with safety if it is surrounded by a cleared fire line from which to work. Firing should be against the wind and if the wind changes suddenly the opposite edge should be back fired. Previous cutting of all dead trees and snags over 25 feet high is urgently recommended. The camp crew should be held in readiness, well provided with tools, as insurance against accidental escape. Its probable restriction of insect breeding is a point of slash burning likely to receive much future study. It is well known that most forest-injuring insects prefer dying trees to vigorous ones; also that the existence of an abnormal amount of such material tends to abnormal breeding and consequent serious attack of vigorous timber when the dead material becomes too dry to be inviting. It is by no means impossible that the supposed immunity of Douglas fir from insect injury may be largely due to the almost universal destruction by fire of logging debris which would otherwise afford ideal breeding places. FIRE LINES The division of mature forest into compartments separated by fire lines is seldom practicable in this country. Nevertheless slashings, deadenings and similar fire traps can very often be profitably confined by the cleaning of strips which will not only stop or retard the progress of a moderate fire but also facilitate patrol, fire fighting or back firing. On favorable ground, where some choice is offered, much may be done by falling timber inward so as to leave few tops near the uncut timber and by the location of skidroads. So far as practicable fire lines should be on the tops of ridges, for, being slower to go downhill than up, fire is more easily discouraged just as it reaches a crest. Bottoms of gulches are next in strategic value, and midslopes least. SAFEGUARDING EQUIPMENT The most fruitful source of fires is spark-emitting locomotives and logging engines. Much data has been collected showing that with oil at a reasonable price its use is economical from a labor-saving point of view as well as from that of safety. It reduces expense for watchmen, patrol, fuel cutting, firebox cleaning and firing. And since it is an absolute prevention, while all other measures merely seek to minimize the risk, it is probable that even where the cost of the oil more than balances these savings it will save in the long run by averting a costly fire. Where the use of oil cannot be considered, spark arresters are essential. The argument that they prevent draft is not worth attention. It is greatly exaggerated by engineers and firemen prejudiced against innovation or too inattentive to keep their fires up properly and consequently unnecessarily dependent on occasional forced draft. The slight disadvantage involved by the modern improved arrester is not to be compared with the importance of the safety acquired. In addition to spark arresters, which may fail or be out of order, logging engines using fuel other than oil should be provided with a constant tank or barrel supply of six to twelve barrels of water and 100 feet of hose with proper pumping attachment. With this a spark fire can be promptly soaked out beyond danger of invisible smouldering in rotten wood or duff. When conditions are dangerous, careful loggers send a man back to each donkey-setting between supper and bedtime to look for possible fires that were not seen when the crew left. Many keep a watchman on the rounds all night. Railroad rights of way can usually be kept cleaned and burned at a cost far less than that of otherwise frequent shutdowns of the entire camp to fight fire or rebuild bridges, to say nothing of loss of timber. PATROL The best way to prevent fire is to prevent it. Putting out fires already started is better than letting them burn, but as the real foundation of a protective system it is about like lowering a lifeboat after the ship has struck. Only by patrol can the incipient spark or camp fire be extinguished before it becomes a forest fire that has to be fought, taking hours or days instead of minutes. One patrolman can stop 100 incipient fires easier than 100 men can stop one big fire. Fires in the forest may never be wholly averted, but patrol will prevent them from becoming "forest fires." This is why the progressive lumberman no longer waits till forced to layoff his crew to fight, spending in a day or two a patrolman's salary for a season, shutting down his road and mill for lack of logs, and perhaps in spite of all losing several thousand dollars' worth of timber and equipment. It is also why the progressive non-operating owner no longer considers fire loss the act of God, to be reckoned as an investment risk of several per cent. The man who does not patrol his timber nowadays is like a millman who hires no watchman, has no hose or sprinkler equipment, and carries no insurance. He _may_ escape loss, but by not making a reasonable effort to insure against it he takes a course practically unknown with other forms of property. Modern fire patrol is systematic. Trained and organized men have definite duties. Tools, assistance and supplies are available at known points and without delay. Trails and look out stations, often supplemented by telephone lines, give the greatest efficiency with the least number of men. Above all, the system is based on the fact that results are most truly measured not by the number of fires extinguished but by the absence of fire at all. Settlers, campers and lumbermen are visited, cautioned and converted. In short, the patrolman has a certain area in which to improve public sentiment. His success in this is worth more than efficiency in fighting fires due to lack of such success. A system devoted to mere fire fighting to be adequate must grow larger as time goes on. One devoted to preventing fire may be reduced, as time makes it successful. The cost of efficient patrol varies so directly with the risk that it is almost constant as an insurance investment. Where prevalence of fire, difficulty of handling it, etc., make the cost per acre comparatively high, there is equivalent certainty of greater loss if this sum is not spent. Where the owner is warranted in believing his risk small it costs but a trifle to provide sufficient patrol to insure against it. One to 3 cents an acre is spent in the great majority of successful patrols in ordinary seasons. ASSOCIATE EFFORT One of the first lessons learned from the establishment of private patrol in the West was that both efficiency and economy are obtained by co-operation between owners. Obviously if one patrolman can cover the holdings of several, it is foolish for each to hire a man. If a fire threatens several tracts, it is better to share the expense of labor hired to put it out. The same is true of building trails, buying tool supplies, etc. This has led to the forming of associations which at a minimum cost to each member accomplish the many tasks of finding suitable men, having them authorized by the State, supervising and supplying them, paying emergency expense, opening trails, etc. Each member pays his share upon the acreage he represents. These associations offer other important advantages besides the mere cheapening of work. They are admirably adapted to modifying the cost to fit the season. Beginning in spring with an assessment to cover putting the whole territory under the essentials of supervision and patrol, they can add men just as required by the progress of dry weather and reduce again in the fall. Men can be centralized at danger points better than through individual effort. Exceedingly important is the means they afford of bringing in the non-resident owner, the small owner who is not warranted in employing anyone alone, and the non-progressive owner who would otherwise do nothing but is ashamed to stay out of a general movement. No tract can be safely considered as an independent unit. _No protection confined to it alone is as good insurance as the removal of risk from the district within which it lies._ Fire is no respecter of section lines. There is always danger of unusual weather in which it may travel a long distance. It is far better to secure the maximum general safety in the locality than to have guarded tracts alternating with fire traps. Moreover attention to individual tracts does not improve surrounding conditions, and the latter may easily become so bad as to make the cost of individual patrol, as well as the risk, far overbalance any financial disadvantage at present through co-operation. Again, the public is far more likely to take kindly to the enforcement of fire laws by an association than to the action of an individual owner against whom some prejudice may exist. Associations greatly simplify co-operation with State and Government in fire work and tend to bring about appropriations for the purpose. They enable uniform and concentrated effort to improve sentiment and legislation. This booklet and the other work done by the Western Forestry & Conservation Association was made possible by the existence of the local organizations it represents. Their independent local and State effect has been marked. The bad fire season of 1910 was a supreme test of the associations of the Pacific Northwest. They kept the bad fires in their immense territory down to a number which can be counted on the fingers and their losses were comparatively insignificant. Yet under the weather conditions which existed the thousands of fires they extinguished would certainly otherwise have swept the country and caused a disaster probably unparalleled in American history. REFORESTATION AS A FIRE PREVENTATIVE However progressive the preventive policies adopted, the race between them and the increasing sources of hazard resembles that between armor plate and ordnance in the construction of battleships. While for a given population engaged in pursuits endangering the forests the risk lessens, the total activity increases at a rate which makes the smaller proportionate risk as great in actual measure. This is particularly true of the growth of slashing areas. The virgin forest becomes more and more and checkered by burned and cut-over deadenings, veritable fire-traps open to sun and wind, and, especially west of the Cascades, usually covered by inflammable debris, brush or dead ferns. Each year brings nearer the time when, unless something is done, such will constitute the majority of once forested land and the uncut timber will remain like islands in expanses of extreme danger. Next to cultivation, which but a small percentage will receive, the safest insurance against recurring fires in these cut-over areas is a thrifty young second growth. It shades the ground, keeps out annual vegetation that furnishes fuel when dead, and will itself carry none but such furious crown-fires as would be practically unknown were there no openings for them to gain headway in. This is less true of pine, but the very best protection which can be given a tract of merchantable fir is a strip of 10 to 50-year second growth surrounding it. Whether regarded from the owner's standpoint or that of the public, reforestation should be considered as a protective measure of extreme importance. Actual expenditure to obtain it may easily be profitable for this reason alone, for once established it will decrease the cost of patrol thereafter. Were all cut-over land in the Northwest immediately restocked, the fire hazard would be enormously reduced. CHAPTER V FORESTRY AND THE FARMER CUTTING METHODS If there is anyone for whom the practice of forestry is practical and profitable, it is the farmer who owns the timber he uses for fuel or other purposes. His supply of the most suitable material is almost always limited and in any case his method of using it is practically certain to influence his permanent labor expenses. Nevertheless, especially in well-timbered regions, cutting is apt to be with but two considerations--the quickest clearing of land or the easiest immediate fulfillment of some need for tree products--and the passage of a few years brings realization that this early thoughtlessness must be paid for at a high price. In the first place almost all timber of a commercial species has real and increasing value. If it is young, this value is increasing doubly because of growth. Varying greatly, of course, young timber in the Pacific Northwest very often adds from 500 to 1,000 board feet to the acre annually. This annual gain is taking place even if the timber has not reached merchantable size, being like coin deposited in a toy bank which does not open until full. And this is true whether the ultimate use may be for fuel, poles, or salable material like tie or saw timber. Too much land is cleared of young growth, merely because such clearing is easy, which is of such low value for tilling or even pasture that its use for these purposes does not pay as well in the long run as would its use for growing timber, especially when the investment of clearing is considered. The resulting expanse of charred stumps and logs, producing little but ferns, is a small farm asset at best. The timber it would grow may eventually be a large asset. And the labor of clearing applied to a smaller tract of good land is sure to bring greater returns. An illustration is furnished by two tracts near the end of a recently completed railroad in western Washington. Twenty years ago a settler slashed a large area of presumably worthless sapling fir adjoining his tillable bottom land, set fire to it, piled and burned the remaining poles, "seeded down" a pasture, and enclosed it by an expensive cedar rail fence. The pasture, never useful except in early spring, grew up to ferns, and was finally abandoned. Even the fence was moved. The settler on the next claim left his part of the same sapling growth to grow and this year sold the timber alone for $1,000 to a tie mill which came into the neighborhood with the railroad. The moral of this does not apply to cutting alone, but argues equally for preventing fire in second growth. It is also poor economy, if mature timber exists, to cut rapidly growing young timber for fuel because it is nearer the house or easier to cut. The former has become stationary in production, while the latter, if left, is earning money by growing in quantity and quality. If young timber must be used, and the land is not worth actually clearing for cultivation or pasture, it is usually far better to thin out the poorest trees, thus leaving the remainder stimulated to a more rapid growth, which will soon replace those removed, than to begin on the edge and take everything. There is no reason why a certain poor-soiled timbered portion of the average claim should not be considered as a permanent wood lot, to be treated with the same interest and pride in making it produce the greatest quantity of forest products for sale or use that the owner accords his fields. With this point of view established and consequent study given the subject, it will also be easier to decide how large this portion should be. In many cases the result will be abandonment of the idea that all forest growth is an enemy, to be destroyed on general principles without calculating what actual profit there is in destruction. Another point often overlooked in the Pacific Northwest, because of our local tendency to consider the forest only as something to struggle against, is the exactly opposite influence of properly placed tree growth upon sale values if the prospective buyer is from the East or from our own cities or tree-less regions. Such are attracted strongly by the grove-like effect of a few trees left around the house. Their desire for this is as strongly ingrained as the average local resident's desire for a completely free outlook to mark his victory over unfriendly nature. The appeal a place makes to a buyer as a pleasant home has frequently as important an influence on his decision as its purely practical merits. His judgment of the latter, however, is also affected by his earlier environment. If he has lived where farming land is open, evidences of the labor of clearing are discouraging. The untouched forest, being totally beyond his capacity to estimate the labor its removal entails, repels him less than stumps, logs, desolate burnings and like detailed evidences of the work which lies before him. This is another reason why the clearing of clearly fertile land may be better business than the half-clearing of land perhaps best suited for forest growth anyway. Again, not fully realizing the plentifulness of forest products in the new locality, he may actually overestimate the value of an attractive piece of forest land showing evidence of the thoughtful care suggested in a preceding paragraph. USE OF FIRE Above all, it pays the settler in wooded regions to be careful with fire. Properly directed and confined, fire is necessary in clearing land. But there is no profit in allowing uncontrolled fire to spread from the actual clearing to create a snarl of dead, decaying and falling trees and underbrush. It is usually harder to extend the clearing into such ground than into green timber.