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Show By ELMO SCOTT WATSON )if 1 t , ' J 1 f, HB week of October 1 I j.' . T? - ! ' - ,.f i ' ij week During those A, j , lhJ t J ' V-Ul seven di the people f V -,r, fi Y f i'a-J of the United States are .egi ' f?;'- vt , Hw.i'' . 'Vi'"-! to be gnen eery op L"'rrjl ? V " ;V V ' ' " 1 portonity to learn from -J "vVi", ! ' C) . A.5 various organizations, L-.i-iW?. fi l U"-- -i 'Ji . 'o' n V3 35- both public and p.nate, ; 1 - " "ravages of the greatest " '' f'C V ? 5tSS single enemy of pros- V. -.i. : ' , WJV ,VT-'V' L gSsg perity and progress, V,;; '.. . - ; . iff ' the Fire Demon, watch every year Iil'-"'"''''' ', - destroys more than SoOO,000,(XK) worth iSZ4 DETlOZfCi J!fcJl?iA2&F' I By ELMO SCOTT WATSON HB week of October 1 to 7 is Fire Prevention week. During those seven days the people of the United States are to be given every opportunity op-portunity to learn from various organizations, 3f5-' both public aud private, T how best to resist the E54g ravages of the greatest single enemy of pros- perity and progress, the Fire Demon, waicli every year destroys more than SoOO.OOO.OOO worth of American property. The fight against this menace, as exemplified In Fire Prevention week, Is a nation-wide affair and It Is the concern of ail American citizens, whether they be city or country dwellers. dwell-ers. More than that. It involves a national problem, the ramifications of which are far-reaching and vitally important im-portant to our whole economic system. sys-tem. Fire Prevention week comes at the height of the forest fire season and when one considers the appalling damage done each year by woodland blazes, it is evident that the prevention preven-tion of forest fires is one of the major prefects in the observance of Fire Prevention week. During the year 1D26 there were no fewer tlian 91,-000 91,-000 fires with a financial loss cf more than $26,000,000. The record since then Is net much better, inas .uch as governmii estimates place the loss at an average of $100,000 a day. How that loss can be reduced Is Indicated by the fact that 72 per cent of the fires In 1926 were caused by man, 12 per cent b. lightning and 10 per cent were of undetermined origin. ori-gin. Criminally careless smokers, who dropped matches or cigar or cigarette cig-arette stubs without extinguishing them, were responsible for 10 per ceDt of those fire3 and sparks falling from engines of railroads aused 13 per cent. Due to the efficiency of our national forestry service with If.s nlr plane patrols and other means of shotting and checking fires In our national na-tional forests before they got a good start, the inexcusable carelessness of campers Is somewhat counterbalanced so that the ravages of the Fire Demon In the nation's preserves are reduced to a minimum. But this does not prevent a huge annual loss caused by tires on privately pri-vately owned lands. In the state of Pennsylvania this year four times as many forest fires have occurred on privately owned lands as on public preserves and the burned area has been 40 times as great. The principal princi-pal cause Is the Inexperience of those who attempt to burn brush on private pri-vate land. The flames get beyond their control and spread to both private pri-vate and public lands for the Fire Dfinon Is no respecter of byid titles. In the Southern slates this problem has become so acute that the American Ameri-can Forestry association has launched a $I.V),000 educational campaign to prevent such fires In (lie stales of Georgia, Florida and Mississippi. "In no section of the country," declares de-clares O. M. liulli-r, executive secretary secre-tary of the association, "are forest ftren bo currently wld".--prcad find ho detrimental forest regeneration us in the south. The seriousness of the situation is reflected In the fact that SO per cent of all forest flies reported In the United States during the past ten years have occurred In the southern south-ern states. More than one-third of the entire pine area embracing millions mil-lions of acres has been so completely lumbered and so repeatedly devastated devas-tated by fire that It lies Idle anil nonproductive. non-productive. In addition, forest fires are wiping out the game and wild life over vast areas throughout the South. "Woods burning arising from a traditional custom of great numbers of rural people. Ignorant of the social and economic benefits of forests, places a tremendous handicap upon efforts to renew forests on millions of acres. To stop these fires and to make the growing of forwts a safe undertaking is the great mid Immediate Imme-diate problem of forestry In the South." The menace which the observance of Fire Prevention week attempts to combat Is of Importance In both city and country In this way: Forest fires reduce the amount of available forest products and city fires at once cause a new call for more forest products. Thus the ravages of the Fire Demon Immediately become a part of our vat economic system and a part of a national problem. Further light on Miat national problem and an attempt at Its solution Is given by a recent statement state-ment of Charles I.atlirop Pack, president presi-dent of the American Tree association, associa-tion, who for years has been the foremost fore-most exponent of a forestry policy which shall not only preserve our fast dwindling timber supply but guarantee guar-antee an adequate supply for our future fu-ture newls. In this statement Mr. Pack says : With one-twplfth of thft worWn people peo-ple North America Ufru nhout on-hnlf of all the tirober consumed In the world That ts the eronomlc nltuntton thin eountry must solve sooner or Inter, is.i-ttmntm is.i-ttmntm Rhow the population of the Uniterl Statpa to be Inr-rraMnu at the rate of a million a year. Thin mnni a population of about two hundred million mil-lion In the yenr 2000. rtallronde use about in.00fl.0il0 now wood tteB every yenr. There are about 3.000 to the mile. Horruithlim like 5,-000,000 5,-000,000 treea are rut unnnally for tele-Kniph tele-Kniph and telephone wlrm; we uwe 000,000.000 fenro pout every yenr. Mil-I'oiib Mil-I'oiib of fe'-t of ptllpwood are UHfd every ev-ery year to kep tho miWRpnporn of tht country providing you with the ii;wh of the i!;iy. About t wo-t h 1 1 d.q ff the popu la t Ion unfN wood for fuel. A KreatT amount Koev to thin thnn for any othr purpose. TIhto nro elKhiy-brii! elKhiy-brii! million neri-H of Irlln hind in this country all of whl h nli'jiild bo put to work crowing trefB. The piiHsawe of the luiportiint Mil- Sweeney-McNnry bill during the late h'jura of congresa marks for the first time a national effort to provide for scientific proKram of forestry stuiy throuch a lonsr period of years We r.eed this research because we foresters forest-ers have realty no answer to many queptlons. Co-opf-ratlon Is becoming the keyword key-word In forstry today. L'nder the Ciarke-.MrNary law co-operative forestry for-estry has made progress. This law tteelf provides a powerful impetus toward brinffint; toKMher the state and federal fed-eral Rovernment and the private tloi-berland tloi-berland owner In a Joint effort to pro-moto pro-moto forestry. It Is Just making a beginning be-ginning In providing for adequate pro. tectlon acainst forest Area. It Is study. Ins the perplexing problem of forestry taxation unWer a commiltee heeded by Professor Falrchltd of Yale. It Is sup. plylns fnrmcrs, under certain conditions, condi-tions, with hmnll trees to plant on their Idle lands and tt Is advtstn farmers as to the bet way to handl-their handl-their woodlands All this has not come a day too soon We are ft rapidly itrowlni: nation. An Increase In population nieeris an Increasing In-creasing neod for wood and the census bureau teils us that tl;is country Is Inrre.i'-inir at the rate of one million Inhabitants a vear. This means a population popu-lation of K.O.0O0.O0O In 1 ti 3 and at, out 200.000.000 In the year 2"0(. elver against this Ir the stern fact that although al-though our population may Increase tho amount of land In this country rtr-talnlv rtr-talnlv does not. Our only wav out of the problem of supplying a rent Inuatty lie-reasinKT demand for wood a demand thnt Is beinif made upon a continually d'-creasltiK forvnt Is to put every a.-re of available land to work growing trees. I-'or the problems of forestry are by no means all solved. Kven thoui:h Interest In-terest In forcetry Is Increasing and effective forestry la being enacted, productive, pro-ductive, forests In this rauntry are still rapidly decreasing whllo the waste acres nre crowing lamer. It Is not unlikely un-likely that In 1H0O, at the present rate, we may have an area of Idle land larger than New York, Pennsylvania. Now Jersey, t'elaware, Maryland, Virginia Vir-ginia and all the New Knuland states How. In the face of all this wastage, shall we aattsfy tho wood needs of those hundred and fifty million people the census bureau tells us we will have? We still fall far short of providing for the future productiveness of the 240.000,000 ncres of forest land that Is in Induutrlal ownership. In tho life of a tree the year 2000 Is not very far away. Indeed, In our own shorter human lives that date la not so far distant that wo need disregard It. Time goes hurrying by. Thoio are children In our schools today who will write that date. Today ts not a day too early for us to bo thinking of tho welfare of thoFie who come after us For a shortage In our wood supply-Is supply-Is In no way cmnpnrnblo to a ahortage In our supply of cotton and wheat. These may bo Krown In a few months, hut our great timber crop on whose t'xliitenco our civilization today ts based requires many yisua to reach maturity. matur-ity. Whether or not the year 2s00 is to be blcfe-,-d with a supply of ma-r.onnl'ly ma-r.onnl'ly priced timber mu.'U be decided within Itie decade. Wa cinnot always reap v.'illiont hoiyIuk. V e munt grow trees for our growing millon. |