Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest Part 9

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 G.o.d, 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, a.s.sistance 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.

a.s.sOCIATE 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 a.s.sociations 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 a.s.sociations 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 a.s.sessment 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 a.s.sociation than to the action of an individual owner against whom some prejudice may exist. a.s.sociations 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 a.s.sociation 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 a.s.sociations 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 const.i.tute 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 pa.s.sage 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 a.s.set at best. The timber it would grow may eventually be a large a.s.set.

And the labor of clearing applied to a smaller tract of good land is sure to bring greater returns. An ill.u.s.tration 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 quant.i.ty 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 quant.i.ty 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.

This added work later is many times that necessary to safeguard the burning in the first place.

In every case that fire ever escaped from clearing operations, the cause was either thoughtlessness or unwillingness to perform certain work. Because it is easier to burn a slashing than to pile and burn; or when a ground burn is desirable, because it is easier to take chances than to clear a fire line around the area and have a force of men present; because burning at a dry, dangerous time will be cleaner and thus save work after the fire; inexperience, coupled with unwillingness to take advice from the experienced--these and like reasons are responsible for the destruction of lives and property worth over and over again the sum that was saved by the attempted economy. And, although this does not save others, the person responsible also usually loses instead of gaining.

Without deprecating in the least the importance of agricultural development or of lightening the useful and not easy task of the settler, it is still terribly true that the agricultural industry and the settler suffer an annual loss through the destruction of improvements, crops and stock by fires from careless clearing that is far greater financially than the saving in clearing cost which was the cause. In other words, agricultural development is r.e.t.a.r.ded instead of advanced by its present careless use of fire.

PLANTING FOR FUEL AND TIMBER

Great as are the timber resources of the Pacific Northwest, there are extensive regions in central and eastern Oregon and Washington where timber is a scarcity, and wood for fuel and farm repair purposes for settlers and ranchers can be obtained only at heavy cost. In such situations it will be a paying investment for the farmer to set out a small plantation simply to produce his own wood for fuel, fence posts and other purposes. It is true that some time must elapse before plantations begin to be productive, but by choosing rapid-growing species and planting closely, the thinnings which will be necessary in a few years, even though the trees be small, will do for the woodpile. Trees which grow rapidly and at the same time produce good wood are, of course, preferable. If they also sprout from the stump, a little care will maintain the supply indefinitely.

The choice of species for a woodlot must be governed to a great extent by the location. Many portions of the treeless areas in this region are situated at a high alt.i.tude where the climatic conditions are severe and frosts are common throughout every month of the year. In such locations only the most hardy trees will succeed.

Other areas are deficient in moisture, and where this deficiency is so great as to prohibit the growing of agricultural crops by dry farming it is useless to attempt growing trees without irrigation.

Probably the tree most commonly planted in treeless regions has been some species of cottonwood. Lombardy poplar and Balm of Gilead have been great favorites. Cottonwood grows rapidly and is hardy against frost, but requires a never-failing supply of water within five to twenty feet of the surface. Because of its demands for moisture it will not grow on uplands, but thrives along water courses or where there is plentiful supply of moisture below the surface. Its fuel value is not high, though the quant.i.ty of its wood production compensates for its poor quality, nor does it make good fence posts.

Where quick growth is the main consideration, however, it is a good tree to plant. The varieties known as Norway and Carolina poplar are the best.

Green ash and hackberry are also hardy against both cold and moisture, but of slow growth. Their wood is durable in contact with the soil, making them suitable for fence posts. Where it succeeds black locust combines many of the desirable qualities to the highest degree. It is a rapid grower, makes excellent fence posts and has high fuel value. It is not as hardy against frost as cottonwood and ash, and while it has been planted successfully in sheltered locations on high plateaus, its success where frosts occur during the summer months is problematical. A closely related species, honey locust, is more frost-hardy but less desirable in other respects, though an excellent tree nevertheless. Other fairly hardy and drought-resistant trees are osage orange and Russian mulberry. Their value for fuel and fence posts is high, but they will not succeed in the most severe situations. Box elder is hardy and has been widely planted, but it is of low fuel value and short lived.

In favorable localities at low alt.i.tudes, where moisture is abundant either through natural precipitation or from irrigation, the number of species which are adapted to woodlot planting is largely increased.

Black walnut, black cherry and hardy catalpa are probably the most valuable of these. The latter, however, is sensitive to early and late frosts.

WINDBREAKS

The planting of windbreaks and shelter belts around dwellings and fields is of prime importance to the settler in an open country.

Nothing adds more to the comfort of the dweller than a belt of timber about the home to protect it from the wind. Orchards need windbreaks to save them from injury in a wind-swept country, and gardens are more successful when surrounded by trees. One of the most important functions of the windbreak, however, is the saving of soil moisture within the protected area, for it is a well established fact that evaporation takes place more rapidly when there is a movement of the atmosphere than when it is calm. It is safe to say that a windbreak is effective in preventing evaporation for a distance equal to ten to fifteen times its height.

Some species, because of the form of their crowns and their rapid growth, are more effective for windbreaks than others. Since more coniferous trees retain their foliage throughout the entire year, they afford protection in winter as well as in summer. Such species as western yellow, Scotch and Austrian pine grow rapidly, are hardy, and serve the purpose well. In regions of abundant moisture Douglas fir or Norway and Sitka spruce are unequaled. European larch has also been very successful in many regions, but, unlike most conifers, it sheds its leaves in winter. Where a windbreak is to consist of a single row only, it should be of a densely growing type that branches close to the ground. For low breaks of this character the Russian mulberry and Osage orange are excellent.

Trees for woodlot or windbreak planting can be purchased from commercial nurserymen or grown by the farmer. Many growers of orchard trees, particularly in the states in the middle West, do a large business in forest tree seedlings. Since the transportation charges are often high, and since most farmers can give the attention and labor necessary to raising the trees themselves without inconvenience or extra expense, it is often desirable for them to do so. The Forest Service of the U. S. Department of Agriculture has issued several publications containing full directions for the establishment of nurseries, and these can be obtained from the Superintendent of Public Doc.u.ments, Washington, D. C., free or at a nominal cost.[*]