Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/481

Rh The cost of a permanent forest organization for the protection and utilization of the forests on the reserves is estimated by the National Forestry Commission at $250,000 per annum for the first live years. With a greater demand for forest supplies the annual expense will increase, but under any businesslike management the revenue from the sale of forest products will largely exceed the expense, yielding a handsome surplus to the Government. "When it is remembered that several million dollars' worth of timber are taken every year from the public domain without any rcompenserecompense [sic] to the Government, it would appear to be a wise and economical policy to spend annually a few hundred thousand dollars on an organization which would prevent such unnecessary drains on the wealth of the nation; it must be remembered also that an efficient forest administration would be able to prevent many forest fires on the public domain, and that it is not an unusual occurrence for a single fire to destroy in a few days material worth more in actual money than this forest administration would cost in years, while the indirect loss to the country in impaired water flow is incalculable. The expenditure, therefore, of $250,000 a year in furnishing the means for protecting the forests on the public domain would appear to be justified by every consideration of common sense and economy." (Report of National Forestry Commission, p. 26.)

The experience of British India and Canada proves conclusively that Government control of the forests can be made profitable both to the Government and to the people using the forest products.

—The Ontario system provides for fire rangers, who are authorized to employ assistants to help suppress fires, and they are directed to notify the department if the fires are dangerous. The expense incurred in maintaining the forest staff and suppressing fires is shared between the Crown Lands Department and the owners of the licenses to cut timber. During the summer of 1895, ninety-three fires were reported, most of which were put out, the total loss by fire being only $41,600. This was effected by the employment of one hundred and fourteen men for a few months, at a total cost of $26,253.

The districts of upper and lower Ottawa during the summer of 1895, when it was unusually dry, experienced no serious conflagrations. No fewer than fifty-six incipient fires, however, were extinguished by the fire rangers, any one of which might have assumed serious proportions and caused heavy loss. The total loss in the district amounted to between five hundred and one thousand dollars.

In other districts in Quebec numerous small fires are extinguished every year by the forest rangers, which action prevents the destruction of thousands of acres of forests