Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/482

464 The forests of the western provinces of the Dominion are under the control of the Minister of the Interior, who follows the system adopted in the older provinces.

Within the forested areas of the United States the most destructive agent at present is fire. In comparison with it the damage done by pasturage in the Pacific coast States and by illegal timber cutting is insignificant. In a number of the Western States laws have been passed providing for the punishment of those who, by accident or design, set fire to the forests. There are so many agencies, however, by which fires may be started, such as sparks from locomotives, camp fires, lightning, as well as incendiarism, that it seems futile to attempt to prevent the burning of the forests unless there are competent forest guards to patrol them during the dry season.

There are no statistics showing the area of forests destroyed annually by fires in the United States, but during every summer smoke obscures for months the view of the sun over thousands of square miles. Once fully under way, a fire in a forest of coniferous trees will spread until it is extinguished by rain, or encounters some natural barrier like a river, or is driven back over its own course by a change in the direction of the wind. The only hope of averting the enormous losses which the country suffers every year from this cause lies in preventing the fires from starting, or in extinguishing them promptly. There is no doubt that they will always occur, but the experience gained in the Yellowstone National Park, and in Canada shows conclusively that with the aid of a disciplined forest patrol, intelligently directed, forestfires can be greatly reduced, and that it is frequently possible to extinguish small fires if properly handled when first discovered.

—The mining interests of the Western States should be the most urgent in the demand for care and protection of the forests under Government direction. Upon the abundance or scarcity of timber will depend the development of many mining enterprises, and through them the advance or retardation of the growth of the State in which they are situated. That scarcity of timber will limit mining is without question, unless the mines are sufficiently rich to pay the added cost that transportation from a distant source of supply will entail. This will apply particularly to the small mine owner, and to the miner with little capital who wishes to develop promising prospects.

There is no doubt that the abundant timber supply of the Black Hills of South Dakota has given great impetus to the development of the mineral wealth of the region. It is equally true that if that timber supply is removed by being wasted, or is destroyed by forest fires, the future mining of the region will be limited to the working