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Soldiers of the Common Good: August: Firing

Did you see that picture, in the movies, of the big snow-plough tunnelling through the monster drifts of a wild mountain winter to rescue the people of an engineering camp whose provisions had all been swept away by an avalanche? If so, you remember how the shovels of the firemen on the engines that drove the plough kept going as steadily as the oars in a college boat-race. FIRING THE ENGINES AND FIRING THE WOODS A locomotive on a hard job, driving a snow-plough, say, or hauling freight up steep grades, such as those which abound in the forest regions, has to be fed like that and given all possible draft. The result is that it snorts out sparks to beat anything; and big coal sparks that are a long while in going out and therefore particularly dangerous. Many bad forest fires have been started in this way.

Now, you'd suppose all the railroads would long ago have been doing everything they could to prevent their locomotives from starting forest fires, wouldn't you? For one thing the amount of freight they get to handle depends on the growth and prosperity f the country through which they run. For another, they have to pay heavy damages where fires are proved to have been started by sparks from their engines. In the same way you would suppose that all lumber companies would be as wise as some lumber companies are and take every possible precaution against fire; and that every State, as some States have already done, would enact more just tax laws so that more lumber companies would feel justified in replanting; and that successive congresses and State legislatures would appropriate the money necessary for the widest protection and development of the public's remaining forest-lands. But no! Railroads and lumber companies and their employees, and State legislatures and congresses are like the rest of us -- some are wise and some are otherwise; and more wise and forethoughtful and inspired and inspiring for the general good at some times than at others; and, always, these legislative bodies are governed by the growth of public sentiment, a very considerable proportion of which is not yet awake to conditions that ought to wake the dead. And all of them, from the standpoint of us young people, so full of life and ginger and the instinct to be up and doing, are mortal slow! As for the railroads, and so of all employers, it isn't merely a case of what they want to do, but of what they can get their employees to do. For example, in the matter of the big sparks. When the railroads put on spark-arresters the firemen sometimes enlarge the holes in the wire screen so that there will be less interference with the draft; not because they want to set the woods on fire but because, at best, it's back-breaking business to fire an engine with a heavy load on an up-grade; and it's easy to see how, in trying to make the holes in the spark-screen a little larger, and with the thought that a few small sparks more or less couldn't do any harm, they make them very large. NOW, PUT YOURSELF IN THE LUMBERMAN'S PLACE It's the same way with the lumber companies and their cutting and care of timber-lands -- only more so, in some respects. For one thing, it isn't quite so obvious, perhaps, that by leaving the forest floor covered with lopped-off branches you're leaving kindling for a big fire as it is that such a fire may be started in dead grass or leaves by a spark from a puffing smoke-stack or a dying camp-fire. Moreover, the field force, whose earnings, first of all, depend on the amount of lumber they can get out in a day, are, naturally, thinking mainly of that.

Furthermore, in States where there is poor co-operation with the National Forest Service in the matter of fire protection, the owners of forest-land feel, as the result of dear experience, that the sooner they can get their timber cut and out of danger the better, and they are not much inclined to stop and "rid up."

As for growing new crops of timber, there is not only the discouragement of the big fire risk, but the ordinary system of taxing property according to its value, although, under most circumstances, the obvious and just thing to do, works out in a curious way in connection with the reforesting of cut-over timber-land. As the seedlings which are intended to take the place of the old generation get well into their stride and begin to look up in the world, the value of the land is thereby increased and up go the taxes, which have to be paid very shortly or you lose your land. But, even if all goes well, and your little trees weather the perils of fire and everything, it will be a good many years before you can get anything out of them; and if they are burned up, meanwhile, you don't even get your taxes out of them -- let alone making any money!

THE BUSINESS OF THROWING MONEY AWAY You see, there are often a good many bumps in the way, even after people become interested and want to work with us in some great cause, such as this of the forests. But you've no idea how hard it frequently is to interest them in the first place, even when this would mean increased profit, and immediate profit, to them.

For example, if we should follow some of this timber we have been talking about, first to the sawmill and then to the industries in which it is worked up into phonograph cases and furniture and rolling-pins and so on, we could learn that, on the average, one-third of this lumber is wasted. Even in making little things, such as doll-house furniture, crooked limbs, which would otherwise be useless for the purpose, can be utilized if they are cut into two-foot lengths before they are sawed into doll-house lumber. Yet by no means all manufacturers of doll-house furniture have this done; and goodness only knows how some of our dolls are going to get any furniture at all if prices keep advancing!

Or take a waste common to all lines of manufacture, the waste in the making of boxes or crates in which things are shipped. If they are not made strong enough, they get broken before reaching their destination, and that means damaged or lost goods and often, also, a lost customer. If, on the other hand, they are made heavier or larger than necessary, or of lumber too good for the purpose, that means more money thrown away, not only in cost of material, but in freight charges.

Now, the Forestry Department, among its various services, has established a laboratory at Madison, Wis., whose business it is to study these things, make experiments, and show manufacturers how to use their lumber to the best advantage. For example, in this matter of the boxes, having obtained all the necessary facts with regard to the nature of his business, they can usually show a manufacturer how to design a box or crate that will require less lumber--often that can be made of cheaper lumber--and that will weigh less, take up less space, and be made more quickly than the kind he is using; thus not only saving freight and lumber, but time and wages in the shipping department.

You'd naturally suppose, wouldn't you, that every manufacturer in the country, knowing there was such an institution, would jump at the chance to make use of it?

Nothing of the kind! In order to get these improved methods into use, the laboratory people have to keep sending out letters and circulars, just as if they were salesmen and the laboratory a private enterprise run for profit; where-as the only profit in the transaction goes to the concerns that avail themselves of its services.

II. THE DAWN OF THE BETTER DAY Doesn't look very encouraging, all this, does it? And I could go on and give you any number of examples of such things--the difficulty of waking people up, even when their own business interests are immediately concerned, and the trouble they themselves have, after you have waked them up, to get their associates in business or their employees to work with them. But now let's take the other side of it, the progress that has been made in all directions, in spite of these difficulties. What has already been accomplished is, under the circumstances, simply wonderful and an assurance of complete success, as more and more join in the good work; of the final establishment of policies and practices in our national life that will compare favorably with the best in Europe. As everybody knows, the pioneer days in anything, in reforming bad habits and in all forms of business, public and private, are the hardest. And yet, although our whole forest policy is almost a thing of yesterday, compared with the history of forestry in Europe, we have already left the pioneer stages far behind.

Until the establishment of the National Forest Service, lands equal in extent to all of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio, although belonging to the nation, were in reality a "no man's land," left to destruction by fire and reckless cutting; and cattle and sheep owners disputed, and often fought, over the rights to graze. Now all the resources of this big "wood-lot" of ours--timber, forage, farming-land, minerals, opportunities for recreation, and public enjoyment--are developed and put into use in such a thorough fashion that the forest service is everywhere recognized and spoken of as a model of business efficiency. And most of this change in the condition of things, a change which is nothing less than revolutionary, has been accomplished in a period of only about twenty years, so fast do we do things when we finally get started. If so much has been done with so small an amount available in congressional appropriations from year to year, imagine what will happen when public sentiment is finally aroused and, with the necessary funds which will thus become available, our members of Congress and all the rest of us pull together!