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Soldiers of the Common Good: August: Louisiana

One of the big lumber companies of Louisiana sent $500 to the conservation department of the State to be used for a series of prizes to induce boys to practise forestry on small plots of land selected for the purpose. The State rangers enrolled the boys wishing to enter the contest, helped them secure plots, and gave them practical lessons. In these lessons the boys learned about all the different phases of tree-growing but with special emphasis on the prevention and control of fires; and, in the distribution of prizes, half the points were allowed for excellence in this part of the work. When it came to the awarding of the prizes, the judges said some of the plots compared very favorably with the best work of professional foresters. Think of that!

And then the thing spread. The farmers learned from these boys, often their own sons, of course, how to take care of their wood-lots, and contributed money toward additional prizes which were offered, local communities in some places appropriating money for the purpose out of public funds; and now there are many schools in the rural districts of Louisiana that have some of these boy forests not far away. In the schools they not only learn such important facts as that a good-for-nothing named Nero, along in July, in the year 64, set Rome on fire and that this was a dreadful thing to do, but they are also duly impressed with the fact that it is bad business for us to keep on setting our woods afire to-day.

Now notice how the good work is spreading in other directions--among the railroads, for instance. Railroads running through forest regions are not only using the best spark-arresters to be had--they are looking forward to a time when somebody, one of you boys perhaps, shall invent a better one--but, by a system of inspection, see that their spark-arresters are properly used. Firemen who tamper with spark-arresters are liable to discharge and also to punishment at the hands of the law. Many States now require the roads to use arresters and to employ fire-patrols and keep their rights-of-way cleared of brush and other things which furnish quick fuel for sparks from smoke-stack and fire-box. Some railroads are reforesting large tracts of land belonging to them, as a future source of railroad-ties and other lumber of which they are large consumers. A number of paper-pulp companies, for similar reasons, are doing the same thing, and water companies are reforesting their watersheds for the protection of their water-supply.