There are also many regions where timber values do not warrant
patrol, but where the safety of other property, and of life, demand
both patrol and fire fighting. Here the state owes its citizens
protection. Moreover, one of the weakest points in our present
system everywhere is lack of police authority to apprehend violators
of the fire laws. The private warden cannot successfully arrest
or prosecute offenders, and everybody knows it. Most fires start
through violation of law. To prevent them the law must be respected,
and to accomplish this there must be state officers who can and
will apprehend offenders without fear or favor.

Any western state can well afford to spend $100,000 a year for
a forest fire service which will prevent a loss of fifty times
that sum. The cost is imperceptible by the citizen, his benefit
immediate. _Forest protection is the cheapest form of prosperity
insurance a timbered state can buy._

REFORESTATION

Although it does not pay to burn up our forests, it does pay to use
them. _The faster we can replace them with new ones, the quicker
this profit can be made with safety._ Forest land is community
capital. To let it lie idle is as wasteful as destruction. And
we must also remember that the day is coming when our forested
streams must do a hundred times their present duty, and when the
lumber consumer's question may not be "What must I pay for a board?"
but "Can I get a board at all?" We must have new forests coming
as the old ones go.

The Federal Government is practicing forestry in the lands controlled