"Dry brush should never be burned during the dry season, unless absolutely necessary for the suppression of an insect invasion. Green brush in some places may be burned at any time, but as a rule it is unsafe to burn it in dry weather. The best time to burn brush is in the fall, just after the first snowfall. Then the piles are dry, and there is no danger that the fire will get beyond control. Brush may also be burned at the beginning of or during the rainy season, when the ground is damp enough to prevent the fire from spreading, and the brush dry enough to burn readily. "The cost of brush burning varies like the cost of piling. It varies even more in the same localities, with weather conditions and methods of piling. Brush that can be burned for 10 or 15 cents a thousand at a favorable time, as just after the first snow, will cost five or ten times as much to burn in dry weather, or when the piles are very wet. Brush can be burned more easily the first fall after cutting than it can the second year, when many of the leaves have fallen off. Brush burning has been done for 13 cents a thousand in lodgepole, in the Medicine Bow National Forest, while it has cost 22 cents in similar timber in the Yellowstone, and estimates of 40 cents a thousand have been made for it in the Rockies. It is generally admitted that brush can be most economically burned by the same people who pile it. Recently several contracts have been made in which the purchaser of the timber is required to pile and burn the brush under the direction of forest officers, as has been the practice in the Minnesota forest for some time. This will lighten the total cost, and when the weather allows the brush to be burned, as logging proceeds, the cost of burning will be offset by the subsequent reduction in the cost of skidding. "_Piling Without Burning_ "Brush piled properly, even though it is not burned, is a great protection to the forest. Inflammable material is removed from among the living trees, and should a fire occur it would be much easier to fight. This is especially true where reproduction is dense. Where openings are scarce piles should be made in the most open places, and may be larger than those made to be burned." SLASH BURNING In many regions, especially in western Oregon and Washington, logging debris is too great to make piling practicable. But except for the damper localities close to the Pacific, the danger from these immense accumulations is all the more excessive and, as we have seen elsewhere, their removal is often desirable in order to further reforestation by desirable species. Here the only course is to burn the slashing clean.