Grass and forest fires in Louisiana in 1917 are estimated to have destroyed over a million dollars' worth of mature timber; over $200,000 worth of young timber and seedlings; $85,000 worth of forage; $50,000 worth of fences, buildings, trestles, etc.; $10,000 worth of farm crops; a number of game birds and animals that we have no means even of estimating; and thousands of tons of decaying leaves, grass, and pine straw-a source of humus and nitrogen that are sorely needed to build up the light, sandy soils of the state and make them valuable for farming or grazing. Added to these losses, which, owing to lack of exact information, have been very conservatively estimated, are the large sums spent in the form of labor in fighting fires. The property damage alone totals $1,422,160, or a levy of 2 1-2 mills on every dollar's worth of property assessed in the entire state in 1917; or 4 mills on every dollar of property outside of the urban Parish of Orleans, in which of course grass and forest fires rarely occur. It is true that 1917 was one of the worst years for grass nd forest fires in the last twenty, yet in 1916 the loss, as estimated by the United States Forest Service, was $833,629, or 2-3 as much as in 1917. Every citizen of Louisiana, directly or indirectly, was affected by this distruction.