<OT> Re: Big problems in Oz

[Bob Hemus]

Collins wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 5 Dec 2002 14:04:09 -0600 ronnie gauthier
> <ronnieg at chartermi.net> wrote:
> > If 200 naked dancing fillies doesn't do it then towing an iceburg is
> > a last resort. Does AU have any desalination plants?
> >
> > On Thu, 05 Dec 2002 12:59:12 -0500 - "Leon A. Goldstein"
> > <metapsych at earthlink.net> wrote the following
> > Re: Re: <OT> Re: Big problems in Oz
> >
> > >Jerry McBride wrote:
> > >
> > >> If my memory serves me... Here in the states, for year 2002...
> > >the 48> continental states reported some measure of drought


<snip>.  I don't know how that sort of thing is handled down
> under, but many people believe that the severest problems were created
> by several decades of failure to prune old growth forrests
> (environmentalist wackos would never allow that) which become
> tinderboxes with passage of time.
 
It doesn't take pruning old growth forests, it takes burning.  The
pruned, logged and replanted cut blocks explode when subjected to
lightening.  Here in the NW the lack of natural fires has caused the
problems we now have.  Burning kills the bugs, underbrush and keeps the
spacing od the trees the old timers called "punkins".  The last punkin I
had anything to do with was in 1978.  It was a doug fir 11 feet on the
stump.  Trees that big won't grow with 12 foot spacing we did when I was
thinning trees.  My oldest boy and I contracted with the USFS to thin
trees in '71,'72, '& '73. I worked several summers later for a logging
outfit.
Bob

Maybe thiss ought to go to general?