I think there could be no greater mistake.

Forest fires were allowed to burn long after the people had means to stop them.

The idea that men were helpless in the face of them held long after the time had passed when the means of control were fully within our reach.

It was the old story that "as a man thinketh, so is he"; we came to see that we could stop forest fires, and we found that the means had long been at hand.

When at length we came to see that the control of logging in certain directions was profitable, we found it had long been possible.