THE LESSON OF THE FOREST FIRES. 587 



and Minnesota, burning over three thousand miles of territory. 

 On the 8th of October occurred the great fire which consumed a 

 large part of Chicago. On the same night the cities of Holland 

 and Manistee, in Michigan, were laid in ashes, and during the week 

 succeeding came news of devastating fires in other parts of the 

 State. The new county of Huron was almost entirely swept over, 

 and a large part of Sanilac County. Nearly all the villages on 

 the Lake Huron coast were destroyed, and at least five thousand 

 inhabitants left houseless. Houses, fences, crops, timber, all were 

 burned ; and many people perished, being unable to escape the 

 rapid march of the flames and smoke. Not less than two thou- 

 sand square miles of country, wholly or partially timbered, were 

 completely burned over in Michigan during this disastrous year. 

 The Lower Peninsula contains forty-four thousand square miles. 

 If we estimate about one half, or twenty thousand square miles, 

 as timbered, it would require but ten such fires as that of 1871 to 

 sweep the State clean. 



Forest fires nearly as disastrous have occurred in other States 

 and other years, but these will suffice for our purpose. 



What is the origin of these forest fires ? Are they prevent- 

 able ? Upon whom lies the responsibility ? These questions open 

 a large field of inquiry and involve the whole subject of our for- 

 est system, or want of system, and management good or bad of 

 our woodlands, from the first settlement of the country. This is 

 too large a subject to be treated as it deserves in a single paper, 

 but even a brief consideration may make clear facts of the great- 

 est scientific importance and serve to inculcate a lesson which can 

 not be too strongly enforced. 



The extent and magnificence of the forest growth of the United 

 States at the beginning of our existence as a nation surpassed that 

 of any land of equal extent on the globe. In the number of species 

 and the size of its trees, both deciduous and evergreen, it exceeded 

 by five times that of Europe. Such a forest spread almost un- 

 broken from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. An equally dense 

 forest, mostly conifers, and many of a size before unknown, occu- 

 pied the Pacific slope ; while between stretched an almost treeless 

 region comprising nearly half the territory of the United States. 

 What a treasury of wealth belonged to the new nation in its 

 woodlands if properly husbanded! But to its first possessors 

 these were an incumbrance, to be got rid of as speedily as pos- 

 sible, in order that place might be made for another source of 

 national wealth agriculture. 



Since that early period how great has been the change ! The 

 forest area, which seemed to its first possessors so vast, and such 

 an obstacle to civilized progress, has in a single century almost 

 disappeared. 



