446 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
In short, the good influences of the forest are many, and together 
they are cumulative. It is not within the province of this paper to 
enlarge upon them; they have been discussed time and again and 
nearly always with the same conclusion. The nations of Europe 
have long ago taken effective action. Our federal government and 
the Eastern states are regretting they did not do something before 
the land was patented to individuals. 
Pardon me if I repeat that one of the first things to be done for the 
preservation of the forest is to stop the fires. Our present liability 
to fire absolutely prevents any hopes of successful forestry. After 
cutting, a forest will quickly grow again; after fire, it will not. Cer- 
tainly these fires should be stopped and at once. 
Can they be? is the next question. 
The fire as it raged at Hinckley could not; but each of the hund- 
reds of little fires that contributed to it could have been. Preven- 
tion, rather than cure, should be sought, and as fires always have a 
small beginning and are in every instance caused by man, they 
can, with very few exceptions indeed, be kept within control. Ac- 
cording to Dr. Fernow’s report for the year 1893, the forest fires in 
Prussia during the exceptionally dry year of 1892 ran over only 
6-100 of one per cent of the Prussian forest area. There they pro- 
tect against fires. 
We should have statistics of the areas burned over in Minnesota 
during the past season. Lacking such, we must use whatrough 
estimates we can get. Iam told by a man who has been through 
the region, that within the triangle between Staples, Grantsburge 
and Duluth 90 per cent of the land was burned over. My own ob- 
servation covers roughly the country between the Mississippi and 
the St. Louis rivers and the Prairie river basin above Grand 
Rapids. I think 75 per cent of that land has been burned over;. 
and from what can be learned of other parts of the forest, prob- 
ably 40 per cent of the whole wooded portion of Minnesota was 
burned over last year. If we assume this 40 per cent, or 1 in2% 
acres, as approximately correct, and compare this percentage as 
the result of no systematic protection in Minnesota with the 6-100 
of one per cent, orlin 10,000 acres, burned over in Prussia, where 
there is protection, during one of the driest years, are we not as- 
sured that something can be done? 
Others have prevented fires, cannot we? Will the people of Min- 
nesota, pioneers nearly every one, and with a record to be proud 
of in every other work, lag so far behind in this? I think not if 
they will only give their attention to it. It seems to me it all 
hinges on this point—attention, for if this subject be studied as 
it should, every one will feel it his duty to stop the fires. 
How can this be done? 
Let me give my experience of last summer: Passing land ofa 
friend and seeing that fires were burning on it, [stopped to put them 
out. Five or more had been started wilfully; one had gone out, but 
four were burning vigorously, both eating into the turf and running 
over the surface. With mattock and shovel the fire was put out 
within a week, digging shallow ditches through the dry turf at the 
