Destruction and Deterioration 105 



As yet there is no danger. Here, and there, 

 fanned by light winds, the fire begins to run along 

 the ground, eating up the litter, grass, and herbage, 

 coloring the lower portions of the tree trunks black, 

 and destroying the humus, sometimes to a great 

 depth. These small fires seldom spread over more 

 than a few acres. They really do untold damage, 

 more, perhaps, in the aggregate than the great blazes 

 destroying live trees. For, especially if they recur 

 year after year in the same place, they prevent the 

 propagation of trees by killing the seeds or seed- 

 lings. They also render the soil infertile by de- 

 stroying the organic matter contained in it. But to 

 the settler this kind of fire seems hardly worth men- 

 tioning. If the blaze comes too near his fences, he 

 attempts to put it out or check its spread. If it is 

 burning far away, on the pine slashings, he lets it 

 burn. 



Still, as the days go by and the smoke becomes 

 denser and denser, as at night the villages seem to 

 be surrounded by the camp-fires of hostile armies 

 on all the neighboring hills, the people of the towns 

 begin to be anxious about what may be coming. 

 The railway crews, as they come in on each train, 

 begin to tell about fires along the line. Then 

 " homesteaders," whose log cabins are in the most 

 remote fastnesses of the wilderness, come into town 

 with tales of distress. The fire has reached their 

 clearing ; without the aid of neighbors, who may be 

 miles away, anxious about their own safety, the 

 homesteader, with his wife and older children, has 



