Fighting Fires and Thieves 191 



are now carried on. But, unfortunately, during the 

 period when the settlement of this section was 

 going forward most actively hardly anybody in this 

 country had yet thought of the advisability of re- 

 serving a portion of the land for forests. So it 

 came about that the really non-agricultural lands of 

 this section were divided up in the same checker- 

 board fashion as the farming lands proper. Even 

 now, a party buying timber-lands buys so many 

 " forties," which may or may not be contiguous, 

 but are rarely so for more than a few sections at 

 a time. More often, one's purchase consists of 

 quarter-sections contiguous at the corners only, 

 which is almost as inconvenient as if they did not 

 touch at all. The intervening tracts may belong 

 to some other lumber concern, or they may be still 

 public, or they may be held by settlers. For al- 

 though the tracts we now have in mind are not 

 really fit for any sort of agriculture, there are 

 many reasons which prompt settlers to occupy 

 them. Often the latter are " homesteaders " who 

 take up a quarter-section of pine land, make a 

 pretence of improving it and, when after five years 

 they have received their patent, sell the timber. 

 Not rarely these alleged settlers are really the 

 hired " dummies " of the lumber companies. Again, 

 much of this kind of land is sold by unscrupulous 

 speculators, after the merchantable timber has 

 been taken off, to immigrants from foreign coun- 

 tries or people from the cities who are without 

 previous knowledge of farming and often buy 



