OTHER RESOURCES OF MICHIGAN! 85 



clearing operations were best conducted with fires 

 under control in seasons of sufficient moisture to pre- 

 vent burning from getting out of hand. Some even 

 Avelcomed sucli forest devastation because of tlie wild 

 berries that would arise in the haunts of the pines 

 and hardwoods. Carelessness and indifference were 

 the rule even when a moment's thought would seem 

 to have suggested caution and restraint. It is quite 

 so even to the present hour. 



It was inevitable that much virgin timber should 

 vanish in these forest conflagrations. A pioneer has 

 described the fires in the vicinity of Owosso in 1856, 

 when lanterns were required in the daytime and even 

 the fish in the river were suffocated by the smoke. ^ 

 "Among the most vivid recollections of niy early boy- 

 hood," writes Arthur Hill, "are those of certain days 

 when the smoke from the burning forests about Sagi- 

 naw was so dense that children living in the out- 

 skirts lost their way in coming to and going from 

 school." Such destructive conflagrations occurred in 

 1871 and 1881.- In 1911, the official report of the 

 forest fires of the vear records 191 fires, which burned 

 on 153,407 acres, with an estimated damage — notori- 

 ously low when emanating from such a source — of 

 $3,470,000.3 The United States Forest Service esti- 

 mated the area burned over in 1919 at 500,000 acres, 

 and the spring and autumn of 1920 saw multitudes 



i"Mich. Pioneer and Hist. Soc. Collections," XXX, 371. 



^"Micli. Forestry: Some Questions Answered, etc," Lan- 

 sing: Mich. Forestry Commission, p. 1. 



^Rept. State Game, Fish and Forestry Warden, 1912, 108- 

 109. 



