are larger than one man should be required to handle, but 

 the great efficiency of the present force, even when working 

 on such large territories, should encourage the Legislature 

 to be more generous next time. 



The districts created, the next thing was to find the right 

 men to take charge of them. It was easy to get men, but 

 the right men were not so plentiful. They had to be good 

 woodsmen, experienced, strenuous, tactful, and yet masterful. 

 They were carefully selected from hundreds of applicants. 



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Owing to the fact that the State has always paid men for 

 fighting forest and prairie fires, the people of the north woods 

 have to a certain degree lost the idea of individual responsi- 

 bility. There are few individuals who would volunteer to 

 put out a fire that did not threaten immediate danger to 

 'themselves or their neighbors, and nine-tenths of the ones 

 who would volunteer such services would want pay for them. 

 Even fires which they themselves have started on their own 

 land they look to the State to take care of. 



This is altogether a wrong idea of the State's duties as 

 fire warden. The State should, and does, try to prevent 

 forest fires, and aids in every way in putting them out when 

 they have started; but this does not free the individual from 

 the responsibility of exercising care in starting fires on his 

 own land, nor entitle him to compensation for putting them 

 out. 



The chief source of trouble in this connection is the bog 

 fire. A bog which catches fire in a dry season will burn on 

 for months in spite of considerable rain. It is a hard job 

 to put it out, and the land owner figures that it will do little 

 damage where it is. He neglects it and lets it burn on 

 unnoticed. If it must be put out, he expects the State to 

 do it. The danger comes when the fire perists till a dry 



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