Letter to Town Officers 



Dear Sir: 



You probably know of the systematic effort which has 

 been made in 1911 to protect Minnesota's forests and prairies 

 from fire. The great area of Minnesota, approximately 

 28,000,000 acres, where these fires occur has been divided 

 into twenty large districts, each in charge of a District 

 Ranger working under the State Forester. As you live in 

 one of these districts, you doubtless know that during the 

 past fire season there were other men, called patrolmen, work- 

 ing under your local ranger, and that each one had a beat 

 of several townships. It was the same in all districts; in 

 some cases a patrolman had twenty townships. The neces- 

 sity of assigning so much territory to one man is unfor- 

 tunate; it exists because the appropriation provided for the 

 Forest Service will maintain during the summer months but 

 a limited number of men, an average patrol force of eighty 

 men, who must patrol more than one thousand townhsips. 

 It is evident, and this may have occurred to you, that with 

 beats so large patrolmen cannot do so effective work and 

 that more property, even life, may each year be destroyed 

 by fire in any township than would be the case were the beats 

 smaller, preferably one township to each patrolman. This 

 truth applies to your township. 



Section 24 of the 1911 Forest Law permits the people to 

 take action which will result in greater security to life and 

 property (every dollar's worth of property destroyed by for- 

 est fire is a dead loss to its owner and means a decrease in 

 future township tax receipts) in your township. By it your 

 voters may authorize an annual tax of five mills upon all tax- 

 able property, the money from which will constitute the "Fire 

 Fund," and is to be used in paying fire costs in your town. 

 To prepare for a possible bad fire season in 1912, this tax 

 should be authorized at your 1912. spring election, then as- 

 sessed and collected as soon as possible. 



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