pulpwood timber has been destroyed and that addi- 

 tional thousands of dollars worth of timber will be 

 wasted unless taken care of soon, as the worms work 

 fast in such wood. It is alleged that peat fires have 

 been the cause of 90 per cent of the damage done 

 by forest and prairie fires in Roseau, Marshall and 

 Beltrami counties in the last ten years. The destruc- 

 tion of Baudette and Spooner in 1910, together with 

 hundreds of settlers' homes and the death of 32 

 people was caused by peat fires. The nation was 

 shocked in 1918, when 373 lives were sacrificed in 

 the Moose Lake fire. Cloquet and nine other towns 

 were totally destroyed and five others partially burn- 

 ed. It is estimated that five thousand homes were 

 reduced to ashes and $25,000,000 worth of property 

 went up in smoke, all due to peat fires, which were 

 deliberately set or started by rank carelessness 

 criminal carelessness. Damage suits involving mil- 

 lions of dollars followed in the wake. The price 

 is too high for the comparatively small area of peat 

 lands that were brought under cultivation. 



It is said that there has been too much drainage 

 done in the Roseau-Marshall-Baltrami county district 

 with no provision having been made to control the 

 water level in drainage ditches. This could have 

 been done by a system of dams so that the watei 

 could have been held back to the desired heighth, 

 not only for fire control, but for sub-irrigation as 

 well. Such a system may well be adopted for the 

 future. 



In the burned over district unless the work done 

 by the fires is immediately taken advantage of the 



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