246 



THE FORESTER. 



October, 



practical in the promotion of the State's 

 interests, has taken up the preservation of 

 her forest resources, and sounded a call 

 to action. It remains for the citizens of 

 Xew Hampshire and their legislature to 

 give the Governor all the support they can. 



Prosecution for 

 Starting Fire. 



An excellent example of 

 the common indifference to 

 all fires except those which 

 burn buildings, and of the difficulty of 

 carrying legislation about them into effect, 

 is given by Gen. C. C. Andrews in his latest 

 " Annual Report of the Fire Warden of 

 Minnesota." The case was that of a man 

 in Chicago County, who, in the early part 

 of January, when the ground was bare 

 and the weather dry and very windy, set a 

 fire to burn his brush. The fire spread 

 " and destroyed nearly two thousand 

 dollars' worth of hay and other property 

 belonging to his neighbors." The man's 

 farm, buildings, stock, etc., were exempt 

 from execution, so that none of the 

 property could be taken in payment for 

 the damage. The chairman of the town 

 board would not make the complaint, and 

 so the chief fire-warden had to go and 

 make it himself. The man "pled guilty 

 to carelessly causing the fire, was fined 

 only $15, together with $3.05 costs, and 

 yet the community did not sympathize 

 with the prosecution." 



This shows once more the importance 

 of having fire-wardens who cannot be 

 tempted to neglect their duty by the 

 popular sentiment in their districts. It 

 also shows how very important it is that 

 prosecutions should be carried on, though 

 they be as disagreeable as the punishment 

 of a child. For though the prosecution of 

 any one individual may, strictly by itself, 

 be of little moment, it is the only denial of 

 the assertion that a man must not be 

 blamed for setting a fire "carelessly," 

 which in any way tells. The more the 

 people of a region growl at the enforce- 

 ment of the fire law the greater is their 

 need of it. Where they realize generally 

 that the man who causes needless destruc- 

 tion by fire is practically robbing his 

 neighbors and the community, more than 

 half the difficulty is overcome. In such 

 places the fire-warden is forestalled in the 

 heaviest part of his work. Fires become 

 exceptional misfortunes. But in other 

 places where they are regarded as belong- 

 ing to the natural course of events (and 

 such places are grievously many), they oc- 

 cur with the greatest regularity, and further 

 always will, until either an uncomfortable 

 scarcity of wood or the pressure of some 

 force from outside, like an efficient fire- 

 warden, teaches them to see forest fires 

 aright. As quicker and more economical 

 than the diminishing wood supply, an effi- 

 cient fire-warden is to be preferred. 



NEWS, NOTES, AND COMMENT. 



Forest Fires and I'" 1 summing up the dam- 

 the Recent Hurri- age done by the recent hur- 

 ricane, which entered New 

 England on Wednesday morning, Sep- 

 tember 1 2th, the Springfield Republican 

 says: " It started into life scores of wood 

 fires, and Wednesday night in many sec- 

 tions of Xew England thousands [ ?] of 

 acrc.s were ablaze, and several scores of 

 houses had been burned." It is needless 

 to say that the fires thus started into life 

 were not set by the hurricane, or to any 

 extent, while the wind was blowing". 



They were .already burning, partly or 

 wholly disregarded, and before the wind 

 fanned them into activity they were prob- 

 ably thought to be insignificant. The labor 

 that would have been required to put them 

 out before the arrival of the wind storm 

 would have been proportionately insigni- 

 ficant. 



The " Grand Canada has won the high- 



Prix "Won by est award given the forestry 

 exhibits at the Paris Expo- 

 sition this year. In a letter to one of the 



