156 DAMAGES FROM FOREST FIRES. 



must have amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars. All accounts 

 agree in stating that a dry and strong southwest wind contributed to 

 the spread of the flames, and, so far as we have records, the percentage 

 of moisture was extremely low.^ 



The forests in Northeastern Pennsylvania were ravaged by fires in 

 the fall of 187C, and the mountains of Delaware and Sullivan Counties, 

 ISTew York, have been repeatedly burnt over in recent years. A dry, 

 sandy region on the eastern border of Lewis County and the " pine 

 plains" of Jefferson County, New York, have been, time and again, over- 

 run with fires. In other sections, once covered with pine forest, the tim- 

 ber is now replaced by ferns, liuckleberry, and blackberry bushes, which 

 the calcined soil is scarcely able to support, but which may in a long 

 course of years, if not again burnt over, bring fertility back in suflacient 

 amount to bear trees of some value. 



A fire got started in the woods May 14, 1877, near Clinton Mills, Clin- 

 ton County, New York, which consumed several lumbering-villages and 

 establishments, and burnt over a large area of forest, destroying stand- 

 ing timber beyond means of computation, besides a very large amount 

 in lumber and other property. Extensive fires prevailed the same sea- 

 son in the woods of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, and 

 in Canada, Wisconsin, and the upper peninsula of Michigan. 



New Jersey has suffered from forest fires, especially on the Blue 

 Mountain, in the extreme northwest, and throughout a wide region of 

 pine woods bounded on the north by Metedeconk Creek, south by Deu- 

 in's Creek, and west by tUe marl line. This region extending to the 

 coast, and comprising a million or more of acres, having been stripped 

 of wood for charcoal, has repeatedly been the scene of destructive tires, 

 increasing within the past few years in extent of damage, a single fire 

 sometimes running over thousands of acres. In 1866 one swept over 

 10,000 acres 5 the burnt district reaching from Tuckertou to West 

 Creek, a distance of seven miles westward. In 1870-'71 nearly the whole 

 wooded portion of Bass Township, Burlington County, was burnt over. 

 In 1871 two fires in Ocean County burned over 3(),600 acres, and the 

 whole county is overrun about once in 20 years by fire. In 1872, owing 

 to the long drought in summer and autumn, fires were frequent in 

 Southern New Jersey, one in August burning from 15 to 20 square miles, 

 worth, before the fire, from $10 to $30, and alter it from $2 to $4 per acre. 

 These risks have reduced the salability of woodlands to a very great ex- 

 tent. These fires were formerly started generally from coalings on brush 

 burning, but latterly for the most part by locomotives, which have done 

 the greatest damage.^ 



On account of these fires so frequently running over this part of the 

 State, there is but little large timber, although more than nine-tenths of 

 the surface is wooded ; and the residents are obliged to import nearly all 

 the lumber required for use. Ship-building has been almost entirely 

 abandoned, and the products of the forests may be said to be cord-wood 

 and charcoal, instead of timber for construction and use in the arts. 

 Worse than this, the vegetable mold in the soil is burned out, and the 

 possibility of reproduction reduced to narrowest limits, or altogether 



1 Some estimates placed the loss by fires in 1871, equal to the ordinary consumjition 

 of the country for ten years. 



"There is also a growing belief that some have been eet by wood-choppers and char- 

 coal-burners to make business for themselves, in coaling the wood which otherwise 

 would be allowed to remain for the more valuable lumber of older growths. lu many 

 cases it is not actual iucendiarism,. but carelessness, perhaps intentional, that in this 

 way gives additional work to these people.— (i?epor< of the Neio Jersey State Board of 

 Agriculture, 1874, i, 60, from which most of the above facts are derived.) 



