32 NEW HAMPSHIRE AGRICULTURE. 



losses amount to many millions of dollars. In Wisconsin the 

 areas burned over ranged from fifty to one hundred and forty 

 miles in extent. Individual lumbermen lost in standing pine 

 from ten thousand to five hundred thousand dollars. All this was 

 accompanied with the destruction of entire villages and crops as 

 well as great loss of human life. A witness reports, ' the bodies 

 which dot the heated and black expanse give the scene the ap- 

 pearance of a battlefield.' 



" From Minnesota the news is even more appalling. Be- 

 tween Pine City and Carlton, a distance of one hundred and 

 thirty miles, whole towns were swept out of existence. In one 

 alone, Hinckley, at least two hundred people perished. Nine- 

 teen villages are wholly or partially destroyed, and many 

 million feet of lumber. It is fairly computed that in this state 

 alone five thousand square miles in area have been thus devas- 

 tated. Minnesota contains abfout seventy thousand square miles ; 

 supposing two thirds of this area to be timbered land, one may 

 count on the fingers of his two hands how many years of such 

 devastation will deprive this state of every vestige of its timber. 



" Terrible as has been the destruction from forest fires 

 in 1S94, the phenomena to which it has borne witness have 

 been by no means unprecedented in our history during the last 

 half century. I will recall those of a single year only. 



"The present generation cannot have forgotten the year 

 1871, made memorable by the great fire in Chicago, preceded 

 by forest fires in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and followed by 

 similiar fires in Michigan. From July to November, a period 

 of five months, the rainfall in the latter state did not exceed six 

 inches, and the entire precipitation of the year was only two 

 thirds of the normal amount. Early in October disastrous 

 fires overspread portions of Wisconsin and Minnesota, burning 

 over three thousand miles of territory. On the 8th of October 

 occurred the great fire which consumed a large part of Chi- 

 cago. On the same night the cities of Holland and Manistee 

 were laid in ashes, and during the weeks succeeding came 

 news of devastating fires in other parts of the state. The new 

 county of Huron was almost entirely swept over, and a large 

 part of Sanilac county. Nearly all the villages on the Lake 

 Huron coast were destroyed and at least five thousand inhabi- 



