1 1 2 North American Forests and Forestry 



400 persons were killed in the holocaust, 233 of 

 them in the village of Hinckley alone. At the 

 same time the flourishing city of Phillips, in Wis- 

 consin, was also destroyed, and numerous persons 

 perished, while many others were saved only by 

 plunging into the waters of the little lake on the 

 banks of which the city stands. 



With the happy buoyancy characteristic of the 

 American people, and so quickly caught by the im- 

 migrants from foreign lands, the inhabitants of the 

 regions where forest fires are of common occur- 

 rence have been quick to discover that the fires 

 are not an unmixed evil. It is said that they help 

 to clear the land and make it easier for settlers to 

 establish their farms. In a sense, this is true, and 

 it might be added also that settlers, if they happen 

 to burn out during the first few years after they 

 have taken up their land, often find themselves bet- 

 ter off than before as soon as the inconvenience of 

 the first houseless days is over. They are quickly 

 provided with new clothing, furniture, supplies, and 

 other necessaries ; their log cabins are quickly re- 

 built, without cost to themselves ; not rarely seed 

 corn and potatoes are provided by appropriation 

 out of the public treasury, and a year after the fire 

 the stricken settler is again on the road to prosper- 

 ity. While this hopefulness and moral elasticity is 

 of the greatest advantage to the welfare of the peo- 

 ple in the forest regions, it unfortunately also has a 

 tendency to keep them from really appreciating the 

 seriousness of the injury done by fire to our national 



