NOTABLE FOREST FIRES. 121 
by burning out all organic matter from the soil and leaving it 
in poor shape for crops, though a rather severe but not excessive 
firing of bogs may do much to clear the land of roots and put 
it in shape for a good hay meadow. Then, too, they often so 
reduce the level of the land by burning out the organic matter 
as to make it wet and of no value for agricultural crops. If 
such fires are attacked soon after they secure a foothold in the 
soil they are seldom very difficult to put out. Where not deep 
in the ground or of very great extent the burning peat may be 
dug out and watered, but this is often impracticable on account 
of the heat. In this latter case a ditch should be dug around the 
fire as close to it as practicable and of sufficient depth to reach 
standing water or the subsoil. The fire should then be carefully 
watched to see that it does not get beyond the ditch. It is sel- 
dom that sufficient water can be put on a large bog fire to. put 
it out, on account of the great amount of water that dry pcat 
will absorb and the protective covering of ashes and peat usually 
found over a bog fire. 
NOTABLE FOREST FIRES. 
Among the worst forest fires which have occurred on this 
continent are the following: 
Miramichi Fire of 1825. This occurred near Newcastle, 
on the Miramichi river, in New Brunswick. In nine hours it 
had destroyed a belt of forest eighty miles long and twenty-five 
miles wide, and almost every living thing was killed on that 
amount of territory; even the fish were destroyed in the smaller 
lakes and streams. It is estimated that the loss from this fire, 
not including the value of the timber burned, was $300,000. One 
hundred and sixty persons lost their lives, and nearly 1,000 head 
of stock were killed. 
The Peshtigo Fire occurred in October, 1871. This burned 
an area of over 2,000 square miles in Wisconsin. Between 1,100 
and 1,500 persons lost their lives, and property to the amount of 
many millions of dollars was destroyed. 
Very serious fires have occurred in Michigan from time to 
time, in one of which, in about 1871, a strip of territory forty 
miles wide and 180 miles long, extending across the central part 
of the state from Lake Michigan to Lake Huron, was devastated. 
