84 Report of the Forest Commission, 



once, thus giving them work. The fires will also force into the market much 

 pine that was held by non-logging capitalists for the purpose of speculation. 

 At any rate, hundreds of men will be given immediate employment. 



In the counties of Dickinson, Houghton, and Ontonagon, in Michigan, and 

 Florence, and Marinette, in Wisconsin, it is estimated that 700,000,000 feet of 

 white pine and hemlock have been scorched. 



Ewen's Narrow Escape. 



Ewen, Mich., September 4. — The fires in the vicinity of Ewen are abating. 

 Telegraphic communication has been cut off since Saturday. In Ewen the 

 loss was about $4,000. The entire town seemed doomed, but was saved by 

 hard fighting. 



The smoke was so thick that several were overcome. 



Tt is thought nearly every foot of standing pine in Ontonagon county is 

 burned— fully 500,000,000 feet. The Nester estate has lost 90,000,000; Trout 

 Creek Lumber Company, 20,000,000; Diamond Match Company, 150,000,000. 

 The balance is owned by homesteaders at Paynesville and Bruce's Crossing. 



Many cattle and horses were burned, but no human lives were lost, though 

 there have been many perilous situations and narrow escapes. 



Pennsylvania. 



(Easton Argus, Pa., December 1, 1894.) 

 Shamokin, Pa., November 30.— Destructive forest fires are burning on the 

 Line and Henry mountains, and, although every possible means to extinguish 

 them is being made by the coal companies owning the land, the flames con- 

 tinue to rage. On the summit and sides of the Henry Mountains are many 

 openings leading into the workings operated by the Mineral Mining Company, 

 and this company had a score of men at work last night fighting the flames. 

 The best the fire fighters could do was to keep the flames from spreading on 

 the Line Mountain. No headway could be made against the fire. It is 

 apparent that the entire tracts of woodland on the mountains will be destroyed. 

 How the fires originated is not known. 



(New York Sun, May 20, 1894.) 



" While I was trout fishing in northern Pennsylvania last week," said a New 

 Yorker, "I noticed on the mountains along the creeks ominous pillars of 

 smoke rising in many places among the trees. The evident regularity and 

 system with which the fires that caused the smoke were built excited my 

 curiosity, and I asked a native of the region what their origin was and their 

 object. 



" 'Oh,' he replied, 'they are the work of the huckleberry farmers. That's 

 the way the bushwhackers cultivate huckleberries ' 



"Then, by further inquiry, I learned that there is a tribe of shiftless persons 

 in all those mountain regions who have no regard for law, property or life, 

 and among whose work of outlawry is the systematic firing of woods simply 

 to increase the area of huckleberry bushes, by the picking of berries from 



