52 
RECOVERY AND PREVENTION OF WASTE. 
What can be done to save the enormous loss to the State is clear. 
The land must be restocked and the young timber must be given a 
chance to grow on all lands which are essentially forest soil and not 
desirable for agriculture. 
FOREST FIRES. 
What the fire has done to the Pine supply is apparent from the con_ 
servative figures of the original stand of Pine. Besides this injury to 
Dine, the fire has killed more than 5,000,000,000 feet of Hemlock, at 
icast 1,000,000,000 feet of Cedar, and several billions of hardwoods, 
besides large quantities of Tamarack, and, in addition, stands of young 
and sapling Pine (under 8-inch diameter) covering many thousand acres, 
which to-day would furnish 5,000,000,000 or more feet of merchantable 
material. The same work of destruction continues; this very fall 
(1897) many hundreds of acres of young sapling Pine were ruined by 
fire, and it will be many years before the opening of settlements and 
roads suffices to permanently suppress the fire fiend. From this itis 
clear, and the fact is fully conceded by all persons conversant with the 
conditions of these woods, that the first and most important step in the 
prevention of further destruction of the forests consists in the organi- 
zation of an efficient fire police. 
That a diversity of opinion should exist on this subjectis but natural. 
To most people the entire subject is foreign, the problem too large. To 
many even well-informed and experienced men the forest fire is an 
enormous affair, a calamity which man is entirely unable successfully 
to combat. Nevertheless, the best-informed men, nearly all woodsmen 
(‘‘cruisers” and loggers), whose opinion was sought in this connection, 
expressed themselves in favor of such a police and felt certain of good 
results. In considering this important subject it may be of interest to 
point out a few fundamental facts which may help to shape a policy: 
(1) All fires have a small beginning. The Peshtigo fire, by far the 
most terrific ever experienced in Wisconsin, was known to be burning 
and gaining headway for fully two weeks before it broke out in the 
final and then perfectly unmanageable form. The Phillips fire was 
heard and the smoke seen and felt in town for days before it reached 
the village and converted it into ruins. 
(2) All fires stop of their own accord after they have run for a 
moderate distance, evidently finding obstacles which gradually reduce 
their power. The Peshtigo fire did not involve the fourth part of 
Marinette; the Phillips fire not a fourth of Price, and a most intense 
fire in northern Chippewa, which, when at its best, sent firebrands 
across a lake over half a mile wide, did not keep on running, but stopped 
without going much, if any, beyond the county line. 
(3) The majority of fires are small fires. When the “whole country 
is on fire,” it is not one fire but hundreds of separate fires, all or nearly 
all of which have had their origin in carelessness. 
