until the frost comes, when the farmers begin to feed them. Enough
fodder is raised during the season to carry the stock comfortably
through until the grass is up again; but as the corn and roots are
liable to rot or mould, little more is grown than is necessary. You can
see that it is a serious business for the farmers to have had to touch
their winter supplies two months ahead of time.

It is this drought which has caused the forest fires.

In those sections of the country that have as yet escaped the fire, the
prairies are as dry as tinder, and the owners of the fields are in
constant fear that a spark from a passing locomotive may set fire to
them. Men are kept on the watch night and day to prevent such a
calamity.

The Tonawanda Swamp is also on fire.

Tonawanda is in the northern part of New York State, in the neighborhood
of Buffalo, and is a great lumber town.

The swamp covers twenty-five thousand acres, and adjoining it are many
rich farm lands and valuable buildings.

The underbrush grows so thickly in this swamp that it has always been
necessary to clear it out every little while, and so the people have
been in the habit of setting it on fire every year a few days before the
equinoctial storms were due. They had found from experience that by the
time the storms came the fires had burnt out enough of the undergrowth
for their purpose, and the heavy rains which usually accompany the
storms put the fires out for them.