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RUNNING THE FIRE-GUARD
March 28, 1868, page 196 (Illustrated Article)
We illustrate on this page a peculiarity of Western farming which will be new to most of our readers. To fully comprehend the sketch it must be remembered, first, that wood is very scarce and valuable on the prairies, and also that the fires which sweep for miles across the plains are very destructive. As a general thing, the dry season of the West is in the fall and early winter—another peculiarity of that peculiar country—and the fires naturally prevail mostly about that time. To guard the fences on his farm from these fires the farmer plows up several furrows parallel to each fence on the uncultivated or prairie side, from which the fire which consumes the prairie-grass is to be expected. This breaks the "continuity of the fire-current," as one old farmer expressed it to our artist, and the fire is brought to a stop in that direction. After harvest the farmer is often busy for days in running these guards in anticipation of fires, and when one by accident or procrastination loses his fences he considers himself most unfortunate indeed.

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It is when the fire comes unexpectedly, before the crops are in and the fences guarded, or, as sometimes happens, when the fire-fiend comes from the wrong direction, against which no preparation has been made, that the scene depicted in the sketch occurs. It is not true—as has been sometimes stated, and as was generally believed years ago, when we supposed the great West was a great sandy desert—that prairie-fires move with lightning rapidity. They move fast enough, it is true, but often the farmer who sees the fires in the distance is enabled to hastily run a fire-guard on the unguarded side of his fences in time to save his property; but it is work requiring a quick and steady hand, and is not unattended with danger.
March 28, 1868, page 196 (Illustrated Article)

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