. A standard history of Jasper and Newton counties, Indiana : an authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and country. ofthis furrowing, reserving the inner strip for a late bum, i. e., until thefollowing summer, and in July burn both old grass and new. Thegrass would start afresh immediately, and the cattle would feed itclose in preference to the older grass, so that the fire would notpass over it in the following autumn. This process repeated wouldsoon, or in a few years, run out the prairie grass, which in timewould be replaced
. A standard history of Jasper and Newton counties, Indiana : an authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and country. ofthis furrowing, reserving the inner strip for a late bum, i. e., until thefollowing summer, and in July burn both old grass and new. Thegrass would start afresh immediately, and the cattle would feed itclose in preference to the older grass, so that the fire would notpass over it in the following autumn. This process repeated wouldsoon, or in a few years, run out the prairie grass, which in timewould be replaced by blue-grass, which will not burn to any seriousextent. But all this took time and labor, and the crowd of business JASPER AND NEWTON COUNTIES 5 on the hands of a new settler, of which a novice has no conception,would prevent him doing what would now seem a small matter;and even when accomplished, all such precautions often provedfutile. A prairie fire driven by a high wind would often leap suchbarriers and seem to put human eifort at defiance. A prairie fire when first started goes straight forward with avelocity proportioned to the force of the wind, widening as it goes,. Food for Fires but the center keeping ahead; it spreads sideways, but burninglaterally, it makes but comparatively slow progress, and if thewind is moderate and steady, this spreading fire is not difficult tomanage, but if the wind veers a point or two, first one way andthen the other, it sends this side fire beyond control. The headfire in dry grass and a head wind is a fearful thing, and prettysure to have its own way unless there is some defensible point to 6 JASPER AND NEWTON COUNTIES meet it. A contest with such a fire requires such skill and tactas can be learned only by experience, and a neighborhood of set-tlers called out by such an exigency at once put themselves underthe direction of the oldest and most experienced of their number,and go to work with the alacrity and energy of men defendi
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