Referring to Mr. Meehan's point that the permitting of underbrush is the main source of the power of forest fires, Mrs. Mary Bayard Clarke, the distinguished poetess, says in the Raleigh Farmer and Mechanic:

"Night after night, every fall, we in Newbern can see across the Neuse river the glow of burning woods, and this winter's experience, joined to Mr. Meehan's report, has set some of us thinking whether it would not be better for our legislature to take the matter in hand and devise some means, more effectual than any yet tried, to preserve our forests from devastating fires and the almost equally devastating girdling process,"