The losses in your state and locale from frost.
Preventable Losses
A great deal of the property loss referred to is due to causes for which we are not responsible, such as storms, the depredations of insects, and epidemics of animal disease. But some of it is due to our own carelessness. It was said on page 176 that wastefulness is our chief national sin. Carelessness is the twin sister of wastefulness; they go hand in hand. Enormous waste is caused by fire, and most fires are due to carelessness—carelessness in handling matches, in the use of oil stoves, in accumulations of rubbish, in disposing of hot ashes, in smoking where there are inflammable materials.
Fire Protection in Cities
In cities and towns the safety of our own property from fire is largely dependent upon the care of others. If our neighbor is careless, our property as well as his may be destroyed. Under such circumstances it is necessary to have rules to regulate conduct for the common safety. The materials with which we may build, the thickness of our walls, the construction of our flues, the storage of explosive or inflammable materials, the disposal of rubbish and ashes, and many other things, are regulated by law. This is cooperation for fire prevention. Much money is also spent by cities for fire protection, including water supply and organized fire departments.
FIRE PROTECTION IN RURAL COMMUNITIES
Where people live widely separated from one another, as in rural communities, such regulations are less necessary and organized fire protection is less easy to afford. A farmer's property may be destroyed by fire from a spark from a passing locomotive, or from the camp of a careless hunter in the adjoining woods. There may be state laws to control such cases. But in the main, if his property burns it is due to the carelessness of some one who lives on the premises, and he is dependent upon his own efforts to control the fire. Improved farm water supply with adequate pumping facilities, the telephone by which neighbors may be summoned, and the automobile by which help may quickly be brought, have increased the farmer's safety; but his chief safeguard is the exercise of care by all who live on the farm at every point where a fire might possibly be started.
FIRE INSURANCE
Fire insurance is a means of reducing the fire loss of individual property owners by a form of cooperation. Insurance companies, operating under state laws, sell insurance to property owners. The latter pay a small premium for the protection afforded. From the funds produced by the premiums and the interest on their investment, the occasional losses of individuals are paid. This does not prevent the destruction of the property, but it distributes the loss among thousands of people, perhaps in all parts of the country.