116 Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society. 



been more thoroughly explored the past season than ever before, and it has been 

 found that large growths of forest trees flank these streams and the sides of the 

 Rocky Mountains, which divide here into three and sometimes four main ridges, 

 and it is believed by these explorers that if this timber shall be cut away it would 

 be a serious damage to the lower country, as the forests now hold the snows, to be 

 milted gradually, which would, in case of their destruction, be melted rapidly and 

 ■earlier in the season and cause a freshet, which would carry the waters much faster, 

 and there would be great danger of the "June rise" in the lower Missouri and Mis- 

 sippi rivers and causing immense damage. 



As this region of country has never been surveyed and has no inhabitants, and 

 as the President of the United States has recommended in his message that it be 

 set apart for a forest preserve, your Society might, if thought best, memorialize 

 Congress on the subject. Yours, truly, Robert Douglas. 



President Earle — This paper should receive some action from this 

 Society. 



Mr. Johnsou, of Kansas, submitted the following circular of 

 the Kansas State Horticultural Society, protesting against the re- 

 peal of the Timber Culture Act, which was referred, together with 

 the letter of Mr. Douglas, to the Committee on Forestry : 



Secretary's Office, Kansas State HoRTicaLTURAL Society, ) 



Lawrence, Kansas, .January -1, 1884. j 



My Dear Sir — Permit me to most respectfully invite your earnest consideration 



of the following copy of resolutions, passed by a unanimous vote at the seventeenth 



annual meeting of the State Horticultural Society, held in Ottawa, December 5 to 



7, 1883: 



Resolved. That we, members of the Kansas State Horticultural Society, in annual 

 meeting assembled, viewing with feelings of deep concern and alarm the present 

 efforts of members of our National Congress to secure a repeal of the "Timber Cul- 

 ture Act," do hereby express our most earnest protest to a repeal of said act, and 

 do most earnestly and respectfully request the Senators and Representatives in 

 Congress from Kansas to use their utmost endeavors to defeat any and all such 

 measures; and, furthermore, to direct their iulluence to secure a rigid enforcement 

 of the provisions of said act, and the penalties therein fixed for the offenses of 

 fraudulent entries and false holdings of the public domain; and, if necessary to put 

 a stop to the abuses of said act, to secure further legislation, providing severer pen- 

 alties an<i making it the special duty of some officer or otHcers to detect and vigor- 

 ously prosecute all violations of the provisions of the act, to a conviction of the 

 offender. Furthermore, we do most earnestly ask that said act be so amended that 

 land once claimed under its provisions shall be forever withdrawn from public 

 disposition, under the jirovisions of the Homestead, Pre-emption, or any other act, 

 but shall be rigidly held for the encouragement and promotion of the forestry in- 

 terests of these United States. And further l)e it 



Re-iiihed, That the Si-cretary of this Society bo instructed to furnish each of the 

 Kansas Senators and Representatives an authenticated copy nl' these resolutions at 

 an early day. 



For the purpose of testing the sense of the people on this question, a circular 



was sent from the office of the Secretary of this Society to the representative men 



of the following counties, to which the following response was received : 



