204: Wisconsin State Hokticultural Society. 



the writer. Then again, though it has not been his good fortune to 

 see more than a very limited portion of your beautiful and most 

 varied state, which is remarkable for the diversity of its surface and 

 soil, enlivened by its prairies, lakes and timber tracts; nevertheless 

 your absent friend will presume upon this occasion, from his far off 

 home, to appear before you with some suggestions, cognate to some 

 of the great interests that will occupy your attention at the ap- 

 proaching joint meeting. 



Your kind reception upon a former occasion was forcibly brought 

 up from the caverns of memory last winter, by a very pleasant 

 meeting with a former secretary of your agricultural board, now the 

 worthily honored governor of Wyoming. And while traversing 

 together her extended grassy plains, gazing upon the beautiful for- 

 ests of her mighty mountain chains and exploring their hidden 

 treasures, our memories instinctively reverted to the times when 

 together we had first met at your beautiful capital among the lakes. 

 Your choice products, your fertile soil, and your men of mark and 

 of industry were pleasantly passed in review, while resting from 

 the fatigues of mountain exploration, and we could but wish that an 

 exchange would be made between these so distant and differently 

 situated regions. 



This being premised, you may wish to know what boon we desire 

 you might receive from those distant mountains. Their gold and 

 silver? No, indeed, but something that would contribute far more 

 richly to your true welfare as an agricultural people — their trees! 



With about three and one-half million acres of woodland, twenty- 

 nine and three-tenths per cent, of the entire area of your state, the 

 more valuable pine forests are confined to a comparatively small part 

 of the forest area; and the reckless greed of the lumbermen has sadly 

 stripped the accessible portions of the woodland, while nothing has 

 been done toward the increase, preservation or renewal of the syl- 

 van wealth of the land, except what nature herself has accom- 

 plished. But even her efforts have been sadly interfered with by 

 the destructive fires that have been permitted to ravage the forests. 

 True, the oak openings have grown up wonderfully since the set- 

 tlement. To be sure, in the prairie regions you have, in self-defence 

 been planting trees. This is well! Go on with the good work of 

 embellishing your land, protecting yourselves, your cattle and your 

 crops from the fierce winds, and in providing for yourselves and for 



