COMMUNICATIONS. 203 



the steam engines scattered over the State ; for lumber to supply 

 our own demand and for exportation, and for the thousand other 

 purposes to which wood is annually applied. The rapid increase 

 of population is constantly augmenting this draft upon the for- 

 ests. Already vast quantities of lumber and fuel are annually 

 exported to Illinois ; and very soon, as her population increases 

 and her railroad facilities are perfected, Minnesota will call upon 

 us with heavy demands for lumber to enable her to'populate her 

 prairies and thinly timbered districts. 



The immense lumbering establishments on our rivers are an- 

 nually converting large numbers of the magnificent pine trees 

 — 'the growth perhaps of centuries — into a marketable form for 

 consumption and exportation, — one of these establishments yield- 

 ing no less than twenty millions of feet of lumber per annum. 



It is much to be regretted that the very superabundance of 

 trees in our State should destroy, in some degree, our venera- 

 tion for them. They are looked upon as cumberers of the 

 ground, and the question is not how shall they be preserved and 

 beautified, but how shall they be destroyed. Place a few of our 

 noble oaks, or elegant elms, or majestic fiines in any of the old- 

 er countries, and they would be looked upon as one of their fin- 

 est ornaments. The Great Elm on Boston Common is venera- 

 ted by old and young ; the aid of iron bars has been invoked by 

 Mayor Smith, to protect it from harm ; and books have been 

 written to preserve its history. The loss of an oak tree lately, 

 in Connecticut, sent a thrill of regret throughout the land. 



It happens that the trees of Wisconsin all belong to one divis- 

 ion of the vegetable kingdom ; that division which includes 

 plants that grow by the deposit of an external layer of wood 

 annually — hence called Exogens, or outside-growers. They 

 are of two kinds; Angiosjyerms^ having seeds inclosed in a cap- 

 sule or fruit, which in germination present two cotyledons or 

 seed-lobes ; and Oymnosperms^ having the seeds naked in an 

 open scale, the cotyledons mostly more than two. This last 

 kind includes only one family, the Coniferese, or Pine Family, 

 which is mostly evergreen, while the Angiosperms of our State 

 are all deciduous. 



