Forestry. 175 



ers in all our foundries is white or soft pine. Our best 

 spoke and hub timber for carriages, is grown in Connecticut, 

 and is getting so near exhausted that some of the timber 

 land in that state, we are told, is worth six hundred dollars 

 per acre. The whole western slope of our country does not 

 produce timber fit to manufacture wagons or railway cars, 

 and this must always be supplied from other sources. 



Some of our states, by legal enactments or proclamations 

 by the governor, have set apart arbor days. And this prac- 

 tice was brought about by suggestions from some of the 

 members of the Forestry Congress, and first adopted in Cin- 

 cinnati, Ohio, April 27, 1882. Since then, some of the states 

 have set apart this day as a grand holiday, and schools and 

 colleges plant groves and trees, in honor of some event, or 

 departed friend or statesman. I think Nebraska was the 

 first state who, by legal enactment, made this a holiday; 

 and that state now has over 700,000 acres of timber planted 

 by human hands. Kansas and other western states are 

 falling into line, and I hope the practice will be so popular 

 that arbor day will be a universal holiday for the nation; 

 and our children not only taught to plant trees, but learn 

 their names and value either for shade, ornament or other 

 useful purposes. 



The largest proportion of the settlers in our new western 

 territories are not able to do much at tree planting, and 

 there is no methpd or system contemplated in any county 

 or section of country where an attempt has been made at 

 tree planting. In my opinion all borders of streams and 

 lakes in the west should be planted with trees. And there 

 should be long belts of timber stretching across the country 

 to break the force of the prevailing winds. If some such 

 system as this had been adopted years ago, and the work 

 entrusted to practical foresters we should by this time be re- 

 ceiving a revenue, and every settler be benefited far more 

 than by the present system of free lands. There are now 

 millions of acres of land in Minnesota and Dakota which 

 are nearly worthless, which if planted to trees, would in 

 thirty years well pay on the investment by the government. 



If there were no other reasons for tree planting than the 



