Annual Meeting at St. Joseph. 119 



the Department of Forestry, in the dissemination of knowledge. 

 The exhaustive scientific reports of Dr. Hough are well known, 

 but desiring to familiarize the subject, if I may use the expression, 

 the Forestry Division resorted to employment of special agents 

 instructed to collect facts and embody them in reports clothed in 

 the plainest language, and unburdened with superfluous matter. 



The wi'iter had the honor, even in advance of tlie appointment 

 of these agents, to make a report on the forestry systems of the 

 different countries of Europe, as illustrated at the last Paris 

 exhibition. 



Since their appointment, the special agents have, I may say, 

 not boastfully but truthfully, diligently carried out their instruc- 

 tions. A very brief notice is made of their labors in the report of 

 the United States commissioner of agriculture for the year 1883, 

 A still more concise notice of the work of the agents may not be 

 uninteresting as part of the history of what the general govern- 

 ment has done for forestry. 



One of tlie agents appointed was Dr. John A. Warder, of 

 Ohio. His life prior to his appointment had been devoted to horti- 

 culture and forestry. I do not need, in a company like this to 

 speak of his great merit and services in the department of knowl- 

 edge he had made his own. Had he lived he would have done a 

 great work for the government, but his death occurred shortly after 

 his appointment, and his field was left to be worked by others. 

 Hon. John W. Furnas, of Nebraska, was one of these, and he has 

 added to the literature of forestry a clear a,nd interesting report on 

 the forests of California. Oregon, Washington Territory and the 

 western slope of the Eocky Mountains. Governor Furnas' report 

 is especially valuable in its figures respecting the destruction of 

 timber in that district. Governor Furnas has also contributed an 

 interesting report on timber-growing on the treeless plains of 

 Nebraska. This is of special value to Kansas tree growers. The 

 writer, acting as a special agent, furnished> early in 1883 a jire- 

 liminary report on the forestry of the Mississippi Valley and tree 

 planting on the plains, and subsequently a supplementary report 

 covering more particularly the forest resources of the Southern 

 states. In the preparation of these reports the information 

 received in response to thousands of circulars was utilized ; the 

 instructions of the department being explicit as to the accumula- 

 tion of facts rather than of theories. 



It may be said that official reports made to any department of 

 the government are slow in reaching the public, appearing annu- 



