ANNUAL MEETING, I9O5, MINN. FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 25 



''If you keep on chopping down your trees, the time is coming 

 when the now magnificent state of Minnesota will be a barren 

 desert, despoiled and void of vegetation, over which hungry jackals 

 and frantic hyenas will prowl. Much better had you united your 

 voices in a prayer to the United States congress to build an auto- 

 mobile road from Minneapolis to Cass Lake than to insist upon your 

 request that this northern section be drained, for it would be money 

 in your pockets to do so. 



"The total area in Minnesota devoted to forest reserves should 

 be ten times as large as Cass Lake Reserve, but should be scat- 

 tered in different parts of the state an'd should be regarded and 

 treated as forest plantations rather than forest reserves. There 

 ought to be 20.0(X),ooo acres of forest plantations in Minnesota from 

 which, when the trees have matured, an annual forest crop could be 

 harvested so as to maintain forever the lumber industry of the state. 

 If they go ahead in the wrong way and get the water and timber 

 both off the land in northern Minnesota it is not at all impossible to 

 turn that country into an abandoned desert in ten years." 



At the close of the address, Mrs. Lydia Phillips Williams off'er- 

 ed the following resolutions : 



Whereas, the resolution of the Minnesota legislature last April 

 urging congress to open for settlement the Minnesota forest reserve 

 at Cass Lake was passed without discussion upon its merits or pre- 

 vious notice, and 



Whereas, the statements in said resolution are misleading and 

 in certain particulars incorrect, and 



Whereas, the resolution does not represent the voice of the ma- 

 jority of the people of the state, or the best interests of the state or 

 the Indians ; 



Resolved, that the Minnesota Forestry Association hereby 

 petition congress to refrain from granting the request embodied in 

 said resolution, and respectfully urges congress to uphold said re- 

 serve — the act creating it having been a compromise measure, to 

 which all interests were and should remain agreed. 



A spirited discussion ensued in which Mr. Barnard and Mr. 

 Ives, of Cass Lake, and Mr. Hayes, of Bemidji, being extended the 

 privilege of the floor, participated. 



At the close of the discussion Prof. S. B. Green moved the 

 adoption of the resolution presented by Mrs. Williams, and it was 

 passed by the association wath only one dissenting vote. 



LVcurgus R. Moyer, of Montevideo, read a paper on "Prairie 

 Forestation," showing that in, many places the plains of the hitherto 

 bleak northwest are being turned into tree shaded tracts. 



The Forestry Association then elected the following ofificers to 

 serve for the ensuing year: President, Mr. C. M. Loring; vice- 

 president, ]\Ir. S. M. Owen ; secretary, ]\Irs. Lydia Phillips Williams ; 



