WHAT MINNESOTA NEEDS IN FORESTRY. 



227 



not to exceed $2.50 per acre, not exceeding the eighth part of an> 

 one township, and one-quarter of the revenue to go to the town 

 for the annual tax. But they made no appropriation to carry the 

 law into effect. Now the question is whether we are to remain as a 

 mere organization to meet every year to talk about forestry without 

 doing anything. Six years ago the forestry commission of Wis- 

 consin employed Dr. Roth to inaugurate ■ a forest plan, and in 

 the area of 18,000,000 acres which had been covered with 

 pine' he found 6,000,000 acres which he says is unfit for agricultural 

 purposes or only doubtful, so that amount should be left to forest. 



view in 20,000 acres forestry land granted the state^by Congress, April 28, 1904. 



There is as much probably in Minnesota. There are 3,000,- 

 000 acres in scattered localities that are non-agricultural lands and 

 which the state ought to begin to reforest. Why? Because it takes 

 on such soil eighty years for pine to grow to merchantable size, and 

 our states must do as the European states do in this matter of refor- 

 estation. What are the results ? The kingdom of Saxony, which is 

 the most advinced country in Europe in forestry, has now 432,000 

 acres of state forest on mostly non-agricultural lands. The product 

 of the annual growth per acre is 225 feet board measure, so from that 

 forest of 432,000 acres they can cut annually 97,000,000 feet without 

 impairing the forest. One of the greatest things in Europe is this 

 science of forestry as developed by those states. On the same prin- 



