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NEEDED FORESTRY LEGISLATION. 



PROF. S. 13. GU1:EX, ST. ANTHONY PARK. 

 (An address delivered before Minnesota .Forestry Association in December, 1906.) 



I want to say a few words in regard to what we need in the 

 way of forest legislation. There are a whole lot of things we 

 need, but I want to simply refer here to some things that I 

 know we need, and that I think we ought to have within a short 

 time, and this session of the legislature that meets this winter 

 ought to take favorable action in regard to these matters. 



Now, we have in the state of Minnesota what is known as 

 the State Forestry Board. That board was created by act of 

 the legislature and is made up of nine members. Three are ap- 

 pointed by the Board of Regents of the University, two are ex- 

 officio members, the professor of horticulture of the university 

 and the chief fire warden of the forestry commission, as it is 

 called. There are seven members nominated by the governor, 

 three of them are recommended by the Board of Regents, one by 

 the Game and Fish Commission, one by the State Horticultural 

 Society, one by the State Forestry Association, and one by the 

 State Agricultural Society. The object in creating that board 

 was that there might be somebody that would hold lands for 

 the state and manage them on forestry principles. It was 

 thought, and with every reason to believe at the time that 

 board was formed, that there would be a large amount of land 

 deeded to the state for forestry purposes, but unfortunately there 

 came a land boom about that time, and as a result of that land 

 boom there was a great increase in the price of timber land in 

 northern Minnesota. Many of the values put on the land at 

 that time have been shown to be fictitious, but it resulted in 

 the price of land being held very high, and, as a result, we got 

 but one thousand acres out of what we supposed would be 

 from 150,000 to 200,000 acres. There is a large amount of land 

 in this state that is practically adapted only to forestry purposes. 

 I do not know how much, but it runs up into millions of acres. 

 There are some counties in northeastern Minnesota that have almost 

 no agricultural land in them. You hear some people say that we 

 have no land that is not agricultural land. What they mean is that 

 we have no land from which one could not get a living. But we 

 have a large amount of land that can be better used for forestry 

 than for agriculture, for our forests are disappearing rapidly. This 

 board went to consTess and asked congress to set aside or allow them 



