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216 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
WHAT | SAW OF FORESTRY IN EUROPE. 
HON. S. M. OWEN, MINNEAPOLIS. 
It was my privilege to visit Europe, where forestry is a great question. 
Being naturally much interested in it, I tried to get all the information I 
could in regard to the administration of forests in the countries I visited, and 
where I could get no special information, or where circumstances did not 
enable me to investigate forests or learn methods of administration, I ob- 
served carefully while traveling in private or public conveyances. In Ger- 
many my observations were confined almost entirely to those of the latter 
character. I traveled through much of the forest area of Germany, but 
about all I did there was to observe the marvelous and beautiful condition 
of the forests. I could see that non-agricultural lands had been devoted to 
forests, with trees now ten to twelve inches in diameter and larger, and kept 
wonderfully clean and looking charmingly thrifty. Pine is growing on rocky 
hillsides very much as we see them in New England; the surroundings are 
much the same; but not only in such localities, but on what seemed to be 
good agricultural lands, and where I was told forests had previously existed 
and had been destroyed, and it had been found necessary to restore them by 
replanting, on account of climatic and other conditions. German forests are 
now great sources of profit, besides being highly advantageous in other 
ways. 
I had the best opportunity of studying forestry while in Switzerland. I 
was really more interested in the subject in Switzerland, by reason of the ap- 
parent difficulty of growing forests there, and because it is a smaller com- 
munity, with more resemblance to Minnesota as to population than is Ger- 
many. The population of Swizterland is something like three millions, 
and its area is about one-fifth that of Minnesota. 
The forests are under government control, and so are many other of 
her public interests. It is, perhaps, the best example of state socialism on 
earth today. The cutting of timber is regulated entirely by government 
officials. Even the man who owns his timber is restricted as to the timber 
he can cut. Each resident is assigned the amount and kind of timber he may 
cut for fuel during the year, and all of the timber so cut must be used for 
fuel. If he wants trees for building, he cuts whatever is deemed sufficient for 
that purpose, but all of the branches, even down to the small twigs, must 
be used, and that is applied to his quota of fuel for that year. It is the finest 
system for the conservation of timber imaginable. You will see in going 
through Switzerland not the gross waste of wood that we are so familiar 
with in this‘country, but will find little piles of fire wood cut stove length, 
piled up snugly under wide eaves of the cottage, and there are little twigs 
often not larger than lead pencil, all tied up in little bundles ready for the 
stove. There is much timber used in Switzerland for building -purposes, 
more than in other parts of Europe I visited, and, as it is populated ten times 
more densely than Minnesota, the free use of timber makes it necessary to 
look carefully to the re-growing of forests as well as to the conservation of 
what they now have. It is a rule that for all the trees cut in a commune in 
any one year there must be planted an equal number, and this is done under 
the supervision of government officials. 
One will see, sometimes on mountain sides, and often at giddy heights. 
little patches of young timber, which represent in part the trees cut in that 
locality the year these youngsters were planted. These embryo forest 
