PROGRESS OF FORESTRY IN THIS COTNTRY. 347 
it expends $20,000 annually in bounties for tree planting on the prairies, and 
in all has expended for that purpose over half a million dollars, a record 
no other state can show. It is one of the very few states that has tried to 
enforce a law for preventing and extinguishing forest fires; it has a school of 
forestry connected with the State University, and the last legislature created 
a State Forestry Board to administer, on forestry principles, such non- 
agricultural lands as may be acquired by the state, either by donations or 
purchase for forestry purposes. In this, as in many other states, it is to be 
noticed that the press is doing valuable service towards instructing the pub- 
lic mind on the needs of better forestry methods. Women’s clubs are also 
interesting themselves in the question. There are probably about three 
million acres, in detached localities, of idle non-agricultural land which would 
begin tc earn a good revenue as soon as it could become forested. Our 
soil and climate being so favorable to the growth of the white pine, the 
most valuable of all trees, a wise and courageous forestry policy would be 
of immense benefit. Our state can well be in the front rank on this impor- 
tant question, if it will but improve its opportunities. 
Finally, it is gratifying to notice what great progress has been made 
by the United States government in forestry within recent years. The policy 
of permanent forest reserves has become established. The United States 
government has set apart 46,000,000 acres of mountainous lands as forest 
reservations (not including those in Alaska), and has appointed superintend- 
ents and rangers to assist in their administration and their protection from 
fire. These reservations are now being surveyed under charge of the di- 
rector of the geological surveys. It is significant that thirty-five pages of 
the last annual report of the commissioner of the general land office are 
devoted to the public forests. 
On the whole, it would seem that more has been accomplished for for- 
estry in this country in the last five years than has been accomplished for 
a long time before, and the prospects for the cause are certainly very 
encouraging. 
Seedless Fruits——The cause of seedless fruits has not been ascertained 
as yet. There are several other kinds of fruits besides oranges in which 
seedless varieties occur, as, for instance, in the grape, banana and others. 
Seedless fruits cannot, of course, be propagated from seed, and in order to 
propagate these varieties they have to be grafted or budded on seedlings of 
other varieties of the same kind of fruit. Grafting does not change the char- 
acter of the graft, the stock serving merely as a medium to grow on, the 
same as the soil does in the case of cuttings. Seedless fruits can also be 
propagated from cuttings or layers. 
The best known seedless orange is the Bahia, or Washington Navel. The 
original trees were imported from Bahia, in Brazil, some 30 years ago, by 
Mr. William Saunders, of the United States Department of Agriculture. 
They were first grown in the government greenhouses at Washington, and 
three years later, when enough young trees had been raised, they were sent 
out for trial to Florida and California. In Florida they have not proved 
very successful, but in California they flourish beyond all expectation, and 
bear an abundance of fruit of such high excellence as to supersede all other 
kinds. 
