EXPENSE OF THE PROPOSED NATIONAL PARK. 445 
great permanent manufacturing concern has, and would undoubtedly result 
in much improvement in the way of cutting timber in this state which so 
often has left a trail of stagnation behind it. Why not try such a plan as 
this? Surely the government can well afford to do so, and it cannot possibly 
be any worse than the plan of selling all the timber to the highest bidder, 
without any regard to the rights of posterity. 
DESIRABILITY OF A FOREST HEALTH RESORT. 
DR. J. W. BELL, MINNEAPOLIS. 
The enthusiastic movement leading to the formation of the Minnesota 
National Park and Forest Reserve Association fully answers, in the af- 
firmative, this question. To the medical profession of Minnesota, acting 
upon the suggestion of our efficient chief fire warden, belongs the honor 
of initiating this important movement within the state, which has, and 
should have, as one of its principal objects the establishment of a forest 
health resort accessible to the large centers of population. The beautiful 
pine forests, picturesque lakes, sandy, porous soil, moderate elevation and 
pure dry air, combine to make the north central portion of the state a nat- 
ural sanatorium for the treatment of consumptives, neuresthenics and all 
invalids in need of rest. 
Minnesota is singularly fortunate in having in the northern part of the 
state a most happy combination of soil, timber and climate, making it in 
most respects an ideal location for a health resort, especially helpful and 
beneficial to that ever increasing multitude—the neuresthenics and con- 
sumptives. On critical examination we find a sandy, porous soil, moderate 
elevation, coniferous forests, a pure, dry, cool, stimulating air, with a high 
annual percentage of sunshiny days, an absence of high hills or mountains 
to invite and condense moisture or interfere with rapid evaporation by act- 
ing as barriers to the free course of the dry western winds. 
After considerable experience in the climatic treatment of pulmonary 
consumption, extending over a period of twenty years, during which time 
I have had occasion to investigate and test the value of our principal 
American health resorts, I have no hesitancy in affirming from actual ex- 
perience that our coniferous forests in the north central portion of the state 
afford as favorable climatic conditions for the cure of consumption as can 
be found in any one section of our Union. 
One of the strongest arguments in favor of our home health resort is 
the great advantage arising to the consumptive of being treated and cured 
in that climate in which he is to live and labor after restoration to health. 
One of the sad features of the climatic treatment of consumption is the 
banishment of the patient to a distant climate—far from home and friends— 
at great expense, where he is haunted by the thought that he must remain 
an exile or return only to perish from his malady. 
The class of invalids benefited mostly by a forest health resort would be 
the semi-invalid class, consisting of the overworked and over-worried busi- 
ness and professional man, the clerk and teacher, the nervous, explosive, 
hypersensitive city child, a nervous wreck, largely the result of our high 
tension school system, and the weary and worn wife and mother, whose 
constant indoor life and ceaseless cares too often lay the foundation for 
nervous and pulmonary disorders; also that unfortunate class of over-civil- 
ized, nerve-shaken would-be invalids, suffering principally from the vice of 
