446 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
idleness and the apathy of luxury, whose lives are as empty and barren as 
the desert. May we not hope, as a last resort, that an actual introduction 
and a few weeks’ close communion with rugged mother nature in this pic- 
turesque region might do something toward bringing them to a true reali- 
zation of what constitutes life. 
A forest health resort, combining the open air and sanatorium plan, 
would be a great boon to the large and increasing class known as neures- 
thenics. Strange as it may seem, the nervous, irritable, sleepless, neures- 
thenic, removed from his city work and worries, finds prompt relief in the 
pines, soon sleeps and eats better, and gains in strength, flesh and spirits. 
Lastly, such health resort would prove of incalculable benefit to the 
tuberculous group, represented by one-sixth of our entire population—an 
invalid class of no mean proportion, when we recall the fact that the con- 
sumptive, like the wounded soldier on the battle field, requires at least one 
or two to care for him, often for a period of months. 
A city, state or nation is truly great and prosperous only in proportion 
to the healthfulness of its people; hence no sacrifice or outlay of money and — 
time within reasonable bounds should be deemed too great to secure to our 
people a park and health resort of sufficient acreage to meet the wants of all 
classes. 
To secure and save a sufficient acreage of our primeval forests ere 
it is too late will require herculean effort on the part of all our good people 
interested in the larger humanity. 
FORESTRY IN MINNESOTA. 
CAPT. JUDSON N. CROSS, PRESIDENT MINN. STATE FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 
(Read at last annual meeting of the Minn. State Forestry Association.) 
The plan adopted by this association in 1896 for the creation of forest 
reserves, which has been given such generous support by all the allied so- 
cieties interested in the agricultural development of the state, and by the 
newspapers and periodicals, was crystallized into law passed by the last 
legislature, substantially as recommended by this society and passed by the 
lower house of the legislature in 1897. 
The State Forestry Board, created by the law, was duly organized, Gov- 
ernor Lind appointing as its members the persons recommended by the 
several allied associations and boards as provided by the act. No lands 
have yet been donated to the state under its provisions, but assurances have 
been received that several owners of cut-over, non-agricultural lands are 
preparing to tender to the board quite large areas. It must work on 
cautious and conservative lines, going ahead a little every year, we trust, 
moving as fast at least as the people demand. But its object is to cause 
the non-agricultural lands interspersed among agricultural tracts, in all 
parts of the state, so far as practicable to be regrown with forests for future 
needs, as a beneficence to our children and their children. 
The national forest park, to which I alluded at the last annual meeting, 
as then contemplated by my old college and army companion, Col. J. S. 
Cooper, of Chicago, has taken definite shape. Col. Cooper organized a 
very successful congressional excursion to Leech and Cass lakes last year, 
which, I trust, will be instrumental in creating a national forest park around 
the headwaters of the Mississippi river. This would fill the hopes of the 
