430 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



THE ITASCA STATE PARK. 



GEN. C. C. ANDREWS, MINNESOTA STATE FIRE WARDEN. 

 (From 1?98 Annual Report, Minnesota State Fire Warden.) 



In August I spent a day looking' over the Itasca State Park in 

 company with the superintendent, and walked several miles through 

 thick primeval woods. I saw some handsome exclusively pine 

 forest, also considerable forest of large leaved trees mixed with pine, 

 balsam and spruce. Though not as rich in forest as some other 

 localities in the state, it is yet well enough wooded to make a desir- 

 able park, aside from the interest attaching to it as containing the 

 source of the Mississippi river. Evidently there is much wild game 

 in its limits. 



The only means of travel through the park at present is by boat. 

 Its benefit to visitors would be very greatly promoted by the con- 

 struction of paths and roads, and as soon as practicable the state 

 should employ a landscape engineer to lay out and construct a 

 system of roads and paths. Such improvements would add im- 

 mensely to the attractiveness and value of the park. Towards this 

 park congress contributed as a gift 7,000 acres on condition that the 

 state would protect the timber; and the only means for its protec- 

 tion from fire provided thus far, besides what the superintendent 

 can do individually, is through the fire warden law. Another por- 

 tion of the park, comprising 2,452 acres, was bought by the state, of 

 the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, at fifty cents per acre. 



The state is to be congratulated on the wise and fairly liberal 

 action of the last legislature in appropriating $20,000 to purchase 

 timbered tracts within the boundaries of the park which still belong 

 to private individuals, and which, through lumbering, were liable 

 soon to become denuded of forest cover, and in a way to expose the 

 rest of the park to serious danger from fires. 



The law making the above mentioned $20,000 appropriation further 

 provides that in case said appropriation shall become exhausted, 

 and it shall transpire that timber is liable to be cut from any land 

 within the limits of the park, the attorney general shall endeavor to 

 secure from the owner of such land an option to purchase the same, 

 for a period not exceeding two years, which shall contain an agree- 

 ment that the timber thereon shall remain undisturbed. He may 

 pay for Said option, if secured, a sum not exceeding four per centum 

 per annum of such term, upon the value of said land as the same 

 may be estimated by him. An appropriation of $1,000 was made to 

 enable him to secure such option. 



Flower Lovers should make more of the petunia as^a window 

 plant. A well established root, dug from the garden in the fall, will 

 be in blossom by the first of December and will keep in continuous 

 bloom all winter. The petunia should never be allowed to get dry 

 during the blossoming season. It has but one objection, and that 

 is the roots are very fibrous and coarse, which makes transplanting 

 difficult and a larger pot necessary. Not one of our garden favorites 

 has of late been more grandly improved than the petunia. For 

 house bloom at least I prefer the single flowers. 



