266 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



This has not been the aim of those most truly interested in the 

 movement referred to, but such ideas have been either wilfully or 

 ignorantly ascribed to them. 



To any state or community, the problem of the best use of all 

 her resources is second to none in importance. Minnesota, no mat- 

 ter how rich, cannot afford to let poor, sandy, or rocky, hilly soil 

 when stripped of timber remain barren. But this is what is taking- 

 place, and under present conditions it seems unavoidable. Such 

 lands will grow timber. There is no land in the state too poor to 

 grow trees if well drained and well watered. Most of the land 

 from which pine is cut, would, except for fires, come up again to 

 pines. That this is true can be proved by thousands of instances 

 in northern Minnesota. That the pine does not restock the land is 

 due almost entirely to the fires which begin with the blaze through 

 the slashings, and usually recur at intervals of two to five years on 

 cut-over lands. Tender seedlings of white and Norway pine if 

 they escape the first are destroped by subsequent fires. Crooked 

 or defective trees left from logging might continue to supply seed, 

 but these too are usually killed sooner or later. Again, the soil just 

 after the cutting is free from grass, weeds and brush, and the young 

 pines which at first grow slowly have an even chance, but with every 

 year the worthless undergrowth becomes thicker until the chance 

 for small pines is very poor. The golden opportunity for renewing 

 the pine is just after the old stand is cut, and even this will prove 

 of no avail unless the fires can be kept out. 



But how is the state of Minnesota to prevent fires from burning 

 over the vast sparsely settled tracts of cut-over lands, which are the 

 very regions that, on account of poor soil and inacessibility. should 

 be the ideal nurseries of the future pine forests. Our fire law is 

 probably the best in the country and is well enforced. But even 

 if the few inhabitants of such localities desired to prevent and ex- 

 tinguish all fires (which ideal condition we may not hope for), they 

 would have neither the time nor the force to accomplish it. Xo fire 

 law which has to depend for its enforcement on local help and local 

 political officers and operates over the confines of an entire state, can 

 be absolutely enforced. Only such fires will receive attention as 

 in the minds of the residents endanger personal property. Small 

 ground fires in waste places, which do the lasting damage to the 

 future forest growth will be utterly neglected, for the expense of 

 handling them, will, in the local mind, be offset by no adequate com- 

 pensation. There is but one reasonably sure way of preventing fires ; 

 by the patrolling of certain well defined tracts by a force of men 



