72 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



him a salary of at least about $50 a year ? To be effective he would 

 need to make it the interest of a few good men in different parts of 

 the town to co-operate with him, and he would have to pay them 

 something for their trouble. As a fire warden in case of fire has to 

 call upon the citizens to leave their work to help him, he must be a 

 man who commands some respect. Could we get such a man with- 

 out fair compensation? 



To avoid opposition from extensive owners of timber lands who 

 feared increased taxes, the legislature was asked to adopt the cheaper 

 plan of throwing the work upon township supervisors, limiting their 

 pay to $2.00 a day when any actual service is rendered and for not 

 exceeding fifteen days in a year. These supervisors, as fire wardens, 

 do not receive on an average more than about $6 a year, and you can 

 imagine that it is only trom a sense of dutv that they render service. 

 However, traveling as they do through their towns on town business 

 they can do much towards preventing the careless setting of fires 

 in a dry season. In many instances they have proved very effective. 

 Under the present system the various counties pay for the local fire 

 warden service, and the state re-pays them one-third of the amount- 

 A few counties have been delinquent in paying fire warden service 

 and thus have practically nullified the law in their limits. I believe 

 that if the state would pay, two-thirds of the expense, leaving the 

 counties to pay one-third, the county commissioners would then be 

 more prompt in paying for fire warden service and that the service 

 would thereby become more effective. A bill for this purpose, and 

 to strengthen the fire warden service in some other respects will 

 be introduced at the coming session of the legislature and should be 

 passed. 



We have, as you know, a Forestry Board, under an act drawn 

 up by the late Capt. Cross, and of which the gentleman w)io has 

 just addressed you (Mr. Owen), is president. The board consists 

 of nine members, including Mr. Frederick Weyerhaeuser. Dr. A. C. 

 Wedge, John Cooper and others well known to you. The board 

 has thought that inasmuch as the state has for many years paid 

 $20,000 a year in bounties for tree planting on the prairies, and 

 with good results, there would be a consistency in now beginning 

 to use a similar amount for the purchase of waste, hilly, sandy or 

 rocky land for forestry purposes. The board has recommended that 

 such a bill be passed on these terms : that the amount purchased in 

 any one town shall not exceed an eighth part of the area of such 

 town and that not exceeding $2.50 per acre be paid for the land. 



This Forestry Association has existed over a quarter of a cen- 

 tury ; many of our earnest advpcates of forestry have' passed away ; 

 a whole generation has been educated in forestry, and if the present 

 friends of forestry in Minnesota are truly in earnest they will try 

 and have these measures accomplished. 



