448 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ginning the work today it would be probably fifty years before a 

 harvest can begin to be reaped. The state can and should do that 

 work, because the state is immortal, it will live to enjoy the harvest. 

 It is said that patriotism is a representation of one's devotion to his 

 country. We associate national patriotism with war, with devotion 

 to the flag, and things tha"- smell of carnage and human blood. But 

 the highest patriotism is to better the condition of a people, to make 

 better homes, better citizens and fewer graves instead of more. The 

 noblest patriotism is that which cares for the future, for those that 

 are to come after us, and that is the kind of patriotism we should 

 desire to arouse. 



When you go home, get the editors of your local papers to talk 

 about this matter ; write to the papers yourselves, and tell their 

 readers that the time is now here when we must think and act about 

 forestry, not as a money making scheme for ourselves but as a 

 patriotic work. It is said that we yet have in this state ten to fifteen 

 years' supply of timber. Suppose we have fifty years, it is time now 

 to begin the work of forest preserving and restoring, so that at the 

 end of fifty years the state may again have a supply of timber. The 

 forests of the country must be perpetuated. History and experience 

 proves this ; and let us profit by the examples and not wait until the 

 disaster is upon us that has ever followed forest annihilation. 



It is high time for Minnesota to approve appropriations for state 

 forestry, not of one, three or five thousand dollars, but of twenty or 

 thirty thousand a year. The last sum is none too much, and his 

 share of that sum would not be appreciable to any tax payer in the 

 state. Every legislature fools away more money than that, and 

 nothing is thought of it. But if we talk about spending so much 

 on forestry, hands will be raised in holy horror, and legislators must 

 be brave who will dare to vote for such an appropriation. What 

 we want most of all is a public opinion that will require still more 

 courage to vote against such an appropriation. 



It is said that there are in this state three million acres of land 

 unfit for anything except the production of timber. They were once 

 covered with timber and may be again in time, and at slight expense 

 compared with the advantages that will result. Let us have that 

 three million acres of land clothed again with verdant forests, as 

 they were in the past, and when they are reclothed I predict that 

 those then living will see to it that the trees will be harvested as 

 other crops are, so that trees will follow trees, making the forest a 

 perpetual one. 



