NOTES ON FORESTRY WORK IN MINNESOTA. 287 



NOTES ON FORESTRY WORK IN MINNESOTA. 



GEN. C. C. ANDREWS^ CHIEF FOREST FIRE WARDEN AND SECRETARY OF 

 THE MINNESOTA STATE FORESTRY BOARD. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : Pine County, in this 

 state, contains 900,000 acres of land exclusive of water. The Ger- 

 man state of Baden, wdiich is smaller than Pine County, has 240,000 

 acres of state forest, from which it derives an annual net profit of 

 $660,000. The kingdom of Wurtemburg is only a little larger than 

 our St. Louis County, but it has 418,000 acres of state forest, from 

 which it derives a net annual revenue of $4.00 per acre, wdiich is a 

 great deal more than our American farmers derive from their culti- 

 vated land. The kingdom of Saxony has 432,000 acres of state 

 forest, from which it derives an annual profit of $4.50 per acre. In 

 Saxony they have ascertained that the average annual increment 

 per acre is 225 feet, board measure. They utilize there all parts of 

 the tree, even some of the roots, so from that state forest they have 

 an annual product of 97,000,000 feet of lumber, board measure, and 

 the forest remains unimpaired. It even becomes more valuable from 

 year to year. Now there are larger countries with these state 

 forests. Prussia has 6,000,000 acres of state forest, from which it 

 derives $9,000,000 annual revenue net, and France has 2,000,000 

 acres of state forest from which it derives a net profit of $1.91 per 

 acre. In these cases the forests are not all together, of course. 

 They are in scattered localities, and mostly on mountains and on 

 sandy soil. These forests have good roads through them, and they 

 are practically national parks, attractive for tourists, and our Amer- 

 ican travelers find great delight in going through them. 



These are samples of what some of the European countries have 

 been doing for a long time, and they show what could be done in 

 this country. Of course the revenue of the forest would not be so 

 large in this country as in countries thickly peopled, where labor is 

 cheaper and a market is easier of access. 



It is said we must wait until there is a strong public sentiment 

 before we can accomplish much -in forestry. There is a good deal 

 of sentiment now for' forestry. Governor DeWitt Clinton did not 

 wait for any very strong public sentiment before he built the Erie 

 Canal. They laughed at him and many called it "Clinton's ditch." 

 He was a statesman, and he put it through. There was no very 

 great public pressure brought to bear upon our statesmen in Min- 

 nesota, of whom Governor Ramsey was the leader, to provide by law 

 that all the school lands should be sold for not less than five dollars 

 per acre. It was because there was a statesman at the head of af- 



