CONSERVING THE FORBSTS. 39^ 



lands or not. He said a good deal of the land is non-agricultural 

 land. It would not produce agricultural crops profitably. "But," 

 he said, "that does not concern me any because all the timber is 

 properly cut; our chopping is properly done; there will be a per- 

 petual forest of timber upon those non-agricultural lands, and 

 we will eventually make them more profitable than would be the 

 agricultural lands after the timber is taken off from them." I 

 cannot conceive of any crops that would grow on agricultural 

 lands as profitable as the spruce that they grow on non-agricul- 

 tural lands. Of course, this spruce has been made valuable 

 within the last few years, and they have just begun to utilize it 

 in that country in the making of pulp. One mill is making 150 

 tons of pulp a day, and this is made at the head of the Sagawa 

 river, at the head of navigation, and that pulp is loaded into 

 ships, and the product is all sent under an annual contract to 

 England. None comes to this country. There are other mills 

 representing from thirty to forty thousand tons of wood pulp 

 a day. I noticed that wood pulp makers like to use small 

 timber — they like to use butts of trees six to eight inches in 

 diameter, because the machinery works to better advantage on 

 blocks of that kind. I do not know whether you know how 

 pulp is made, but it is ground to pieces by great grindstones, 

 and they take it from the side of the block. Notwithstanding 

 that is the desirable size to use, I noticed they were using larger 

 blocks, from ten to twelve and even more inches in diameter, 

 and in some cases the blocks were split in two so they might use 

 larger trees. That was done notwithstanding the inconceivable 

 quantities of timber there, yet they are beginning to conserve 

 the timber by cutting the larger trees and getting the growth of 

 smaller trees. So that is what Mr. Scott meant by calling it in- 

 telligent chopping that would insure a continual revenue from 

 those lands that would be worthless for any other purpose. 



I relate this incident simply to emphasize the reply made by 

 Gen. Andrews to my question about the forests that were bring- 

 ing those fine revenues to the European states that he men- 

 tioned. Land that is of no value without timber is extremely 

 valuable with the timber. As the General says, forestry means 

 the reforesting of those lands and getting a revenue from those 

 lands that would otherwise be profitless. It is for that cause 

 and purpose that we are asking and urging sufficient additional 

 appropriation from the legislature of this state to begin the work, 

 at least, of foresting these waste lands that we have in the state. 



