396 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



a o-reat many million acres of them. Then we will not only be 

 getting a harvest from the lands, but we will be getting the bene- 

 fit of the presence of those great forests, which I think will be 

 pretty nearly as great in dollars and cents as will be the harvest 

 we get from the lands themselves. At any rate, it is almost im- 

 possible to compute the advantage to us if we can have those 

 great forest areas properly cared for from what they would be 

 if they were barren wastes. So this forestry idea of ours is not 

 a theoretical one; it is not a chimerical one. It is one of the 

 most intensely practical and economic questions that confronts 

 us in this state or any other state that has conditions similar to 

 ours. The thought has permeated the members of the legislature 

 to the exclusion of almost every other thought that those who 

 advocate forestry are visionary folks, that there is a little too 

 much daylight between the earth and our trees, and therefore 

 they have no confidence in us and do not listen to us with even 

 ordinary respect when we go before them, when as a matter 

 of fact there is no one article of agriculture or anything that 

 comes from the earth, there is no one thing that is more essen- 

 tial to the well being of this state nor that will add more to the 

 profit of the state than will that one department of a properly and 

 well regulated and administered forestry system. We are con- 

 tinually advocating this kind of economic principle, and we are 

 justified in this by the highest laws of economics. If any farmer 

 in the state has a few acres of barren land on his premises, and 

 he can by any possibility put those acres in a condition to get a 

 revenue from them he will do it, and he will consider it the best 

 possible business practice, and he will spend some money in ad- 

 vance in order that he may get a revenue from that land. We 

 are simply asking the state to do for itself what the farmer 

 would do for himself. There is nothing visionary or impractical 

 about it, it is a straight and simple business proposition. 



There is one word I want to say in closing. I do not want 

 to let the occasion pass without acknowledging the work that is 

 being done in the way of increasing the forest area of the state 

 by the private planters all over the state : many of them, thou- 

 sands of them, each one of whom is doing a little. It may be 

 a few trees, it may be a few acres, but in the aggregate it makes 

 a forest area that will contribute in the future very largely to the 

 value of the timber supply of the state. I do not want to em- 

 barrass the gentleman, but my friend Gregg is an example, 

 and I do not know but that we are greatly indebted to him for 



