A PLEA FOR OUR TREES. 181 



we should want a place of beauty where, when we have opportunity 

 to go away from home, we can go and hold quiet communion with 

 God and nature. Now let us preserve such a place in the northern 

 portion of ^Minnesota, that is just fitted for this purpose of a park, 

 and before it has been cut over, before it calls for a greater outlay 

 to preserve the forest, let us make it possible to have a forest there 

 for a hundred years when we are all sleeping in our graves that shall 

 be a source of joy and delight. It seems to me there is unanimity 

 of sentiment that something ought to be done so that when we are 

 gone we may leave a rich heritage to those that we have loved. 



To come back to the practical side of this question, I want to say 

 what I said of village improvement, it pays. Those waste lands up 

 north, those unsightly cut-over tracts, the desolate appearance of the 

 country that makes the heart sick to ride through — all this could be 

 made to bring in a good return ; and what we want to impress upon 

 the minds of the people so that the project can be carried out is the 

 fact that it is feasible and practicable to establish scientific forestry, 

 so that instead of taking the land and fitting it for the raising of 

 crops we should raise there a splendid crop of trees and that we 

 should preserve those trees, giving employment to hundreds of men, 

 the same as employment is given in scientific forestry in Germany, 

 France and other countries of Europe. In France, where this 

 scientific forestry was inaugurated only fifty or seventy-five years 

 ago, there are forests now that are a large source of revenue. They 

 plant them and care for them, and when they are grown they cut 

 them. This is what we are working for, and we want to preserve 

 the forest that is already there. 



I could talk on this subject all night, but I must not say any 

 more on that point except to urge you to inform yourselves on the 

 subject through the report that our able fire warden has recently 

 sent out. We want it done. 



I want in turn to urge you to plant trees around your towns and 

 villages. The straight line is not the most aesthetic style of planting 

 trees, but if you plant straight lines of trees on your streets about 

 your towns and villages in Minnesota my mind dwells with delight 

 of what may come as the result in future years. We could have 

 stretching out from our farms beautiful lines of trees, reaching their 

 tops together, so that the young children going to school would not 

 have to walk in the blistering sun, but could walk under the elm or 

 the oak or the pine, so that their aesthetic nature could be cultivated 

 and their lower nature made comfortable by this delightful shade 

 of these avenues of trees. This is a picture, it is true, but it is not 

 an improbable thing ; it is a thing that every one of us can help to 

 bring about. This is what I want to ask you to do, to implant m 

 the mind of every child that you have — and if you have no child take 

 some neighbor's child — the idea that he is going to have for himself 

 or herself a tree planted every year of his life, and when he comes 

 to have children of his own that he will plant a tree every year for 

 every child until that child is old enough to plant for himself. If 

 this could be started and the trees were taken care of until able to 

 take care of themselves what a wonderful thing it would be! If the 



