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MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



RE-FORESTING CUT-OVER TIMBER LANDS IN 

 MINNESOTA. 



PROF. S. B. GREEN, ST. ANTHONY PARK. 



(Prof. Green has kindly prepared a resume of a very valuable bulletin on the 

 above subject, now in press, upon which he has devoted considerable time the 

 last eight months, assisted by H. B. Ayres, who, under his direction, has been 

 making personal observations on the ground and gathering many of the details 

 giyen. The purpose to prepare this bulletin is connected largely with the interest 

 aroused as to legislation looking towards a forest reserve area in our state, and 

 the facts gathered shed a ITood of light on the subject showing the practicability 

 of the plan. The bulletin when published can be had by application to the .State 

 Experiment Station, St. Anthony Park, and should be widely studied.— .SECY.) 



A bulletin now in press by the Experiment Station of the Univer- 

 sity of Minnesota deals with the subject of the possibility of a con- 

 tinued growth on our timber lands. It is really a study of the 

 conditions of the cut-over timber lands of Minnesota and is an 

 estimate of their probable natural increase in value where fire is 

 kept out. It also shows the great curse of forest fires in preventing 

 a continuous return from timber lands. It discusses in a concise 

 way the value of the lumber interests, and estimates that the normal 

 yield of our forest area if it were in best condition and protected from 

 fire would be about 2,000,000,000 feet, board measure, per annum, 

 which is nearly double the quantity of timber at present annually 

 cut in the state. It says that at present our forests are being worked 

 like a mine, that cannot grow. 



It refers to the large area of land that was once timbered and now 

 abandoned by the owner, and estimates that this area cannot be 

 much less than 2,000,000 acres. It gives an estimate of the amount of 

 land unredeemed in eleven counties in the forest area for the last 

 five years. In four counties the land unredeemed was as follows: 



Another class of lands that are briefly touched upon are those 

 that belong to the state and state institutions. If the practice of 

 individuals in sweeping off all marketable timber to get immediate 

 returns during their own life time and then abandoning the lands 

 seems unwise, what may be said of the state and the state institu- 

 tions, whose lives do not cease, if they, with especial need of a per- 

 manent and increasing income, convert their growing endow^ment 

 of forest stock imperfectly into money and place that money in 

 banks that pay little or no interest, when by keeping a growing stock 

 of timber they might perpetuate their income? The state has, or will 

 have, when the surveys are completed, 3,127,000 acres in the forest 



