sae andy 
INSPECTION OF OUR STATE FORESTS. 443 
INSPECTION AND SUPERVISION OF OUR STATE 
FORESTS. 
R, H. L. JEWETT, FARIBAULT. 
[Read before Minnesota State Forestry Association.] 
Year atter year, additional areas of our forests fall before the axe 
ofour lumbermen, almost invariably followed by devastating fires, 
sweeping away not only the debris left by loggers but with its 
tongues of flame licking up every green thing in its destructive 
course ; leaving a few standing tree trunks, bare and lifeless, silent 
witnesses to man’s wastefulness and want of foresight. 
Thus, year by year, the threatened dangers become more and more 
imminent, and if these destructive methods are persisted in we 
shall soon realize the full measure of their baleful influence in the 
unsightly barren areas spread through our green forests. Our 
numerous small lakes, now so attractive a feature of our woodlands, 
will become dry and forbidding; the innumerable small streams 
will cease to flow; while annually recurring droughts, widespread 
over our state, will become destructive to our interests dependent 
upon agricultural advancement. 
A desire to avert these threatened dangers impelled many of our 
more public-spirited citizens to organize this forestry association 
a little over twenty-two years ago, and notesof warning and words 
of earnest entreaty have, from that time to this, been published by 
this association, urging the introduction of some efficient system 
of forestry protection. These publications have awakened public 
interest in the subject and have been largely influential in forminga 
more enlightened public opinion in reference to the importance of 
forestry preservation. The terrible disaster at Hinckley in 1894 
resulted in such widespread interest in the question of some reme- 
dial legislation, that the law of 1895 was enacted, creating the office 
of fire warden, for the state, and providing limited means for 
preventing and suppressing fires; and it is confidently expected 
that with some modifications of this law, such as the last two years’ 
experience has proven necessary, some of the causes that have 
produced these fires may be done away with, and the damages 
sustained from this source be greatly limited if not altogether 
prevented. 
The topic given, to which I am to confine my paper, is, “Inspection 
and Supervision of Our State Forests.” 
WHERE AND WHAT ARE OUR STATE FORESTS ? 
If across the state of Minnesota we should draw a line, com- 
mencing at a point on the eastern boundary at the southern line of 
Pine county, thence westerly along the south boundary of Pine 
and Kanabec counties, thence across Mille Lac and Morrison 
counties, crossing to the Mississippi at Little Falls, thence across 
Todd and Otter Tail counties to the east end of Otter Tail Lake, 
thence northerly to the west end of the Lake of the Woods this 
would be a dividing line between the bulk of our pine forests 
lying to the north and east and our deciduous forest and prairie 
a 
