444 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
lands to the south and west. That portion to the north and east of 
this imaginary line comprises a territory 180 miles north and south 
by an extreme limit from east to west of 280 miles—a territory equal 
in area to the five New Enyland states of New Hampshire, Vermont, 
Massachusettes, Rhode Island and Connecticut. 
The state is now the owner of lands: within this area in amounts 
as follows: Unsold school lands, 343,014; unsold university lands, 
46,014; unsold internal improvement lands, 22,208; unappropriated 
swamp lands, 800,000. 
If to these lands we add the amount of school lands that will 
accrue to the state upon the survey of that portion of this territory 
now unsurveyed, being sections 16 and 36 of each township, estimated 
at 906,264 acres; also the swamp lands within the unsurveyed terri- 
tory, also to accrue to the state, estimated quite conservatively at 
950,000 acres, we havea grand total of lands, to be cared for by the 
state land department, of 3,067,500 acres. 
This area will be quite materially augmented by the selection of 
indemnity school land, necessarily selected within this area, for the 
reason that all lands within the districts where the school-land 
losses have occurred are all taken up. The state auditor’s report 
gives the estimated amount of such selections at 60,000 acres. 
This enormous amount of acres, if gathered into one body, would 
give a territory equal in area to the whole of Connecticut (speaking 
of tax title lands). 
I have gone thus into details to show you what a splendid oppor- 
tunity is given to this state to secure forests which will be of 
incalculable value to generations to come—an opportunity which, 
once lost, could not be regained without the expenditure of vast 
sums of money. Lnotice thatthe German government pays from 
five to sixty dollars an acre for land to set to forests. 
A few words as to the necessity of a more extensive supervision 
than the officers of the state thus far have been enabled to give 
these forests: The state fire warden, in his report, has alluded to 
the various causes that result in forest fires, and I have need to 
simply mention the fact that these frequent forest fires result in our 
greatest losses, and so long as lumbermen are permitted to leave 
tree-tops and worthless logs scattered over their cuttings, just so 
long will the state’s timber suffer from fire. The settlers being so 
sparsely scattered through the pine woods, and no organized towns 
with officers to act in such emergencies, the fires set or left by 
careless or ill-disposed persons have full sweep and are only 
stopped by an opportune rain-storm orsome stream of water across 
its path too wide for the devouring wave to leap over. 
I quote afew sentences from the state auditor’s report just issued: 
“The state cruisers are deserving of special mention for their 
faithful, honest and competent services. To their watchfulness is 
due the large amount of trespass discovered, and to their push and 
energy the large amount of work accomplished. 
“ During the past 18 months the cruisers (three in number ) found 
and reported sixty cases of trespass, aggregating $17,811.80, and 
several million feet of uncollectable trespass have also been 
reported.” 
