‘ t 
oe “at 4 ee ace fu ey ep Me. Sate ee oe TS We aa ~~ S , . 
RR NS A eee tt ee 
as £ - F te 7 % ; - 4 
293. aA 
S 
INSPECTION OF OUR STATE FORESTS. 445 
These statements would furnish a fruitful text if one were writing 
a sermon on the degeneracy of our times, affording evidence of the 
sad moral condition to which nany of supposed worthy citizens 
have lapsed. 
The taking of a few loads of wood for use as fuel, by a settler who 
occupies a claim without any timber upon it, or the hauling off ofa 
set of house logs for acertain stable might possibly be condoned, 
being so slight a breach of the eighth commandment to demand 
attention, but when lumbermen and lumber corporations engage in 
wholesale robbery of section after section of pine timber, it shocks 
our ideas of morality and might truly cause us to moralize on 
“wickedness in high places.” It would, indeed, sanction the belief 
that in some lumbermen’s code of ethics there is an adaptation of 
the Spartan parent, who taught his children that the crime of 
stealing consisted in being caught in the act. 
In addition to the cases already cited we may refer to the cases 
investigated by the legislative committee, appointed in 1893, in 
settlement of which the state auditor turned into the state treasury 
$17,082.50. 
It is to watch for and drive off these lumber thieves that frequent 
inspection of all exposed timber is required. 
For this necessary inspection and supervision, what system of 
management shall we recommend? Willit be best for us to adopt 
as our model some one of the elaborate systems of forestry protection 
and planting which are in successful operation in several of the 
European countries, perfected after many years of trial and 
improvement, or shallwe modify our present methods of inspection, 
amplifying it to meet more immediate want of increased facilities 
for guarding our present possessions? 
In the report of the chief of the Division of Forestry, by B. E. 
' Fernow, published by the United States Department of Agriculture, 
is to be found quite an elaborate description of the method of 
German forestry management, covering 38 pages of text, with dia- 
gram and description, which, [think would satisfy you all that we,as 
a state, are not prepared for any such method, if for no other reason 
than that of its expense of maintenance. I am sure that the cost of 
preparing a map of one section of land for the inspection by the 
commissioner, who decides as to the disposition of the standing 
timber and the replanting of vacant areas, would cost twice the 
amount’expended by the United States in the survey of a whole 
township. 
In the European systems, which deal with plantinz of areas cut 
over, the setting of young trees or planting of forest-tree seed and 
the sale of each separate tree that, on account of age or some defect 
of growth requires cutting, is carefully attended to. This entering 
into so minute a detail we are not yet prepared for. 
Neither do I deem it practicableto depend upon boards of county 
commissions and of township supervisors. These local boards of 
officers are not often composed of men who possess the qualifica- 
tions demanded, and are not able to give efficient expert service in 
the kind of work our calls would require of them. But the more 
