372 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



portions of the country, where the market was contiguous, transpor- 

 tation charg-es small, and lumbering^ carried on on a small scale. 

 But todaj^ there is less excuse for waste. Nevertheless, all discus- 

 sion of rational forestry must begin with the proposition, which is 

 akin to an axiom, that forests were given by the Almighty to be cut 

 for tnan's benefit, and that lumbering is a business for profit as 

 much as raising wheat or cotton. It must also be granted that the 

 owner of a tract of forest land in fee simple has as much legal right 

 to harvest his crop of trees as the owner of a cultivated farm has to 

 harvest his crop of corn when it becomes ripe in the fall. The 

 state, having once granted the fee to land, cannot control the usu- 

 fruct except by enactment in the original deed of conveyance, which 

 must be understood and assented to bj' the grantee. But methods 

 of usufruct can and should be controlled bj' the state. Our hur- 

 ried, feverish national growth has caused this point to be greatly 

 overlooked. Should the state act upon it at once, the further 

 destruction of forests by fire could be practically prevented. To 

 accomplish this should be work for practical, rational forestrj'. 



Such points can only be barely suggested in this paper, but they 

 include all methods of both lumberman and pioneer farmer which 

 in any manner imperil the interests of others; while, outside of the 

 mere legal questions, there are great moral obligations relating to 

 the general welfare of the commonwealth, which must be discussed 

 by forestry advocates, and up to which all classes must be edu- 

 cated. And these moral obligations relate not only to the present, 

 but to the generations yet to come. Methods that affect cli- 

 matic conditions, the water suppl}^ destruction of navigable water- 

 ways by producing arid conditions; all these may be legal or sim- 

 ply moral questions. It is the legitimate province of rational for- 

 estry to determine this by careful discussion and examination, and, 

 having done so, to pursue the remedy. 



This is a utilitarian age; man works for the profit there is in it. 

 The most rational part of rational forestry relating to existing for- 

 ests as to convince the owner of a forest, be he lumberman or 

 farmer, that it is for his interest to improve upon his present meth- 

 ods of treating it. When he shall be made to see plainly that it will 

 pay' him and his children to handle his timber as a periodical crop, 

 to be preserved with care, to be cultivated in a certain sense, to be 

 protected from everything that might endanger it, as he woukl pro- 

 tect his cornfield from weeds and insects; then will rational fores- 

 try have performed its greatest mission. The work of that branch 

 relating to the mere planting of trees and the reforestation of 

 denuded acres is play in comparison. 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. Dai'tt: I think it is nice to imitate the honey bee. that is 

 said to be able to draw sweets from almost all of its surround; 

 ings. I have one little bit of comfort in this great calamity 

 that is befalling us. The first gentleman told us that the tide 

 of invention was setting in to such an extent that when this 



