384 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



COMMENTS ON CAPTAIN CROSS' FORESTRY PLAN. 



H. B. Ayres, Esq., one of the committee appointed by the 

 Forestry Association to investigate and report to the associa- 

 tion upon the suggestion of Captain J. N. Cross for a plan to 

 induce the pine land owners to deed their non-agricultural cut- 

 over pine lands to the state for the purposes of a natural and 

 inexpensive re-foresting of the same by simply keeping the 

 fires out, submitted the plan to Prof. C. S. Sargent of Harvard 

 University, who is a member of the national committee of 

 forestry appointed by the Smithsonian Institute on the re- 

 quest of President Cleveland to formulate a plan of national 

 forestry, and who on commenting on Mr. Cross" plan wrote to 

 Mr. Ayres as follows: 



'•With regard to the matter of the state of Minnesota receiving' and 

 holding stump lands presented to it, I should think the best way 

 would be to get a board of trustees appointed to hold such lands. 

 The danger in such matters is always that of political interference. 

 If you could get a good non-partisan board of three or five with au- 

 thority to fill their own vacancies, the future control of these lands 

 would be entirely outside from politics, provided the first members 

 of such a board, who would have to be appointed by the governor, 

 were good men and not politicians. The trouble always has been 

 in New York that the forest commission has been a political body. 

 This fact has been a very serious damage to the interest of the state 

 and if Minnesota is to adopt a plan for acquiring and caring for 

 state lands, it will be wise to use every effort to avoid the mistakes 

 made by New \"ork. I should be very glad to hear from you again 

 on this subject, which is of very great national importance." 



William M. Canby, Esq., an eastern capitalist, greatly inter- 

 ested in forestry, writes to Mr. Ayres concerning Mr. Cross' 

 plan as follows: 



"I am glad to hear from you again. So far as I can judge the plan 

 suggested by Mr. Cross is good as a start, but your people will 

 have to learn that forestry is a business and has to be conducted on 

 just as good business principles as any other enterprise. Forestry 

 means not only to keep a tract in wood land, but to make it pay as a 

 wood land; and this means that it must be looked upon as a crop, 

 and that eventual thinning out is to be done with due regard to the 

 growing timber so as to get the largest returns possible without 

 trespassing upon that which is to come. I do not know exactly 

 what "dead and down timber" means, but what you ought to aim for 

 is the greatest amount of timber that is alive and standing but ripe; 

 and if you are wise you will not sell it on the ground to be removed) 

 but will see that it is got out without injuring the balance. I have 

 not time to write more than this. Prof. Sargent and 1 expect to 

 make a visit to one old grove in Montana, north of Flathead lake, 

 this summer." 



