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MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 103 
and foresters are employed by the government for five, ten or 
twenty years, as the case may be. These men have to see 
that no damage is done to the growing trees, to see to the new , 
plantations and to the cutting of the old forests; to the 
gathering of the seeds, whenever it is the proper time to do 
so; also to take care of them until they are planted. Hach 
forester has to oversee from 500 to 1,000 acres, which is owned 
and used generation after generation for forest culture When- 
ever a piece is cut down (which is decided on by the trustees 
of the village, county or State, year after year,) the best tim- 
ber is used for mechanical purposes, and the balance for fire- 
wood. All the government officers and public schools and the 
town poor are furnished a certain amount free. Then, if there 
is more cut than is needed for the use of the corporation, it is 
disposed of at public auction. 
When the wood is all cleared off, the land is laid off like a 
village or town, into lots of from one-quarter to one-half an 
acre, and is sold at auction for the term of three years. The 
lot with the most stumps on it brings the highest price, as 
they are all grubbed out for firewood, and by this means the 
land is subsoiled or trenched. Those that buy for the wood 
only, sell or lease these lots again to farmers or planters that 
will raise grain, roots or garden products; and they generally 
manure very highly the first year, in order to make it more 
profitable. There are many families that have no property 
but these lots, and upon them they depend for subsistence. 
The third year root crops are grown, and then the lots are 
again re-planted with forest seeds. If of rich, heavy clay 
soils, acorns, beach or white ash are planted. If of sandy or _ 
light soils, aspen, birch, blue beech or alder seeds are sown 
and in a few years pines or spruce are sown or trans- 
planted. On the last-named soils, in our district, mostly 
white oaks were planted, as there was an oak orchard of about 
15 to 20 acres, that furnished sufficient acorns annually to 
plant 1,000 acres. Lands that had ash and birch forests, when 
cleared off were re-planted with oak and beech, and that of the 
oak with ash, beech, or any sort that had not been grown on 
them before. 
The nursery of new plantations were planted by the tax- 
payers or burghers, the same as our road taxes are worked 
here, and the forester is the overseer. As before stated, the 
land for the new plantation had for the last crop roots, such 
as potatoes, beets and turnips in rows, and the furrows left 
after gathering the crop in the fall were used early in the 
spring to plant the acorns or other seeds in. If too shallow, 
the hoe was used to make furrows, and the seeds covered one 
or two inches deep. After the seed had come up, and were a 
