218 ANNUAL REPORT 



about twenty-five per cent of its entire area. The percentage in Min- 

 nesota was given as twenty and six-hundredths. 



Secretary B. E. Fernow, of the forestry division of the agricultural 

 djspartraent at Washington, in his annual report for 1886, presents 

 some interesting facts concerning the significance of forests, their cli- 

 matic influence, etc. He says: 



" It is generally recognized that forests have nlways been import- 

 ant factors in the national life, the civilization and progress of the 

 human race." 



With reference to the climatic influence of forests, he states that 

 " forests act like large sheets of water as a starting point for diverg- 

 ing winds. While the forest may not positively cause rain to fall, yet 

 it does not at least prevent it, as the heated bare ground or field often 

 does. The forest is a regulator of climatic, as it is of hydrologic ex- 

 tremes." 



He gives a comparative table showing the farming interest in for- 

 estry property of the United States, which it is estimated comprises 

 some thirty-eight per cent of the total area. The timbered area of 

 Minnesota is thirty million acres, as compared with seventeen mill- 

 ions for Wisconsin, fourteen millions for Michigan, a trifle short of 

 three million acres each in Iowa and Dakota, a million and a half 

 acres in Nebraska, and three and one-half million acres in Kansas. 

 From the statement referred to it appears that Minnesota is better 

 supplied with forests than any other state in the union, certainly a 

 most gratifying exhibit. 



But while there seems to be an abundance of timber in Minnesota, 

 in other portions of the western agricultural, prairie and mountain re- 

 gions it appears to be decidedly deficient. Hence the imperative ne- 

 cessity of forestry preservation and improvement on the part of farm- 

 ers and others. 



MINNESOTA PORESTS. 



Minnesota is the eighth state in the Union in the importance of 

 lumber manufacturing interests. The principal centers of manufac- 

 ture are Minneapolis and Anoka on the Mississippi river, Stillwater, 

 Washington county, on the St. Croix, and Duluth, near the mouth of 

 the St. Louis river. 



Mr. Putnam in his report on the forests of this State says: "The 

 great hardwood forests of Minnesota lie to the south and west of the 

 pine forests, extending north and northwest from Freeborn and Mur- 

 ray counties into Marshall county, to within fifty or sixty miles of the 



