STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 219 



boundary line between Canada and the United States. This body of 

 hardwood, which is some 300 miles long by some twenty miles wide, 

 bor.lers upon the prairies, and is the extreme western body of timber 

 of any commercial value east of the Rocky Mountains. The surface 

 of the land is level or gently undulating, well watered, particularly 

 the so-called 'Park Region,' which lies in Becker, Otter Tail, Doug- 

 las, Stearns and Todd counties, and in fact extending through 

 Wright, Hennepin, Carver, Le Sueur, Rice and Steele counties " 



He describes our pine forests as " extending northwesterly through 

 the counties of Chisago, Isanti, Mille Lacs, Benton, Morrison, Todd, 

 Otter Tail, Becker, Polk and Beltrami, nearly parallel to the line of 

 the hardwood forests, and crossing Red Lake River, extending to the 

 north of Red Lake, thence easterly to the shore of Lake Superior at 

 Grand Portage." 



By the census of 1880 the white pine in Minnesota was estimated 

 to be 8,170,000,000 feet, board measure. A little over one-third of 

 this quantity was located on the Mississippi and its tributaries. In 

 the belt of hardwood, extending west and south of the pine region, 

 consisting of white, red and burr oak, sugar maple, poplar, etc., it 

 was estimated there were 3,840,000 acres of timber remaining, capa- 

 ble of yielding an average of fifteen cords of wood per acre, or 57,- 

 600,000 cords. The amount of timber cut per year, exclusive of 

 staves and headings, was estimated at 36,884,000 feet. 



FORESTRY IN EUROPE. 



The causes of the destruction of forests have been the same in the 

 old world as in the new. The greed of men, the desire of speedy gain 

 without reference to consequences, the want of judgment and knowl- 

 edge as to cause and effect in the courses of nature and its develop- 

 ments, have razed and shorn the forests along the spurs of the Alps 

 and the shores of the Mediterranean with the same merciless energy 

 which has been displayed in this direction along the shores of Ameri- 

 can rivers and on the slopes of American mountains. Asa result of 

 this process large areas of the shore provinces of Austria-Hungary 

 are now almost an arid desert. There is little timber in Dalmatia 

 and Istria and the territory near Trieste. The dearth of timber is so 

 pronounced that the region has been denominated "TheKarst," 

 which in common acceptance is almost synonymous with " Sahara." 



It is stated that some four hundred and fifty years before the Chris- 

 tian era these woods furnished the material for Roman castles, houses 

 and ships. 



