» 
ee gs Le ie ee ee ee 
~ 
FORESTRY. Vie 
“To specially guard and protect the sources of our main rivers and lakes, 
and thus continue their flow for the benefit of the people at large. 
“To prevent these lands from being taken for timber only and abandon- 
ing them after cutting the best, also to secure bona fide settlements on 
the agricultural sections. 
“Nor is it the purpose to prevent prospecting for minerals, opening for 
mines, or other legitimate and rational development of these lands. 
‘To attain these objects, the American Forestry Association, urges not 
only the reservation system, but at the same time the enactment ef ad- 
ministrative laws which will secure these objects, and in a simple man- 
ner to satisfy all local wants. 
B. E. FERNow, } 
J. O. BARRETT, 
N. H. E@GuEstron, | Press Committee.” 
J.D. W. FRENCH, | 
KE. A. BOWERS. J 
Most of the proposed reserves, and they are reaching into a dozen or 
more, are located among the Rocky Mountains in Montana, Colorado, 
New Mexico,California,and one on Turtle Mountain, N. D. These cover but 
little agricnltural territory. Minnesota has no real mountains. Most of 
the region where it is proposed to locate our reserve, is comparatively 
level, but interspersed with hills, and along Rainy river are rocky ram- 
parts, wild and romantic. Agricultural lands, in sections and belts, 
extend in various directions. Theenvironment necessitates some special 
provisions for our reserve. Obviously there is no alternative left us 
but to set apart a special territory equal to the necessity, for the common 
welfare, as a permanent reserve, not to be used at all for farming purposes, 
but to be held to guard our headwaters from drying up, and to supply our 
people with fuel and lumber under a wise system of forest culture. In- 
cluded in said reserve should be all lands of the public domain within the 
borders of the state, whether at the water sources or not, that are fire- 
scourged and desolate, and pronounced unfit for agriculture, and never 
can profitably be used for agriculture; but all the other lands of the 
public domain, that are naturally agricultural, or susceptible of being 
made agricultural, should be open to settlements, and all such public ter- 
ritory be placed under the custody of the United States army as a police 
force to protect it against trespass and fires. 
Unless this orsome other policy, more applicable to the situation, be 
employea and speedily, too, all is lost—yes, all! Let me here quote the 
warning words of J. 8S. Harris, one of the veterans of this society, who is 
posted in forestry, as given to me by way of encouragement in a recent 
letter. Alluding to the proposed reserve, he says: ‘If that region should 
be denuded of trees, it would prove the greatest calamity that could befall 
us. If the whole of Minnesota were settled up and all the rough and un- 
tillable places on the public and private domain, and one-tenth of every 
quarter section besides that is suitable for agricultural purposes, were 
covered with thrifty evergreens and deciduous trees, I believe it would so 
modify our climate that the apple, pear, peach and all the minor fruits 
would flourish here. On the other hand, if the avarice of man is allowed 
to destroy those forests that a beneficent providence has placed in our 
hands, I believe the effect will be most disastrous to our agriculture, and 
we might as well fold.up our tents and move south. A few men with 
