FORESTRY. 177. 
little timber for tho fruit trees themselves. But we cannot get 
that condition, and the next thing to do is to get the trees, and 
let them draw moisture from deep down in the earth, and 
discharge it in the atmosphere. The more of these trees 
that we get, the more we will realize that this is a good country 
for fruit raising, for farming, and fora home. I have studied 
this question for years, and I have sometimes thought 
when those great blizzards come down from the north, that if 
that country was denuded of those great forests which our wise 
_ Creator has placed there; that if man became such a vandal. 
and grew so selfish as to destroy that great wind-break, that 
this country would become in a very little while just what we 
supposed that region in Nebraska or Kansas to be when we 
were boys—that is, unfit for the home of civilized man, and fit 
only for the buffalo to roam over in summer, and from which 
even they would flee to seek winter quarters in the recesses of 
the mountains through the cold winter. 
Now it seems to me, that the people of Minnesota, if they 
would only stop in this mad career after wealth, are intelligent 
enough, and can get up energy enougb in the state to bring 
something to bear upon our law-makers, that will compel them 
to enact the laws that will preserve these forests, and also per- 
petuate forests all over the western country. For a good many 
years I was of the belief that the climate of southeastern Min- 
nesota was growing worse and worse. And why? Simply be- 
cause the farmers that went upon the land were cutting off the 
timber on their farms and burning itup. Nowitis not over ten 
or fifteen years since I viewed acres and acres of log heaps 
burning just. as they used to burn in Ohio. It was simply a 
robbery of the forests. But they have stopped that now, and 
the timber is getting more plentiful, and for the last five or six 
years, we, down at La Crosse and in that region, do not feel 
the cold weather as we used to. We think we get more rain 
and that things are improving, but if we, here in the State Hor- 
ticultural Society, could get up enough zeal to induce every far- 
mer in this country to put out trees on every little barren patch 
on his farm, and persuade the government of the state to set 
aside the barren places that nobody will ever take up, the im- 
provement would come about a great deal faster and better. 
Down in Ohio, where I was born there has been in past years a 
reckless cutting off of the timber. But now Ohio has awakened. 
to the danger, and there is a great deal of interest being mani- 
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