192 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
consumption of the forests within the limits of their annual increase by 
growth, or we cannot much longer draw from the forests the $1,000,000,000 
of products which we now do, and which have more than ten times the 
value of all the gold and silver taken from our mines. It may not then 
continue to be true that the wealth of the country is not its gold, but its 
wood. At least, the proportion of the two will be greatly changed, and 
for the worse in all respects. 
What is wanted is a system of management which will use the forests 
economically and so as to keep up a perpetual growth, and therefore a 
perpetual supply. This we may easily have, if we will. This system of 
management ought to be applied to the forests which are owned by the 
nation,as such. No more public timber land should be sold, but only the 
timber which is growing upon it; and this ought to be sold at its fair 
market price, and should be cut under such government regulations that 
the trees will not be taken indiscriminately, large and small, but only as 
they attain good size and are ripe for the best use; and they should be cut 
and removed in such a manner as not to injure the smaller trees around 
them. The limbs and all portions not valuable for lumber should also be 
removed for fire wood or some economical use, and not left in the forests 
as such portions now are left, to become dry,and thus the ready means of 
starting fires that may sweep with destructive effect over thousands of 
acres of timber. 
To accomplish this result we need to arouse public sentiment every-- 
where in favor of the trees; to awaken in people everywhere a sense of 
their great value, not only in a material and pecuniary point of view, but 
for climatic, domestic and ,also even esthetic reasons. We need to teach 
all that the trees are our best friends, our most valuable material posses- 
sion; so that all will be disposed to use them in the best manner for the 
general good; to preserve them where they now are, using them as they 
grow, but allowing others to succeed them, and planting trees on the open 
and arid plains,from which they have been removed by causes which per- 
haps we do not know. 
Among the means adapted to accomplish this desirable tate Arbor 
Day deserves to be mentioned, that new institution, as it may be called, 
which had so commended itself to the good common sense of our peoul 
that it has spread, with a rapidity unparalleled, throughout almost our 
entire country; and now that it has become so generally observed by our 
schools, it has taken on the character of a national holiday. More than 
this is true, for Arbor Day has made its way across the Atlantic and be- 
come established in several of the European countries, as well as in 
northern and southern Africa; and now, as I write, comes the announce- 
ment, that an earnest plea is being made for its establishment in New 
Zealand. 
Some may think that when it is estimated that ‘‘*Twenty-five Sisiecaaed 
acres of woodland are consumed by the railroads, the manufactories, and 
the houses of the United States every twenty-four hours,” to say nothing 
of the ravages of forest fires,—when 80,000 feet of timber are swallowed 
up daily by the Anaconda mine in Montana, (well named Anaconda), and 
at the smelting works owned by the same company 180 cords of wood are 
used daily, or 65,700 cords a year, and. that the company scorn to make a 
contract for less than 40,000 cords,; and when again it is estimated that 
