162 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



forest resources just as we look upoa our agricultural resources, as some- 

 thing that ought fo be kept la good producing condition, takes time- 

 To be sure, there has been some progress made in the sentiment of the 

 people, and it is growing; there are more people interested in the subject 

 to-day than ever, who see that there ought to be something done in con- 

 servative use of our forest resource and in care of our forest conditions. 



Another difficulty in our path is that, on one side we have personal in- 

 terests, the personal pocket interest of the lumbermen, and on the other 

 side we have only the community interests, the ones which seem always to 

 lag a little behind. Selfish interests find ready means to accomplish their 

 end, while communal interests suffer. We will have to struggle in that 

 direction and endeavor to establish a more general interest in communi- 

 ties regarding the conditions that surround them. 



The people of this state should look around them and see what this 

 policy of neglect leads to. You Minnesotaos should look over the coun- 

 try between Brainerd and Gull Lake, and see what the result is of the 

 methods that are now being pursued in your states, in the use of the for- 

 est cover. You should see what becomes of the country that is denuded 

 in the manner in which it is now done, and then you will wake up to your 

 citizen's duty and consider what can be done to prevent a large area of 

 your commonwealth from being converted into the same uncivilized, use- 

 less condition. 



Now I come to the main difficulty in forestry reform, which is one we 

 can hardly control, and which lies in the peculiar economic conditions 

 under which we live. We have an enormous country with enormous re- 

 sources, with three times as much land to raise crops as any of the 

 European nations. 1 wonder whether you have ever realized that the 

 difference social, political and economical between Europe and the 

 United States, resolves itself into a difference of density of population? 

 While each one of us has fifteen acres in cultivation to draw upon, in 

 Germany there are but two and two-thirds acres of field and forest and 

 brush and waste land, all told, to one person. That is to say, we have seven 

 times as much to draw from as the Germans have, with plenty to spare 

 when we need it. Our population is very scanty, comparatively speak- 

 ing, and this is one reason why it is so difficult for us to progress in 

 our forestry reform. The population is not dense enough to make a close 

 utilization of the wood material possible, or its necessity apparent; it is 

 not dense enough to render protection against the spread of Are readily 

 attainable and in the absence of a dense and evenly distributed popula- 

 tion virgin timber lands are opened to markets in regions where even the 

 men to cut the timber have to be brought from a distance. The tran- 

 sportation to market costs so much that it pays only to take the best tim- 

 ber, necessitating the wasteful manner of using the forest, and after the 

 cream is taken the balance is left without any attention to the future 

 of the property, there being still large areas of virgin land left to draw 

 from. This policy the lumbermen in many regions are bound to follow 

 for the reason that, like other men, they carry on their lousiness for their 

 profit. 



Now, the question is whether they can change their method and 

 yet make the business profitable; whether they can spend money on 

 superintendents who can direct more rational cutting; whether they 

 can afford to spend money on keeping out fires and taking care of the 



