FORESTRY. 167 



The sparks from the railroad trains sometimes do set 

 fire to the woodlands. In conversation with some of the lead- 

 ing directors and managers of different railway companies, 

 1 learned that it is the rule with our railroad companies in 

 Minnesota to have the fire arresters — the machinery that 

 arrests the fires — always ready so as to forestall as much as 

 possible the fires in the woodlands. They also use coal, and 

 I learned that they used it largely because it was less liable 

 to set fire to the forests. 



Well, when I spoke with these different lumbermen, 

 they listened to my views of the situation, and when I 

 told them what could be done, they seemed to be 

 surprised. They were not aware that any such a move- 

 ment was on foot. The competition is so severe that they 

 are obliged to calculate very finely, and they have not any 

 time to consider this question. In the meantime, our forests 

 are going with incalculable rapidity, as Prof. Fernow has 

 shown. I think our hope is that we shall be able to enlist the 

 lumbermen on our side. I think, still further, that the lumber • 

 men will work heart and soul for anything that they think is 

 practicable in this direction. I know by experience that they 

 are all good fellows, courteous and wide awake, and interested 

 in public affairs and improvements, and I believe that if we ex- 

 hibit the spirit that now animates the friends of forestry, that 

 from the start we will win the co-operation of the lumbermen. 

 (Applause.) Our representative in the farmers' institute is 

 present, and he teaches forestry. I hope he will say a word or 

 two. 



Mr. William Somerville: I do not wish to do too much 

 talking, but this is something I am much interested in .Wherever 

 I lecture upon horticulture, I have forestry as one of my topics. 

 I want to make this an individual enterprise, believing we can 

 spread it through the country quicker that way than any 

 other. When I came to Minnesota there was not wood enough 

 in the township I lived in to get dinner for the people who are 

 now in the town a half-dozen times. We went to work and 

 kept the fire out, and we have now a thousand cords of wood 

 where there was not an armload thirteen years ago. (Applause. ) 

 I want to get the people of this state to set out evergreens. I 

 mean our evergreen trees. I was the first one to set out evergreens 

 in that part of the country, and I have kept an evergreen 

 nursery, and make a business of almost giving them away to 

 the people, so there is scarcely a farm in the neighborhood 



