REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 23 



Congress providing for contributions from the various Departments of 

 the Government to the Centennial and Cotton Exposition at Kew Orleans? 

 to promote the interests of forestry by procuring and sending to that 

 exposition, a collection of useful and ornamental articles manufactured 

 from the woods of our forests. The great variety of articles thus brought 

 together constituted one of the most interesting and attractive features 

 of the exposition, and had the effect of giving to many, a new and deep 

 impression of the great value of our forests and the importance of their 

 proper protection. 



As tending to show the practicability of tree-culture in the arid 

 regions of the West, where such culture has been deemed by many to 

 be impossible, the division transplanted several hundred trees of various 

 kinds from the western portions of Kansas and Nebraska, and the 

 regions farther west, and exhibited them in a growing condition on the 

 exhibition grounds, thus giving ocular demonstration of the success at- 

 tending tree-planting in a largo section of the country hitherto treeless, 

 but where, within a few years past and with advancing settlements, 

 millions of trees have been planted and are now flourishing. The es- 

 tablished fact that trees valuable for fruit, for shade, and for timber can 

 be successfully cultivated on much of the dry plains of the West, is of 

 the greatest importance in an agricultural point of view, and will be the 

 means of attracting settlers to that region who would otherwise turn 

 away from it. 



Early in the year a new volume of the reports on forestry, in addi- 

 tion to the three previously issued, was published. Among the more 

 important contents of this volume may be mentioned a full report from 

 six of the prairie States, in regard to the kinds of ti'ees that had been 

 found to grow there successfully and to which preference is given ; also 

 as to what kinds of trees have not proved successful and the difliculties 

 which have been met by tree-planters. 



Another report, compiled from the returns made in response to a second 

 circular, gave an exhibit of the extent to which the native forests of the 

 country have been cleared off, and for what purposes, and the dam- 

 age occasioned by forest fires, together with other facts relating to the 

 subject. 



By means of a graphic chart, the steady and rapid destruction of the 

 forests in one of the States during a period of nearly thirty years was 

 presented to view, and will serve as an illustration of what has been 

 taking place in many of the other States. 



A report was also made in regard to the consumption of the forests 

 for the purpose of furnishing ties for our 150,000 miles of railroads. 

 The report shows the amount and kind of wood used by each railroad 

 from which information could be obtained, amounting to about 63 per 

 cent, of the whole. The sources from which the ties are procured are 

 specified, as also the season of the year in which they are cut and their 

 ascertained durability. From this report it appears that to furnish ties 



