DIVISION OF FORESTRY. 191 



It is estimated tliat in lITebraska tliere are now not fewer than 700,000 

 acres of planted forest trees. In Kansas there are nearly as many. In 

 some of the oSTew England States, also, it is probable that the wooded 

 area is not diminishing. Through the illness and death of the agent 

 having in charge the northeastern portion of the country the circulars 

 wore only partially distributed there, and we have no authoritative statis- 

 tics on the subject. But in several of those States attention has been 

 directed for considerable time to the value of forests apart from their use 

 for lumber and fuel, and there has been a growing disposition to secure 

 their proper conservation. In Maine, which was formerly our greatest 

 source of lumber supply, it is understood that only such an amount is" 

 cut from the great pine and spruce forests annually as is equal to the 

 yearly growth. This is as it should be. The forest capital is not dimin- 

 ished, but a steady revenue is derived from it, which may be perpetual, 

 while incidentally many great benefits to the State are secured by such 

 a husbandry of the forests. 



In Massachusetts and Connecticut, which were never covered with 

 such forests as those of Maine, and therefore never offered the same 

 temptations to the ax of the lumberman, it is believed that the wooded 

 area is actually increasing. The people are learning that much of their 

 rough, hilly, and swampy land is more profitable for the growth of trees 

 than any other crop, and they are allowing nature to clothe it with the 

 covering which it formerly had. 



But in what may be called the lumbering regions of the country, es- 

 pecially where the pine is abundant or found in considerable masses, 

 the work of destruction is carried on at an alarming rate. The farmer, 

 having a portion of his farm only covered with trees, will almost natur- 

 ally be prudent in the consumption of them and can easily be led to see 

 that to sweep them off at once for cord- wood or lumber, though it might 

 put a desirable sum of money in his pocket, would be to lessen the 

 amount and injure the quality of aU the crops of his cultivated fields, 

 and that in the end he would be a loser. But the lumberman is open to 

 no such convictions. He is concerned with no crops except those of the 

 forest. His aim and interest are to level the trees and convert them into 

 lumber as S]:!eedily as possible. He sees in the tree, or thinks he does, 

 so much money, and he aims to secure it by the most rapid means. He 

 has no consideration for grain fields or climatic results, for rainfall or 

 waterfalls, except as they are connected with the cutting and marketing 

 of his logs. He is blind to all such things. The same is true of the 

 miner. He has no thought of the general benefit of forests to those 

 living near them, much less of their possible benefit to those who are 

 even remote from them. Trees to him are simply good for mine props 

 or as fuel for the conversion of his ores into marketable metal. The 

 lumberman and the miner alike cut with reckless profusion, wasting 

 often more than they directly consume, leaving upon the ground large 

 portions of what they cut, and breaking down and destroying much of 

 the young wood in getting what they seek. Often this waste and broken 

 down wood, becoming dry, is ignited by some accidental cause and. be- 

 comes the occasion of a raging, uncontrollable fii'e, which sweeps throu;iI» 

 the forest, carrying destruction over a wide space. Such is the condition 

 of the forests in a large portion of the country ; such it has been for 

 many years. This reckless, ruinous treatment of the forests continues 

 with little if any abatement, notwithstanding the warnings which have 

 been given on the subject by those who have observed it with a disin- 

 terested view. 



In the central and southern portions of the country the destraction 



