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THOUGHTS ON FORESTRY. 405 &S 
a Ly 
; THOUGHTS ON FORESTRY. (A TALK.) 
‘ D. R. MCGINNIS, ST. PAUL. : 
Ladies and Gentlemen: The splendid papers read do not leave 
much for me to say on this subject; they have covered the matter 
more thoroughly and in a more practical manner than any papers I 
have ever heard on the subject of forestry. There are a few things 
: I might add that may shed a little more light on the situation In 
the first place, have you ever reflected how little of the world is 
entirely forest? Take a map of the world where the forest portions g25 
are colored green, and you will see as a rule there are little narrow f 
strips of green nearest the oceans, 
It is, I regret to say, a fact known to those who investigate it, that 
the water supply upon the land surface of the earth is diminishing. 
I will point to only one or two cases in point. Fifty years ago there 
was a lake covering four thousand square miles in southwestern 
Siberia; that lake does notexist today. In the southern part of Sibe- 
ria there was a lake into which a large drainage system flowed; that 
lake fifty years ago had an outlet navigable for steamboats; about 
eight years ago that lake ceased to discharge any water. Withina 
comparatively short period of years, our water system in this state 
has been remarkably depleted. Devil’s Lake in North Dakota has, to 
my own knowledge, fallen eight feet since I was there in 1882. When 
the city of Devil’s Lake was started by J. J. Hill in 1882, he found the 
depth of water in the bay eight feet, and he said they would startthe 
town there; today that bay is dry land. 
I do not wish to lookat this matter from a sentimental standpoint; 
itis a practical matter. Observations do not prove that rainfall is 
increased by forests, except in the very slightest degree. It is the 
office of the forest to preserve what rain does fall from being idly 
evaporated into the air, and this moisture soaks into the earth and 
fills our lakes, ponds and wells—and that is the work,the most import- 
ant work which the forest performs. We must look at the practical 
aspect of this case. You have got to look at this forest question 
from a financial aspect. I can prove to you that if you will set 
’ out white pine seedlings and attend to them—and it is very pleasant 
_ work taking care of timber—at the end of thirty years you can sell 
the stumpage and make from two to ten times as much money as if 
you had cultivated the land to wheat. You can afford to wait thirty 
years to get that return. The preservation of forests does not contem- 
plate letting trees grow up torot downagain. Intelligent forestry 
contemplates cutting the tree when itis ready for the usesof hu- 
manity the same as wheat is cut when it is ripe. 
The solving of the forestry question depends on its preservation 
from fire. The axe alone will never exterminate our forests. Let the 
lumberman cut that timber; we need that timber, we need it for our 
buildings, we need it for shelter, but let us provide that the fire, 
which ruins, in my opirion, one thousand times as much as the axe 
does, be guarded against. The destruction of timber by fire is 
something enormous. If we stop the spread of the fire, we will find 
that nature will take care of timber renewal to a very large degree. 
The axe alone cannot deplete our forests; fire is the only agent that 
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