Pe Pee nT ean Se he ee Re Be are ene Oe Yee pee ON hed Cee 
- er ey ey uA h ory? oo yy es us F 
am FORESTRY. 443 
; FOREST FIRES. 
; H. B. AYERS, CARLTON. 
:: 
Why the forestry question should be of interest to horticulturists 
may be a matter of wonder to some, as it once was with me, but we 
learn that their study of growing plants has enabled them to see in 
the forest things that the lumbermen have not seen, and this in- 
sight into the lives of the friendly trees has taught them, in their 
endeavor to clothe the prairie with productive crops, the use of trees. 
In common with other people, too, horticulturists acknowledge, I 
believe, some love of country and some regard for the future of the 
land that has nourished them. 
It is not so strange then, after all, that the farmers and gardeners, 
who havea permanent interestin their communities and in the state, 
should take an interest in and demand a better care of the forest, 
that, covering our highlands, precipitates the atmospheric moisture 
from the northeast and fills our hundred thousand natural reser- 
voirs on the hills above us, from which are distributed through 
sandy strata a constart supply of pure water to the hundred thous- 
and streams that have their sources on the Jower slopes of the high- 
lands. 
But this is not the only way the forests bring water to us. Con- 
trary to the pernicious theories propagated by some business men 
for business purposes, forests are not altogether dependent upon 
uncontrollable, climatic conditions for their existence; but many 
functions of the forest, especially its generous outpouring of moist- 
ure and temperate air, tend to form conditions favorable to its own 
growth and the growth of other plants beyond its borders. This 
principle is recognized by the most intelligent farmers and garden- 
ers as well as by tree growers and foresters. 
Together, then, let us move to aid our much-abused forest in its 
strife with the prairie, even hoping that it may at last extend its 
moisture over all our state and neutralize the parching blight of our 
southwest winds (which last year were felt well toward the head- 
waters of the Mississippi); that it may roll them back and enlarge 
the bounds of our fertile and beautiful park region, until it may in- 
clude even Martin county and continue on to give relief to the peo- 
ple of Nebraska and Kansas. 
While the Forestry Association has been busily cultivating a 
proper view of what should be done on the prairie and distributing 
information and trees for planting, our original forest has been and 
is being ravaged by and abandoned to fire. 
To discuss the reason for this destruction will perhaps satisfy us 
of unwise policies in the disposition of the public lands, of fraudu- 
lent claims accepted, of dishonorable practices in stripping and 
abandoning lands, of connivances and sharp practices that many 
lumbermen smile at, of outright and traitorous thievery, of errone- 
ous theories propagated for selfish purposes, of reports of wrong do- 
ing ignored by officials, of silence by those who should have made 
wrongs known, of investigations that show conclusively that the 
lands with which our institutions have been endowed are being sys- 
“7 e 
