444 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
tematically robbed, of reform that is plainly needed in this line, and 
not only reform but intelligent, systematic management, which, I 
trust, this association will take active and vigorous measures to se- 
cure. 
The whole broad subject needs immediate attention. But I must 
confine myself to the special subject of this paper which is: 
THE PREVENTION OF FOREST FIRES. 
What is the use of all this talk about forestry and the prevention 
of fire? What does it amount to? It is all very nice to have some 
subject that sounds well, that sounds patriotic, but what good does 
it do? 
Such ideas, if not spoken, seem to have been implied by the atti- 
tude of too many peuple towards the Forestry Association and 
towards the forestry work; but we are glad to say this quizzical and 
indifferent attitude cannot now be assumed without downright ig- 
norance and culpable inattention to the needs of the day. 
The time has passed for doubting whether forests are beneficial 
and should be preserved and propagated. 
Even the quieting remarks made at our meeting a year ago are far 
behind the times today, for, sitting in the ashes of our recent fires, 
the people are crying: “The calamity howlers were right, but they 
did not tell us half of what was going to happen. We are now ready 
for the plain facts. Can’t you help us?” 
May we not then at once discuss these questions? 
First—Should our forests be protected from fire? 
Second—Can it be done? 
Third—If it can be done, how? 
Our forest furnishes employment to 20,000 men cutting pine and 
perhaps a third more cutting fuel, ties, piles, poles, posts, barrel 
stock and hardwood. Is it desirable to perpetuate this great indus- 
try and not only produce enough material to supply our own wants, 
but to bring money from other states and other nations by shipping 
our surplus to them as we do now? There can be only one answer 
to this question. But what has this to do with fires? Simply this: 
The forest cannot be preserved unless the fires are stopped, and if 
the fires be stopped the timber will grow again. Some deny the lat- 
ter part of this statement, and say after the virgin pine is cut, pine 
will never come in again, and the forest is worthless. This is too true 
under the present liability to fire, but utterly and perniciously false 
if the fires be prevented. Even men of intelligence and prominence 
in the lumber business have said: “Why prevent fire? Pine will 
never come in again after the marketable timber is once cut.” This 
assertion needs the strongest possible denial. The men that make 
such an assertion deserve ridicule, and I will say they must have 
had sawlogs in their eyes when they traveled through the woods. 
This is not altogether a joke; they were looking for sawlogs and 
could not have looked at much else; for loggers in cutting often 
leave a hundred thrifty and vigorous young pines from four to ten 
inches in diameter, and from twenty to a hundred feet high on an 
acre after the log timber is cut, and on pine stump land that has 
escaped fire three years, thousands of little pine seedlings may be 
seen springing up. 
