FOREST PLANTING. 127 



energy in this enterprise, which will add directly and indirectly mill- 

 ions of dollars to the value of our Government possessions in the 

 West. THESE LANDS ARE AT PRESENT WORTHLESS, and unless the 

 requisite assistance is rendered to prove their capacity for agricul- 

 tural developments, millions of acres of them MUST REMAIN OF NO 



VALUE WHATEVER. 



" Our association is composed of men who have faith in believing 

 that their practical- experience, coupled with their great interest and 

 sympathy with this subject in all its bearings, can and will, (if en- 

 couragement is given us,) give to these lands a value a thousand times 

 more than the franchise asked for are worth to the General Govern- 

 ment. 



" West of the Mississippi there is not a State that has a stick of 

 timber more than is needed for its own consumption in our own, 

 generation. The Sierra gorges, and a large surface of Oregon have 

 good supplies of timber, and some of the mountain ranges are well 

 covered with trees, but no streams are there, large enough to convey 

 the logs or lumber to where it is needed, or can be made available. 

 FIVE ACRES OF GOOD TIMBER, selected and cultivated where it is need- 

 ed, is of more value than five hundred acres away where it cannot be 

 made available for our purpose. 



" The American forests, once the richest inheritance that Divine 

 providence ever bestowed upon a people, have been swept away be- 

 fore the onward march of civilization, to such an extent, that it has 

 already become a question of serious import, ' WHERE SHALL THE 

 SUPPLY FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS COME FROM ?' No rational answer 

 can be given to this, other than to enter immediately upon the work 

 of Forest Tree growing. This is imperatively necessary, both for 

 protection in exposed situations, and for building and mechanical 

 purposes. 



" With the present and prospective increase in the consumption of 

 pine, all the accessible pine timber east of the Rocky Mountains will 

 soon be exhausted. The Chicago market alone receives over one 

 thousand millions of feet of lumber per annum, and say that this 

 represents one-fourth of all the lumber that is taken from oui forests 



