THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



313 



country south of the river will, in this generation, even, 

 be covered with a real forest, has driven public senti- 

 ment in western Kansas to state forestation, as well as 

 national, and will prove the incentive to private effort, 

 also. 



In this same report back in 1868, when Commis- 

 sioner Wilson uttered his strangely prophetic words 

 above cited, this officer also said : 



"A young forest of ten or twelve years' growth, if 

 well taken care of, will furnish a very valuable shelter, 

 and a sufficient number of them rightly distributed over 

 a country will produce most of the effects contributed 

 by larger trees, and will be continually improving. Nor 

 should the length of time required to bring trees to 

 maturity deter persons from undertaking the work of 

 producing them. 



"If the early settlers of Illinois, Nebraska, Kansas 

 and other new states had suffered discouragements of 

 that kind to control them, the many promising young 

 groves, contributing so much to the value and beauty 

 of so many homes in those states would never have been 

 planted. 



"If the enterprise of planting a few acres of forest 

 each year by each proprietor of a farm too scarce of 

 good timber were commenced and continued for ten or 

 twenty years, the good that would be accomplished 

 would be incalculable ; and, after all, thirty or forty or 

 fifty years a very insignificant period of time in the 

 age of a country are long enough to produce trees of 

 a size sufficient for nearly every purpose." 



With equal wisdom, and with equal force of proph- 

 ecy, Commissioner Wilson said in this same report of 



1868 and it seems as though he must have had in mind 

 the time when a great conservation movement like today 

 would be in progress in this country the following : 



"The impression is a very general one in the older 

 states that both droughts and violent rain storms are 

 much more frequent than was formerly the case, while 

 in some of the western states and territories, where tim- 

 ber has been increasing in quantity, the uniform testi- 

 mony appears to be that the climate is improving in reg- 

 ularity, both as to moisture and temperature. 



"Such is the experience in large portions of Illi- 

 nois and Iowa, in the eastern part of Kansas and Ne- 

 braska, and in the valley of Salt Lake. But if the 

 experience of various sections of our own country should 

 be thought insufficient to justify any positive opinion 

 on the subject, that of other and of older nations should 

 at least admonish us that the utility of the forest is a 

 question of very great importance, involving conse- 

 quences, favorable or unfavorable, of the highest 

 moment; that its removal in localities where it may be 

 too abundant, and its preservation and reproduction 

 in districts where it has been too much reduced, or has 

 been entirely wanting, should receive the thoughtful 

 care of every proprietor and everyone interested in the 

 welfare of his country ; that the indiscriminate felling 

 of every grove from the fallacious idea of converting 

 the land to more profitable uses, the carelessness of suf- 

 fering accidental fires to destroy hundreds of acres of 

 timber every year in the older states of the union, are 

 acts of improvidence, the consequences of which will 

 only be realized when their far-reaching effects shall 

 have become fully developed in calamities such as have 



The BUCKEYE FOUR-CYCLE 



GAS ENGINE 



. 



SIMPLE IN CONSTRUCTION - ECONOMICAL IN OPERATION - RELIABLE 



CATALOG ON APPLICATION 



BUCKEYE ENGINE COMPANY, 



Salem, Ohio 



When writing to advertisers please mention The Irrigation Age. 



