DRY LANDS AND FORESTS 127 



which yields the best returns for the least 

 amount of labor. 



It seems almost an anomaly then to find 

 opportunities for the Gleaner in this district. 

 We have already seen that an area of 77,000,- 

 000 acres of swamp and overflow lands awaits 

 the Gleaner, and that a goodly percentage of 

 this empire of potential fertility lies in the 

 corn-belt. We have also seen that north of 

 the forty-fifth parallel of latitude in the three 

 states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota 

 the elemental industry has been not agri- 

 culture, but lumbering. 



It was not in the scheme of things as we 

 conceived it as a nation in the beginning that 

 this area should remain permanently in for- 

 ests. Forty million acres in this region has 

 passed into private hands and has been reaped 

 of Nature's first crop. The lumber- jack, fire 

 and the ax have laid the vast area bare, with 

 no thought of reforestation. Because forestry, 

 like agriculture, must be endowed with its 

 plant in the beginning and cannot persist in 

 the end except as a commercial possibility. 

 When the product of an acre of forest is worth 

 only $15 and the cost of reforesting that same 

 acre is in excess of $15, the lumber barons 



