FORESTRY COMMISSIONER. 47 



A nursery should be established on some convenient tract for 

 the purpose of raising the young trees necessary for planting, 

 and I would suggest that a place be cleared on lot 10 in section 

 14-63-14 where a sandy north slope is available. There is also 

 good ground in sections 8 and 18 of the same township, and in 

 sections 25 and 28 of township 64-13. Young pines may be 

 gathered from neighboring lands if taken before logging has 

 been done, as fires may follow and destroy them. 



I would recommend that a headquarters camp be built on 

 Crab lake near the proposed nursery with a residence for the 

 chief ranger and his men, an office and sleeping quarters for the 

 State Forester when superintending operations here, a barn and 

 tool house. These buildings need not be expensive and some of 

 them could be built partly of logs cut in the vicinity. Cabins of 

 small size should be built in several parts of the Forest to house 

 foresters and rangers when on duty away from the main camp. 

 The buildings, with necessary tools, vehicles, team of horses, 

 boats and furnishings will cost about $3.200. 



A good road from the headquarters camp to connect with the 

 Ely-Tower road will be 7 or 8 miles long and will cost from $500 

 to $1,200 a mile to build. In addition to this road there should 

 be about 10 miles of main roads in each township which need not 

 be so expensive at the start. There should also be 50 miles of 

 trail opened along the principal section lines and from lake to 

 lake, so as to make all parts easily accessible to the foresters and 

 visitors. A large part of the road work, the cutting of trails, 

 the improvement of canoe routes and portages and the survey- 

 ing of the land should be done by the rangers under the super- 

 vision of a forester. 



Success in the management of a forest is to be attained only 

 by constant care from the time the seed is put into the ground 

 until the final crop is harvested, and the oversight must be con- 

 tinuous. It will not do to put in seed or young trees and leave 

 nobody there to watch them. There should be a permanent 

 forestry corps organized with a forester at the head and assist- 

 ants for all branches of the work. This will require an outlay of 

 money for a time until the forest becomes productive, but the 

 forest should become self-supporting, and the final crop of timber 

 pay a net profit on the outlay. The net gain of forests has been 

 variously estimated at from $1.33 to $3.63 per acre annually, but 



