106 ANNUAL REPORT OF 



cellent roads. Of the celebrated Thuringian chain, which 

 is 70 miles in length by from 8 to 25 miles in breadth, a 

 writer says: "The successive hills melt into each other 

 in gentle undulations, forming a continuous and easily 

 traced comb, and only the northwest slopes are precip- 

 itous, and seamed with winding gorges. This mountain 

 range incloses many charming and romantic valleys and 

 glens; the most prominent feature of its picturesque 

 scenery is formed by the fine forests, chiefly of pines and 

 firs, which clothe most of the hills. " 



Prussia comprises nearly two- thirds of the entire ex- 

 tent of the German Empire, yet its area lacks consider- 

 able of being twice that of Minnesota. Thirty-one per 

 cent of its soil is predominantly sandy, and on the whole 

 probably is not as good as that of Minnesota; yet it sus- 

 tains a population twenty-five times as large as that of 

 Minnesota. This fact might well find a lodgment in the 

 minds of our statesmen, that whereas Prussia annually 

 derives a net revenue of 11.50 an acre from her 6,000,000 

 acres of state forest, our state, from about an equal area 

 of land in its borders, adapted to forest, derives no regu- 

 lar net revenue at all. 



FORESTRY IN RUSSIA. 



At my request the American ambassador at St. Peters- 

 burg, Mr. Riddle, has kindly furnished me information on 

 forestry in Russia. It is probably not generally known in 

 this country that scientific forestry was introduced in 

 Russia as early as 1820; and that a school for scientific 

 instruction in forestry is maintained at St. Petersburg 

 attended by 565 students. For the support of this school 

 the Russian government expends annually $93, 250.50, and 

 the students $17,643.50. Besides, there are in the em- 

 pire 32 lower grade schools for forestry instruction with 

 580 students. The state forests comprise the enormous 



