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' The Minnesota Forest Service was organized in May, 

 1911. It was then that the State Forestry Board, in accord- 

 ance with the Act of April 12th, selected "a trained Forester" 

 and turned over to him the administrative work of the De- 

 partment. 



The forest law is a comprehensive one, carefully drawn 

 and passed upon previous experience in this and other states. 

 It provides an annual appropriation of $75,000.00, in addition 

 to certain specific appropriations made for the care and pro- 

 tection of the State Forest Reserves and parks. 



The task of the service is enormous. Minnesota originally 

 had approximately 33,000,000 acres of forest. Of this 5,000,000 

 acres have been cleared for farming, leaving 28,000,000 acres 

 of forest land in this State. This is exclusive of the lakes 

 lying within the forest region. There are about 4,000,000 acres 

 of Indian Reservation and National Forest lands in the State, 

 leaving 24,000,000 acres extending north and northwestward 

 from the mouth of the St. Croix three hundred miles to the 

 Canadian boundary, and for more than three hundred miles 

 along the boundary from Lake of the Woods to Lake Superior. 

 This enormous area, now largely cut over and much of it 

 burned, it is the duty of the State Forest Service to protect 

 from fire. 



Since the organization of the Service last May consider- 

 able progress has been made. This State has been divided 

 into twenty fire districts which embrace the coniferous forest 

 region. In charge of each of these districts is a district 

 ranger, selected solely because of his experience and ability 

 as a woodsman the type of man commonly employed as 

 logging superintendent. These men are located at the most 

 convenient points for reaching the different portions of their 

 districts and keeping in touch with their patrolmen and with 

 the public. The rangers have selected the headquarters for 

 their patrolment and assigned to each of them a definite area 

 to patrol. Both the rangers and patrolmen have been in- 

 structed in the field as to their duties. 



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