trees from a few inches to a foot in diameter, but they will 

 occasionally cut a tree as large as two feet in diameter. 

 Usually the effect of their cutting is what a forester would 

 call a "thinning." 



I believe that all the state and national forests in Minne- 

 sota should be stocked with beaver, and the animals should 

 be given about five years of absolute protection. If at the end 

 of that time it is found that they have spread and increased 

 sufficiently, the state forest service might trap a certain num- 

 ber of animals, amounting to not more than fifteen or twenty 

 per cent of the estimated beaver population of any particular 

 forest or district. 



I believe that private parties holding large estates, on which 

 such timber as has been mentioned has no commercial value, 

 might find it not only interesting, but profitable, to introduce 

 the beaver on their estates, such as the holdings of the Oliver 

 Mining Company and the Yawkie Estate. 



There are in Northern Minnesota quite a number of set- 

 tlers, who protect colonies of beaver on their land from 

 poachers. These settlers, I believe, should be allowed to trap 

 a certain proportion annually under the supervision of the 

 Fish and Game Commission. In this way the settlers could 

 derive an income from their wild land, and it would open the 

 way for the semi-domestication of the beaver on a large scale. 



I believe that the time has come for re-establishing the 

 beaver on a large scale on its former range, for the animal's 

 natural range contains now many times as much food, in the 

 shape of otherwise worthless poplar brush, as was present 

 before the big timber was cut off or burned by forest fires. 



For about two hundred years, beaver skins were the most 

 important and most valuable article of export from America 

 to Europe. From about 1700 to 1800, Canada may be said to 

 have lived on the catch of beaver. During the flourishing 

 period of the fur trade, North America probably produced in 

 the neighborhood of a million skins a year, but the number 

 has fallen now to an insignificant 50,000. 



The beaver was originally distributed over a very large 

 portion of North America north of Mexico, but the animals 

 are very easy to find and catch, and uncontrolled trapping has 



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