WHILE the production of lumber in Minnesota has passed 

 its climax, not more than half of the original pine for- 

 est has been cut. There are at least twenty years of 

 active lumbering operations on a large scale in sight in Min- 

 nesota. 



Thanks to Minnesota's splendid forest protecting laws and 

 the manner in which they have been administered by the 

 state forest service, the fire demon is pretty well controlled. 

 The people of Minnesota apparently recognize as they have 

 never before that forest destruction is a public calamity, and 

 that the cheapest kind of prosperity insurance is adequate 

 forest fire prevention. The control of forest fires is the first 

 and longest step toward the practice of forestry. 



From, the standpoint of the future welfare of the state, 

 there is no question about the advisability of Minnesota set- 

 ting aside lands at the earliest possible moment for the pur- 

 ose of raising trees. 



Wood is indispensable to mankind. Our civilization, indeed 

 ife itself, depends upon the products of the forest quite as 



uch as upon other products of the soil. 



There is reason to believe that the lumber production of 

 the United States has reached and passed its maximum. 

 * * * Furthermore, it must not be forgotten that the pop- 

 ulation of the country is increasing at the rate of nearly two 

 and one-half millions of persons annually. As the lumber 

 production cannot be increased proportionately, it follows that 

 the consumption of lumber per capita must decline. 



There is no danger of a lumber famine in America, as some 

 have prophesied. When the profits to be derived from stand- 

 ing timber are sufficient to make it pay to raise trees, trees 

 will be grown, and the cutting of them will be in proportion 

 to their growth. This is the history of forestry in the older 

 countries of the world. 



But while there must be land for the growing of farm crops, 



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