FORESTRY is a business proposition based on profit and 

 loss, credit and debit and not on sentiment as so often 

 supposed. It is an established fact that lands which are 

 unfit for farming will produce revenue if growing trees. 



From figures collected in Minnesota, we know that Norway 

 pine, for instance, in the vicinity of Sturgeon lake and St. 

 Louis county, showed an annual growth of 500 board feet per 

 acre, and near Red lake, Beltrami county, a growth of six 

 hundred feet. Jack pine, we find produces stand's at the rate 

 of six railroad ties and about a cord of other merchantable 

 material per acre per year. 



White spruce chiefly valuable for pulp wood grows quite 

 rapidly in Minnesota. Under fair conditions it produces pulp 

 wood at the rate of l l / 2 to 1% cords per year. 



Poplar is our banner tree for rapid growth. On the heavy 

 black soil of Northern Minnesota where this tree attains its 

 best form, it frequently grows at the rate of 1,500 board feet 

 per acre per year, or approximately three cords. 



Growing on the Prairies. 



In plantations, such as groves on prairie farms, we fre- 

 quently find instances of surprisingly rapid growth. The spe- 

 cies used in most of our prairie planting are cottonwood, 

 white willow, box elder, and white elm. Many portable saw- 

 mills are operating in the planted groves of Southern and 

 Southwestern Minnesota and the quantity of lumber produced 

 is considerable, and yields of 20,000 feet per acre from twenty- 

 five-year-old groves are reported. It is evident, however, that 

 the growing of cottonwood, elm, and Norway spruce, for lum- 

 ber, on prairie farms is profitable, arid this we must remember 

 is upon purely agricultural land carrying a heavy rate of tax- 

 ation. 



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