A MEETING of the forestry board was held in the club 

 house, Itasca park, at 1:30 o'clock p. m., Saturday, July 

 10. Vice President Woods was in the chair. Present: 

 Messrs. Cheyney, Odell, Shaw, Williams and Woods; also the 

 secretary of the board, the state forester and assistant for- 

 ester. 



Mr. Cox, state forester, in a brief discussion, told of the at- 

 tempted changes in the forest law. One bill would have taken 

 away the authority of the service over lumbermen and others. 

 This important change was covered up by making the bill 

 appear to be primarily one to reduce the salaries of the for- 

 ester and assistant forester. It was difficult, therefore, to fight 

 this bill without appearing to be working for personal in- 

 terests. 



The soil survey bill, important as it was and is, was given 

 no hearing. It seemed impossible to obtain for this bill the 

 consideration it deserved. In spite of the fact that a ma- 

 jority of the voters last November approved of the state for- 

 ests amendment to the constitution, the legislature decided to 

 hold in abeyance the people's wishes, a soil survey being 

 necessary, of course, before state forests can be established 

 (in accordance with the constitutional amendment) out of the 

 non-agricultural lands owned by the state. 



The forest service a; propriation was reduced from $75,00 

 a year to $40,000 a year. It was practically impossible to ob- 

 tain for this appropriation a fair consideration in the senate. 

 The effect of the reduced service appropriation has been very 

 serious on the personnel. Two of the head rangers have al- 

 ready resigned. The force, which has always been too small, 

 has had to be reduced about half. Patrol will have to be prac- 

 tically abandoned, even though it has saved the state many 

 hundreds of thousands of dollars since the service was or- 

 ganized. The field force, under the reduced appropriation, can 

 accomplish most by giving chief attention to slash disposal, 



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