GEN C. C. ANDREWS' article in the Dispatch Mail Bag 

 brings very forcibly -to the attention of the thinking man 

 the millions of dollars that the state of Minnesota is los- 

 ing annually through the short-sighted policy in the handling 

 of her forest resources. 



Of course the figures quoted are for Germany and we usu- 

 ally think of Germany as a vast empire. In this we are en- 

 tirely mistaken, it is only three times as large as Minnesota. 

 Think of it! Only three times the size of our own state, 

 supporting a population of 65,000,000, and maintains a forest 

 area of 40,000,000 acres. This means that all of the tremen- 

 dous industries of a progressive empire, including an agricul- 

 ture sufficient as the war has demonstrated to feed the en- 

 tire population, is thriving on an area of 118,000,000 acres. 

 And yet the landmen are able to convince the lawmakers that 

 this state with its little 2,000,000 of population is crowded for 

 its 53,000,000 acres of space and cannot possibly spare an acre 

 for forests. According to them, our population would inev- 

 itably starve if one acre of our area should be barred to agri- 

 culture. 



Let us glance for a moment at the possibilities of Minne- 

 sota's development on the basis of Germany's accomplish- 

 ments. Our state could support on 74 per cent of her area, her 

 38,000,000 acres of agricultural land, a population of 20,000,000, 

 over twice the population of the state of New York after 300 

 years of her development. The remaining 26 per cent, ap- 

 proximately 14,000,000 acres of forest would support within 

 its boundaries approximately 300,000 people on the $13,000,000, 

 which should be expended annually for the administration, 

 care and labor thereon. That is, one-sixth of our present pop- 

 ulation would be supported within the boundaries of the for- 

 est. An additional $7,500,000 would be paid annually for the 

 transportation of the forest products. And still another $50,- 

 000,000 would be distributed by the forest each year in the 



