380 ECONOMICS OF FORESTRY. 



The amount of tree-planting performed on the 

 prairies, plains, and Western valleys, although ag- 

 gregating thousands of acres, is infinitesimal, if 

 compared with what is necessary for climatic 

 amelioration ; and it may be admitted, now as well 

 as later, that the reforestation of the plains must 

 be a matter of cooperative, if not of national, enter- 

 prise. 



Indeed, as a result of an experiment instituted 

 by the writer in 1890 to prove that the sand-hills of 

 Nebraska could and should be planted to conifers, 

 the federal government has lately reserved 200,000 

 acres for such planting, out of the 15,000,000 acres 

 comprised in this sand-hill region. 



Private efforts in the East in the way of fostering 

 and carrying on economic timber-planting should 

 not be forgotten, such as the prizes offered by the 

 Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, the plant- 

 ing done by the private landholders at Cape Cod, in 

 Rhode Island, Virginia, and elsewhere. 



There have also been, here and there, farmers 

 bestowing care on the manner of cutting their 

 woodlots ; lumbermen and other forest owners 

 have, now and then, not only made special efforts 

 to protect their forest properties against fire, but 

 have done their cutting conservatively and with 

 care for the existing young growth. 



Yet, altogether, these efforts have been sporadic, 

 unsystematic, and not on any scale commensurate 

 with the destruction of virgin resources, as may be 



