1 8gg. 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



61 



Our information from Washington is to 

 the effect that it is the purpose in the 

 bill for the Twelfth Census to strip from 

 it all provision for any information be- 

 yond that touching the population of 

 the country. If other subjects shall be 

 taken up, they will be provided for by 

 special acts, which shall define the 

 expenditure and the scope of the inves- 

 tigation to be made. At the meeting of 

 Northern and Southern lumbermen held 

 in St. Louis in November a vigorous set 

 of resolutions was passed, calling upon 

 the Government to provide for a compre- 

 hensive statistical survey of the timber 

 resources of the country and a compila- 

 tion of facts pertaining to wood products. 

 The resolutions of the American Eco- 

 nomic Association are in line with these 

 suggestions. If anything is to be done 

 to impress upon Congress the need of 

 some such bureau as those who have had 

 the tariff matter in charge have found to 

 be absolutely necessary, it should be 

 done at once. It will be remembered 

 that in the Eleventh Census Superinten- 

 dent Porter was able to make a fairly 



satisfactory bulletin covering the lumber 

 industry in Michigan, Wisconsin and 

 Minnesota. He failed, however, to com- 

 pile anything at all comprehensive con- 

 cerning the great lumber interests in 

 other parts of the country. It seems to 

 the American Lumberman that it is of 

 particular importance to the developing 

 lumber interests on the Pacific coast and 

 in the South that some means should be 

 provided for the compilation of a close 

 estimate of the standing timber of every 

 kind in these newer lumbering regions, 

 and accurate data concerning the volume 

 and cost of production, etc. This can be 

 done only by a bureau of experts, with 

 ample time and ample means at their 

 command. Is it not due to the lumber- 

 men of the United States that some such 

 provision should be made? Will not 

 some such compilation be of vast im- 

 portance and value to the friends of 

 forestry? The subject is of enough im- 

 portance to demand energetic and per- 

 sistent effort at the hands of lumbermen 

 all over the country. American Lumber- 

 man. 



Forest Management. 



To Reforest White Pine Lands. 



An interesting report of Forest War- 

 den Andrews, of Minnesota, calls atten- 

 tion to the effect brought about by the 

 use of the lumber railroads in devasta- 

 ting the forests. "These roads," he 

 says, "reaching far into the forest where 

 no trees can be cut if they must be 

 rafted by river to the points of con- 

 sumption, are tapping timber lands that 

 were a few years ago supposed to be 

 beyond the reach of the most envious 

 lumberman. They are increasing the 

 cut of Pine in Minnesota by millions of 

 feet yearly, and their ultimate results 

 will be to denude the forests at the very 

 points where forests are absolutely 

 necessary, far up the water-courses and 

 on the ridges and the heights of land." 



According to his statement, lumber- 



ing began some fifty years ago in Minne 

 sota, and about fifty billion feet of Pine 

 have 'been cut in that time, and he esti- 

 mates there still remains some thirty 

 billion more, and unless some methods 

 are taken for rehabilitating these forests 

 they will be gone in from twelve to 

 eighteen years. About 20,000 men are 

 employed in the State on this work and 

 the cut represents an annual value of S5,- 

 000,000 as it stands and about twice that 

 when cut. All this will be lost to the State 

 unless some measures are taken for the 

 reforestation of these tracts. Minne- 

 sota is now the only State east of the 

 Rockies left with a Pine forest, Michi- 

 gan and Wisconsin being practically ex- 

 hausted. He estimates that there are 

 in Minnesota nearly 3,000,000 acres of 

 waste land, from which the trees have 

 been cut, and on which no taxes will 



