224 



THE FORESTER. 



October, 



system is a method of eliminating all 

 lands better suited for other purposes 

 than for forestry. The authority that 

 would be least liable to political and 

 local influence would have my prefer- 

 ence. 



Much opposition to the proposed na- 

 tional park is being made by the news- 

 papers of northern Minnesota from a mis- 

 taken apprehension that it will withdraw 

 farming lands from settlement, obstruct 

 lumbering and retard the general pros- 

 perity. In answer to this I have re- 

 peatedly, in various newspapers, cited 

 the example of the Black Forest (so 

 called from the dark color of its conif- 

 erous woods), a tract ninety miles long 

 by from thirteen to forty miles wide, lying 

 in Baden and Wurtemburg, and which, 

 though essentially a forest, managed on 

 forest principles, and a most popular 

 health and summer resort, still has within 

 its limits cities and villages, a popula- 

 tion of a million, fine roads, manufac- 

 tures and cultivated farms. The Thurin- 

 gian and all other forests illustrate a 

 similar fact that land which is better 

 fitted for forest than for agriculture can 

 be maintained as forest so as to yield a 

 continuous revenue and afford the benefits 

 of a park, without preventing the culti- 

 vation of any neighboring agricultural 

 land. If I am not mistaken the Adiron- 

 dacks, in which the State of New York 

 now holds a million acres as a forest re- 

 serve and park, contains several villages, 

 many private summer homes, good roads, 

 and while affording all the benefits of a 

 park, of a fish and game preserve, and 

 of a summer resort, is the theater of 

 active prosperity ; and there can be no 

 doubt whatever that if a reasonably ex- 

 tensive national park be established in 

 northern Minnesota it will greatly in- 

 crease rather than retard the general 

 prosperity. 



Under the free and easy public land 

 system which the people, through their 

 Congress and Government, have per- 

 mitted, the timber lands in Minnesota, 

 as well as elsewhere, have been disposed 

 of in a prodigal manner. Within the 

 past fifty years a hundred million dollars' 



worth of Pine has been cut in Minnesota, 

 for which the Government has received 

 less than $7,000,000. The greater and 

 best part of the Pine forest has been 

 cut ; and now, if the people of the country 

 at large wish to reserve a few groves 

 of the remaining Pine belonging to the 

 Government as a future health resort, it 

 does not become any one to make too 

 violent an opposition. 



The lumbermen of Minnesota, as a 

 class, are broad-minded and liberal, and 

 will not oppose a suitable national park. 

 But timber thieves and all such as " dead 

 and down" timber rascals will oppose it 

 and make their opposition felt. It is 

 a question which concerns the public 

 quite generally and ought to be decided 

 promptly or it will be too late. 



C. C. Andrews, 

 Chief Fire Warden of Minnesota and 

 Secretary of the Minnesota State Forestry 

 Board. ' St. Paul Minn. 



The Minnesota National Park and 

 Forestry Association has set itself to the 

 task of securing a national park for the 

 plain people of the United States. In 

 area, its acres will count by the millions, 

 and in scenic and native conditions this 

 combined forest reserve and park will be 

 among the most picturesque and primal 

 solitudes that are grouped around the 

 headwaters of the Mississippi River. Its 

 forests are magnificent and stately, the 

 cascade and rivulet trickle down its 

 slopes and gorges. It has lakes that 

 silver spot its open landscapes, the air 

 is crispy and bracing, it is easily access- 

 ible to some twenty millions of people, 

 and for Nimrods, Waltons and tourists 

 it has the savage beast, the game fish 

 and a vestige of what is left of old Amer- 

 ica, and of unvandalized domain. It is 

 proposed to keep the ruthless axe of the 

 nomadic chopper out of the woods, and 

 to spare the coming generation a gloomy 

 vista of blackened stumps, sand stran- 

 gled streams and gorges filled with slash- 

 ings or sawdust. 



This forest is one of the few left east 

 of the Rocky Mountains; but in all its 



