264 



THE FORESTER. 



November, 



1. That any person having denuded or 

 other lands, worthless for agricultural pur- 

 poses, deed them to the State, if the Board 

 of County Commissioners acting as a 

 county board of forestry recommend 

 them and the State Forestry Board accept 

 them ; that the State protect these lands 

 from fire, and exempt them from taxes, as 

 State lands, and to a certain inexpensive 

 extent reseed them with useful and profit- 

 able varieties, depending, however, princi- 

 pally on the small timber which might be 

 left and on natural reseeding. 



The principal expense would be the 

 protection from fires, which the State, to 

 save its wealth in its forests, ought to 

 undertake at all events ; and the loss of 

 taxes to State, county and towns. 



2. (Omitting many necessary minor 

 provisions) that when an income is real- 

 ized, it should be divided into three parts 

 to be distributed as follows : 



() One-third to be retained by the 

 State to reimburse it for fire protection and 

 loss of taxes, of which one-quarter should 

 go to the State, one-half to the county, and 

 one-quarter to the town. 



(<$) One-third to go to any educational 

 system or institution in the State which the 

 donor might designate by the deed of con- 

 veyance, by a separate recorded instru- 

 ment, or by will ; but if he failed to desig- 

 nate, to go then to the common school 

 system (3/4). and the State University 



(c) One-third to go to the donor and 

 his heirs or those designated by will and 

 possibly his assigns, unless it might be 

 good public policy to make it inalienable 

 and exempt from debt as an incentive 

 but this one-third to be limited to, say, 

 seventy-five years, and then this third to 

 go to the educational institution or system 

 designated by the donor for the b third. 



The plan contemplated the creation of 

 small permanent State forest tracts all over 

 the State, using only tracts not desirable 

 for agricultural purposes (except around 

 the sources of water courses), and not the 

 creation of vast pleasure parks. Thus for- 

 ests would be reproduced near those who 

 would use their products. The Hon. 

 Ignatius Donelly was a member of the 



1897 Legislature, and the leading anti- 

 monopolist, and fearing that to give the 

 donor and his heirs one-third of the income 

 for a limited period (which would not be 

 for more than two crops of timber at most) 

 would favor the wealthy Pine land owners, 

 he opposed this feature of the bill. 



The friends of the measure, among them 

 Ex-Governor JohnS. Pillsbury, the father 

 of the State University and a large Pine 

 land owner (who said he desired to give 

 the whole income to the University, keep- 

 ing nothing for himself), thought it would 

 be better to get the system started than to 

 stand out for the incentive clause. Ex- 

 Governor Pillsbury cited the case of Dart- 

 mouth College, in his native State, which 

 now draws a nice income from the timber 

 on a tract of mountain land in the northern 

 part of New Hampshire, which, when it 

 was given to the College, was considered 

 worthless. 



The 1899 Legislature followed the bill 

 passed by the Lower House in 1897, under 

 the Donelly trimming. 



The writer believes that the plan cannot 

 be fully successful until the State offers the 

 owners some adequate inducement to deed 

 their lands to it. He has always thought 

 that this incentive of giving the donor and 

 his heirs a part of the profits from the lands 

 for one or two generations, was essential 

 to the plan's success ; and although it may 

 be that the denominational colleges may 

 induce such gifts in time he does not ex- 

 pect that the State will receive donations 

 of lands, except from a few wealthy and 

 benevolent men. Neither does the writer 

 believe that a harmful monopoly would be 

 created by holding out so reasonable an 

 inducement to the owners of cut over Pine 

 lands, worthless for agriculture. 



The Legislature can turn over to the 

 Board for administration on forestry prin- 

 ciples any of its timbered school and 

 University lands and even Itasca park. 



Some people have already tendered 

 some lands to the Board and a start has 

 been made. The Board is conservative 

 and expects to feel its way go slowly. 



The four years which have elapsed 

 since the plan was proposed have been 

 most beneficial years to the whole State as 



