80 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



February 



ris Bill has set aside 225,000 acres of 

 land for a forest reserve. The ques- 

 tion raised as to the advisability of 

 such action hinges largely on a single 

 point is the land agricultural or not? 

 * * * Almost the entire area chosen, 

 which lies east and south of Cass 

 Lake, is solid Norway and Jack pine 

 land * * * Farmers on Jack pine sands, 

 except a few truck gardeners, are of 

 no benefit to a community in the end. 

 Land which is not fit for farming can 

 still grow trees." 



from sale and settlement. Of this se- 

 lection Mr. Bruce, shortly after it was 

 made, said, in an address before the 

 American Forestry Association, at 

 Minneapolis : "Regarding the loca- 

 tion of this reserve, there are many 

 reasons why that portion of the Chip- 

 pewa Indian Reservation, situated in 

 the northerly and westerly part, which 

 includes within its boundaries some of 

 the principal lakes and a long stretch 

 of the Mississippi River, is most de- 

 sirable as a location for the Minnesota 



Good reproduction of young pine east of Cass Lake 



On the 10th of June, 1903, the first 

 selection of land was approved by the 

 Department of the Interior. This in- 

 cluded 104,459 acres, of which 89,707 

 acres were classed as pine land, and 

 14,753 acres were classed as agricul- 

 tural land ; this constituted the first 

 selection of the 225,000 acres of land 

 to be selected by the Forester under 

 the terms of the Morris Bill, and there 

 were also selected 6,399 acres to be 

 included in the ten sections reserved 



National Forest Reserve. One very 

 important one is that this particular 

 locality contains the largest compact 

 acreage of classified pine land of any 

 section within the reservation * * * 

 This fact necessarily had a strong 

 bearing on the selection, since one of 

 the provisions of the Morris Act is 

 that the selection shall be made from 

 lands classified as pine lands * * * 

 There is less true agricultural land in 

 the territory selected than in any other 



