96 TREE PLANTER'S MANUAL. 



But the state, years ago, committed itself to government forestry by 

 virtue of the tree bounty law under whose beneficent workings more than 

 a hundred thousand prairie acres have been substantially planted with 

 trees, and there is no room for turning back. Why should not the state 

 hold supervisory control over the trees it has liberally paid for? This rule 

 being legitimate, why not extend it in application to our natural forests, 

 more especially such as are yet owned by the state? And why not sanction, 

 and cooperate with, the federal government in a like control over unentered 

 lands that are more profitable for tree-raising than agriculture, and abso- 

 lutely necessary to water conservation? Such control would lease the 

 cutting on government land, enforce economy, exclude fires, cultivate and 

 save the "fittest," making the great labor-providing enterprise pay better 

 than the present method, and improve all dependent industries. 



In some parts of Europe, we are informed, where forestry is reduced to 

 a profitably practical system, the government awards the proprietor of a 

 forest in installments, for a series of years, to preserve it intact, he using 

 some of the coppice and rotting down wood, if any, for his personal needs. 

 The private forests are thus placed under governmental supervision, 

 allowing no destruction of any of the valuable timber; and when said timber 

 is matured, the government cuts and markets enough of it to get its pay 

 back. Thus the proprietor is encouraged to plant and conserve his forest 

 by getting a premium in advance, and the government subsequently makes 

 itself whole, and the people have the climatic benefit of it. Some such way 

 is this seems to be our necessity. It certain'y removes the objection of 

 paying out money with a money equivalent returned. 



THE RESERVE SYSTEM OUTLINED. 



As a means to a general governmental control of the available forest 

 jover of the state, a movement was put on foot to secure a forest reserve. 

 Wyman Elliot thus defines the location of it: "Where is there a more 

 appropriate place for an extensive experiment of forest growing under 

 government control, than in the northern part of Minnesota, and one where 

 there is so great need of preserving the ameliorating effects of climatic 

 conditions?" 



Basing action on the congressional law of March 3, 1891, this movement, 

 in the early part of that year, was projected by the State Forestry Asso- 

 ciation to locate said forest reserve on the public lands at the head waters 

 of the Mississippi, Red,jSt. Louis and St. Croix Rivers. Our legislature, 

 then in session, passed a joint resolution to this effect, but limited its area 

 to so small a compass as to render it abortive of the end sought. A peti- 

 tion, signed by leading citizens, asking for six millions of acres for a national 

 reserve, was subsequently sent, with showers of others from other states, to 

 President Harrison. He proclaimed six reservations in the regions of the 

 Rocky Mountains. 



INCOMPETENCY OP THE ACT. 



Unfortunately the law opened up to almost unrestricted use of all tim- 

 ber lands not so reserved. While it implied an unlooked for licease to 

 deforest adjacent territory, it virtually denied encouragement to agricul- 



