108 TREE PLANTER'S MANUAL. 



On Mississippi, above Minneapolis 109,863,378 



At Minneapolis 488,724,624 



On main river between Minneapolis and St. Louis 931,806,305 



On St. Croix river 175,891,427 



On Black river 240,678,500 



In Chippewa valley 298.833,782 



In Duluth district 349,394,000 



St. Paul & Duluth railway 75,955,000 



Ashland district 273,229,877 



St. Paul & Omaha railway 286,311,383 



Wisconsin Central railway 301,806,875 



In Wisconsin valley 456,153,872 



Sault Ste. Marie railway 293,565,541 



In Red River valley (estimated) 100,000,000 



Taken to Canada (N. W.) 150,000,000 



Total 4,530,315,565 



CRIMINAL, IMPROVIDENCE. 



It is the timber thief, making haste to strip the public domain of what 

 he can lay his hands on, lest another timber thief get ahead of him, and in 

 doing this, destroying sometimes far more than he steals. It is the tour- 

 ist, the hunter, the mining prospector who, lighting his camp-fire in the 

 woods to boil water for his coffee, or to fry his bacon, and leaving that fire 

 unextinguished when he proceeds, sets the woods in flames and delivers 

 countless square miles of forest to destruction. It is all these, but it is 

 something more, and, let us confess it, something worse. It is a public 

 opinion looking with indifference on this wanton, barbarous, disgraceful 

 vandalism. It is a spendthrift people recklessly wasting its heritage. It 

 is a government careless of the future and unmindful of a pressing duty. 



No respectable university or agricultural college should be without a de- 

 partment in which forestry as a science is taught; and most of us will no 

 doubt see the day when the importance of that science will be recognized 

 by every thinking American. Let us hope that this appreciation will come 

 in time. I regret, we cannot forcibly enough impress upon the American 

 people the necessity of speedy measures looking to the preservation of our 

 mountain forests, which, when once destroyed, cannot be renewed. Unless 

 this be done in time, our children will curse the almost criminal improvi- 

 dence of their ancestors, but if it is done in time, those who are instru- 

 mental in doing it will deserve and will have the blessings of future gen- 

 erations. 



To bring up the public opinion of this country to the point where it will 

 command such measures, a vigorous and unceasing agitation is required. 

 I do not underestimate the difficulties it' will have to overcome. It is the 

 shortsighted greed which acts upon the rule to grab all that can be got at 

 the moment, and "let the devil take the hindmost," not stopping to con- 

 sider that he who does so may be among the hindmost himself, and that in 

 this case his children certainly will be. It is that spirit of levity, so preva- 

 lent among our people, which teaches to eat and drink and be merry to-day, 

 unmindful of the reckoning that will come to-morrow. It is the cowardice 

 of the small politician, who, instead of studying the best interests of the 



