State Parks of Wisconsin 



there are now long streets of costly houses." Wisconsin should no 

 longer delay. Expenditures for State lands do not represent an ex- 

 pense in the ordinary sense but an investment, one that will increase 

 in value and yield even larger returns to succeeding generations. 

 (4) State Parks would give an economic return from tourists and 

 visitors. Providing for tourist travel has become a large and impor- 

 tant business and it is steadily increasing. In a single State like New 

 Hampshire it exceeds $10,000,000 a year. The returns at Mack- 

 inac Island have already been referred to. At the Dells of the Wis- 

 consin tourists spent $50,000 in 1 905 and the Vice-President of the 

 Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company has written that the 

 tourist travel into Wisconsin constitutes now "a valuable traffic and 

 is susceptible to a very large increase." No further argument should 

 be necessary on the business side, and in the case of a relatively 

 sparsely settled State with great and undeveloped resources, it should 

 be kept in mind that tourists often become permanent settlers. (5) 

 State Parks are the only means of preserving, protecting and appro- 

 priately improving places of uncommon and characteristic beauty. 

 Even forest reservations — useful and indispensable as they are — 

 will not answer this purpose. Land for forests is selected on a differ- 

 ent principle and is afterwards developed and maintained in a man- 

 ner radically different from that called for by parks. (6) Finally, 

 these parks would make, as no other agency can, adequate and per- 

 manent provision for wholesome out-door recreation and pleasure. 



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