GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE TO EOUEST CULTURE. 35 



nearly impossible to give at present a faint idea of its 

 value. Besides a considerable income to the State, the 

 army of laborers who are now used by unscrupulous 

 lumbermen and their agents in illegally cutting timber 

 on the State lands, and who are becoming every year 

 more depraved on account of the unpunished continu- 

 ance of their public plundering, could then be made to 

 return to an honest and well paid activity, as a great 

 many hands would be required in bringing the State 

 forests into such a shape as to produce the largest possi- 

 ble output.* The moral standard of the laborers living 

 in or near the State forests would rise again to the 

 level of honesty, and the "State Troops " or "The Grena- 

 diers " f would give up their dishonest ways and become 



* Although the work to be performed in the management of forests 

 does not require so many hands as in the management of farms, there is 

 always so much to do that most of the laborers, who have settled in the 

 sparsely populated wood countries, can llnd profitable employment. In 

 Germany, the management of the forests is so conducted that a tract of 

 from 40,000 to 80,003 acres of wood-lands — the greater number of acres 

 being alloted to the mountainous regions — is given to the care of an 

 *^ Over-forester.''^ This territory is divided up into districts, containing 

 from 6,000 to 10,C0D acres each, and superintended by a ^'forester." 

 Each of these districts is cut up into smaller tracts of from 3,000 to 4,0G0 

 acres, and placed in charge of an ^'■Under-forester,'''' who superintends 

 the laborers working within the tract. The number of common laborers 

 employed during the most part of the year in the territory of an Over- 

 forester is from 200 to 300. The average expense amounts to about one 

 dollar per acre a year, while the average income runs to between two 

 and three dollars per acre, leaving a net profit of from one to two dollars 

 per acre. At the same time the condition of the woods is steadily im- 

 proved, this insiiring even a greater profit in the future. As most of 

 these wood-lands are not fit for agricultural purposes, it cannot be de- 

 nied that from this management a handsome revenue is derived, besides 

 furnishing ample sustenance to thousands of families. 



t The N. Y. St. F. R.. page 28, describes this class of men as follows : 

 " Hidden within the remote seclusion of the wilderness, this latter class 

 (of wood thieves) have been secure from obsci-vation, and there has been 

 to a certain extent a banding together for defense and systematic 

 plundering. This has become a matter of notoriety, so much so that in 

 certain localities these organized bands of trespassers go by the n? le of 

 " State Troops," while in others they are known as " The Grenadiers." 



