100 



jected to treatment daily, giving a result of five hundred and three hundred 

 ppunds of seed. 



"The establishment sends yearly to the different quarters of the globe 

 some twelve hundred hundred-weight of pine, fir and larch seeds. Most of 

 the German governments, Belgium, Holland, England, Denmark, Sweden 

 and Russia, many parts of Africa, and of late especially America also, obtain 

 seeds for planting of new forests from this establishment. Above all, how- 

 ever, France obtains from here the seed which she employs to clothe her 

 mountains again with verdure. In France, forest culture has become one of 

 the most serious questions, on account of the annually recurring inundations. 

 The revolution too, as is well known, exercised but little forbearance toward 

 the woods belonging to the state and t!ie different communities. All the 

 mountains were denuded with an unsparing hand of their forests, which 

 would not grow again of themselves. Were it not possible to restore them 

 by the aid of forest culture, the future economical ruin of a portion of the 

 country would have been determined. 



The largest demand is for pine-seeds, but besides the fir and larch seeds 

 already mentioned, the seed of the black pine, of maple, ash, and elm trees, 

 of lindens and locusts, white firs and Weymouth pines {Pium Strobus), i& 

 likewise collected and prepared, though not in such large quantities. 



" The sending-out of seeds by the establishment to its customers is dis- 

 tributed through the year as follows : the seeds of the deciduous trees, with the 

 exception of the elm, at the end of October, or beginning of November ; 

 those of the white firs, at the beginning of December ; those of the otlier^ 

 evergreens, in the middle or toward the end of March; the elm tree seeds 

 at the end of May, or beginning of June-" 



We may soon expect to see similar establishments to these in existence 

 in the United States to save tho seeds of our own pines, spruces and other 

 trees, which far exceed in value the forest trees of Europe. Till then the 

 seeds must be collected by those who desire them. 



In procuring seeds for planting, those grown, as far as may be, in a similar 

 or colder climate should be preferred to those from a warmer one ; except 

 where it is desired to make experiments for choice varieties. 



IN CONCLUSION, 

 The eommissioners having brought their work to a close, will state again 

 that in their opinion, no other interest so much demands the immediate at- 

 tention of the legislature of Wisconsin, as does that of increasing and pre- 

 -serving so much timber as shall be needed for future use by her people. 

 The state has freely given support, premiums and rewards to its peneten- 

 tiaries, eleemosynary institutions, to its agricultural societies for the products 

 of the farms, the manufactures and handicrafts of its people, to its public 

 schools and institutions of learning and to its roads, highways and other 

 .public uses ; but hitherto this great interest, from which one-half the entire 



