CHIEF FIRE WARDEN. 37 



such people, their influence as opponents of forestry- 

 should not have much weight. 



At the highest figure, there remains standing in the 

 forests of Minnesota, thirty billion feet of merchantable 

 pine timber, and of the value of 1 120,000,000. The 

 most of it is in the hands of private parties, is mature, 

 and will and should be cut as fast as a good market for 

 it can be found; and which will be accomplished in about 

 fifteen years. The most of it will be shipped out of the 

 state. Mature timber is that which has reached its fiscal 

 age — the age when it has ceased to earn good interest 

 by its growth. On average pine soil a pine tree does 

 its fastest growing the first eighty years of its life, and 

 at the end of that period it should be cut. 



What is impHed then by "forest preservation," in 

 Minnesota, is the protection from fire of the remaining 

 forests, including the young pine, now all the way from 

 two inches to thirty feet in height, and some of which 

 will be merchantable when the original growth shall have, 

 disappeared; the reservation and treatment on forestry 

 principles, either by the United States or by the state- 

 of Minnesota, of the few pine lands yet belonging to the 

 United States and which are better adapted to forestry 

 than to agriculture; and, finally, the acquisition by the 

 state by purchase of any land that is too sandy, too hilly 

 or too rocky for agriculture, and holding and using the 

 same for forestry. These three propositions constitute 

 the platform of the friends of forestry in Minnesota. 



Lake Superior Forest Reserve. 



An area of about 500,000 acres in Lake and Cook- 

 counties that is believed to be better adaipted for forest 

 than for any other purpose has been temporarily with- 

 drawn from market with a view of being created as a 

 United States forest reserve, if further examination 

 shall show that it is suitable for that purpose. By the 



