CHIEF FIRE WARDEN. 45 



steps for the reproduction of timber on the cleared tracts. 

 The present owners would not be alive when a new crop 

 of pine forest had matured on the tracts now being cleared. 

 Thus it is that the original pine forests in Minnesota are 

 being cut without regard to forestry principles. 



There are many extensive areas in northern Minnesota 

 where pine timber is found growing in the midst of large 

 leaved or hardwood forest. In all such cases the soil will 

 be found sufficiently fertile to be useful for agriculture after 

 the timber is removed. Such land ought to be used for 

 agriculture, for the reason that it will yield a larger revenue 

 in that way than it would in forest. But a large part of 

 the pine lands in the state consist of soil that is too light 

 for profitable use in agriculture, and such lands ought to 

 be purchased by the state and administered on forestry 

 principles. 



LEADING PRINCIPLES. 



The leading principles of forestry are these: Forest 

 should occupy only non-agricultural land — land that is 

 too hilly, or too rocky, or too sandy for profitable cultiva- 

 tion in field crops. The significance of forestry is that 

 such refuse land used for coniferous forest will yield an 

 average annual net revenue, on the capital it represents, 

 of about three per cent. And when one sees, as he surely 

 will in his travels, an abundance of such land lying waste, 

 and even deteriorating year by year, let him call to mind 

 the revenue it would yield if devoted to forest, and how 

 much handsomer the country would be if all such land 

 were so used. 



Another principle of forestry is that the forest, when 

 young, should be crowded to promote height growth. 

 The elements in the air supply the principal food of the 

 pine. The trees must have air and light. In a crowded 

 state they strive upwards for air and light. They shed 

 their limbs naturally when crowded. The weaker trees 

 die out, and the survivors develop, in course of eighty 



