CHIEF FIRE WARDEN. 19 



Furnish warning notices to fire wardens and railroad companies; 

 Instruct fire wardens as to their duties; 

 Require reports from fire wardens; 



Investigate, and include in Annual Report, information as to 



Extent of the forests in the state; 



Amounts and varieties of wood and timber growing therein; 

 ■ Damages done by forest fires, and causes of such fires; 



Method used to promote regrowth of timber; 



And any other important facts relating to forest interests. • 



WHAT FORESTRY SCIENCE IS. 



Forestry is the science of growing trees for profit and 

 should interest us in this state, because our climate and 

 much of the soil is peculiarly adapted for growing pine. 

 The white pine loves good soil and is never more beauti- 

 ful and healthy than when surrounded by such hardwood 

 neighbors as the yellow birch, the maple and the elm, and 

 with a profusion of shrubbery at its feet; but it is not an 

 exacting tree, and will thrive on poor soil. True economy 

 demands, and it is a fundamental principle of forestry, 

 that good soil be reserved for field crops. It takes eighty 

 years on an average to raise a crop of pine trees on sandy 

 soil. This is too long for individuals to wait for a crop 

 and, if the business is to be undertaken extensively, it must 

 be by the state. Forestry is therefore a question which 

 concerns the public. The one great truth to be impressed 

 on the public mind is, that we have in Minnesota about 

 three million acres of idle land which is fit only for bear- 

 ing pine and which, if planted with pine and administered 

 on forestry principles, would earn a net revenue of three 

 per cent per annum, compound interest on the capital 

 expended in the work. The income would be available 

 with the principal at the maturity of the crop. At the 

 end of eighty years a regular net revenue of over one 

 million dollars would be derived yearly, for all time, and 



