Preservation" (erroneously headed in the last bill "For- 

 estry Board"), out of which is paid the salary and office 

 expenses of the forestry commissioner, the printing and 

 free distribution of 4,000 Copies of his annual report, and 

 in an ordinary year, one-half of all the expense of local 

 fire warden service — the counties in which such local 

 service occurs paying the other half. This makes $11,000, 

 and not a dollar more, that the State of Minnesota appro- 

 priates for Forest Preservation and its service of pre- 

 venting and suppressing forest and prairie fires. In 

 place of the standing annual appropriation of $6,000, I 

 think $30,000 is as little as can safely be appropriated; 

 and the item in the general appropriation bill for "Forest 

 Preservation" should be increased to $10,000. 



The State of Maine has a standing appropriation 

 of $20,000 a year for the prevention and suppression of 

 forest fires in unorganized townships. The organized 

 townships take care of themselves. In 1904 the State of 

 New York appropriated $93,000 for its share of the 

 expense of fighting forest fires the spring of 1903. On- 

 tario expends $100,000 annually and the lumbermen 

 $60,000 in addition for preventing and suppressing forest 

 fires. 



The State of Minnesota itself owns 3,000,000 acres of 

 school and swamp land, estimated to contain $15,000,000 

 worth of timber, which increases by growth at least 2 per 

 cent, or $300,000 a year. Up to August ist the State 

 had received and turned into its permanent school fund 

 $6,506,952 for timber cut on its own land. The appro- 

 priations I recommend are a very small amount for the 

 State to pay for protecting its own timber from fire. 



The standing timber in the northern forests in Minne- 

 sota to-day is worth $100,000,000. On an average 

 $8,000,000 worth of this as it stands is being cut every 

 year. 



