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restricting railways that accepted the valuable grants of the public 
domain from wasting the forest lands received from the Government, 
and binding them to a perpetual maintenance of a certain forest area 
to supply their future wants, either reserved from the primitive forest 
or established by a system of planting and forest culture. 
Could the voice of immortal Evelyn, Avho two centuries ago aroused 
the people of old England to a full realization of the value of their for- 
ests, have been heard in the American Congress of 1850, or had the 
wonderful results of his early teachings, visible in all European coun- 
tries, been heeded at the time, the land grant acts of Congress would 
have proved a greater blessing to America than they have been. 
To sum up briefly the results of the agitat ion in favor of timber cult- 
ure by railway companies, it can be stated that, while the imperative 
necessity of such a movement is freely acknowledged by those best in- 
formed in regard to the demands of the present and the outlook of the 
future, little disposition on the part of the railway companies to 
enter practically into such an enterprise has so far manifested itself. 
And it is equally clear that so long as a new departure in forest culture 
is asked or expected from the heads of the operating service, to whom 
appeals have in greater part been made, no enterprise on a scale even 
distantly proportioned to the magnitude of the issue can reasonably be 
expected, and this mainly from the fact that the service must be man- 
aged in accordance with conditions existing for the time being and as 
they will appear on the yearly balance-sheet of every corporation. 
Present expediency and restriction of expenditures outweighs, there- 
fore, all possible advantages of the certain future. 
The managers of various leading railways, especially those of the 
Western Plains, formerly called the "Great American Desert," have 
accorded liberal encouragement to tree culture and home forestry, by 
establishing experimental stations and nurseries in various sections of 
their lines, designed to show the possibility of tree culture, to attract 
settlement, and in consequence to promote the sale of lands granted to 
them by the Government. As soon as those objects were successfully 
accomplished the companies withdrew from this inviting field of arbori- 
culture, leaving it to the energy of the settler. It is gratifying that one 
instance denoting broader views of the necessity of forest culture can 
be reported — that of the extensive plantation established in Crawford 
County, Kansas, by Mr. H. H. Hunnewell, of Massachusetts, president 
of the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Gulf Railway. This far seeing rail- 
road manager and liberal friend of horticulture has caused two sections 
of prairie land to be planted, in greater part with the hardy Western 
Catalpa, one section belonging to the above-named corporation, the 
other his private property. The success attending this timely enter- 
prise, conducted by one of the honored pioneers of American forest 
culture, Robert Douglas, of Illinois, has so far exceeded the most san- 
guine expectations that it must be regarded as a landmark in the future 
development of this great interest. 
