43 
FOREST PLANTING A WORK OF INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT. 
I do not wish to conclide without suggesting some practical applica- 
tion of my remarks which it would be well for such a body as your 
State board to consider. 
If Lam right in believing the establishment of forest belts in your 
State an indispensable aid to permanently successful agriculture ; if 1 
am right in assuming private efforts in this direction unavailing or at 
least accompanied by much waste of energy and time; if the climatic 
amelioration which comes from a systematic disposal of such forest 
areas is a matter which concerns the general welfare of your State, then 
I contend that itmust be a work of internal improvement which itis the 
duty and function of the State to undertake. 
It may not be the present policy of the State of Nebraska to look 
after the needs of internal improvement—even the United States does 
but littie in that direction,—but the time is not far distant when we 
shall have a higher conception of the functions of the State than to con- 
sider it merely a policeman; when the State, the codperative associa- 
tion of all citizens, will do whatever is desirable for the general wel- 
fare, and what, if left to private enterprise, is not done, because im- 
possible for the single individual, or directly unprofitable, or leading to 
undesirable monopolies. 
Forest planting for climatic amelioration in Nebraska will eventually 
be one of those public works, and your State board could even now do 
nothing better for forestry than to formulate and advocate a plan for 
public forest planting. Such work, such State action I do not conceive 
to be carried out on the “ paternal” plan, although even this would be 
better than the present inactivity, but it can be carried out on purely 
business principles. After the general plan has been elaborated, let 
each county by a commission of competent men designate the areas 
that ought to be put into forest, and the areas should be as far as pos- 
sible nonagricultural, the poorest soils. Let the State exercise its 
right of eminent domain and withdraw such lands temporarily from 
the ownership of the individual for purposes of public utility and 
transfer it to the county, the latter taxing itself for the interest and 
funding on this expenditure as also on the expenditures by the State 
for planting, ete. 
Where the county is still too thinly settled to sustain such a charge, 
the State may well distribute the interest and funding charges in such 
a manner that they are made proportionate to increasing population. 
Let the State by its own officers, under direction of the State board 
or other control, or else by contract with private parties, establish an 
efficient forest cover. The State can command the necessary funds 
probably at 5 or 6 per cent, while the private individual must pay from 
10 to 20 per cent; the State engaged in this enterprise on a large scale, 
can also do the planting, etc., more cheaply and more efliciently. 
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