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support of the policies which are directing the efforts of our own 
Forest Service. Indeed, the experience of all Europe shows the 
necessity of controlling the public range. 
To sum up, forestry in Switzerland', where everv foot of agri- 
cultural land is of the greatest value, has made it possible for the 
people to farm all land fit for crops, and so has assisted the coun- 
try to support a large population, and one that is more prosper- 
ous, than would be the case if the valleys were subjected to de- 
structive Moods. In a country as small as Switzerland, and one 
which contains so many high and rugged mountains, this is a 
service the benefits of which can not be measured in dollars. It is 
in Switzerland also, in the Sihlwald, that forestry demonstrates 
beyond' contradiction how great a yield in wood and money it 
may brino- about if applied consistently for a number of years. 
[To be continued.] 
EROSION. 
We have allowed erosion, that great enemy of agriculture, to 
impoverish and, over hundreds of square miles, to destroy our 
farms. The Mississippi alone carries yearly to the sea more than 
4,000,000,000 tons of the richest soil within its drainage basin. 
If this soil is worth a dollar a ton, it is probable that the total 
loss of fertility from soil-wash to the farmers and forest-owners 
of the United States is not far from a billion dollars a year. Our 
streams, in spite of the millions of dollars spent upon them, are 
less navigable now than they were fifty years ago, and the soil, 
lost by erosion from the farms and the deforested mountain sides, 
is the chief reason. — Gilford Pinchot. 
BLUE GUM STUMPS. 
A gentleman living near Claremont bought a piece of land five 
years ago having thereon 47 blue gum stumps from which the 
trees had recently been cut. At the end of five years (a few 
weeks ago) he had the second growth cut into cord wood. The 
crop was 66 cords and sold at $11 per cord, cost $4 per cord to 
work up or $7 per cord net, a total net income from 47 trees of 
$462 or nearly $10 per tree. Can you beat it with any other crop 
the land is capable of bearing? — The Rural Calif ornian. 
