Morning journal and courier., 1884-02-14
tSouruaI arrS Gourier.
SINGLE COPIES TWO GENTS.
Thursday, February IA, 1884.
nIoRETREEs wANTED.

| MOkNE TREES WANTED
 The great floods in the West have called
 attention again to the importance of forest 1 culture in this country. In some of the
 countries in Europe this matter is much
 better understood than it is here, and there
 are schools which give thorough education
 Tn all that pertains to the life, growth and care of trees And various governments
 have found it necessary to make the care of
 the forests particular subject of considera- l tlon and legislation, and have created special
 official bureaus under the management of competent men who had to serve long ap. premiership, graduates in the science and art of forest culture, and who have made the forests source of revenue to the govern ments, amounting to millions of dollars, from the poorest soil of the country. While the direct net income of the forests is count ed by millions, their influence upon health and agriculture cannot be estimated
 Mr. P. P. Schat zka, now civil engineer in Minneapolis, is graduate of the forest academy of Saxony and he has pointed out some of the facts which the inhabitants of this great glorious and free country must consider if they do not want to try to get along without trees enough He says that two-thirds of the timber now left to ns is of such quality as to be only fit for fuel; that in the census and tax statements a large area is classed as woods, without de- serving this classification; that Chicago alone employs 8 capital of $80, ,O00, 900 in the lum- Der trade and hundreds of thousands of acres of timber are annually sacrificed; that Michigan and Wisconsin, the main timber States which had 10000, GOO acres of the finest tim Der before settlement began, have only about 2,000, 900 acres left, and this at the present rate will be cut down in about five years; that according to the census of 1860 the value of the lumber improvements in the United States was $3, s32, 522, ,ooo. All this had been cut from the soil, and most of it within thirty years previous, and nothing had been oone to replace 1t; that there are five hundred thousand artisans in wood in this country, and if we estimate the value of their labor at $1 900 each per annum, we have an aggregate of $500, GOO, 900 of wood per annum consumed as raw material for their use; that 1t takes one and one-third acres on the average to produce one cord of wood annually; that it takes three hundred acres for the production of wood sufficient to build and keep up one mile of railroad year by year; that the United States sends $11 1000, ,O00 per annum to Canada for lum- Der, while millions of acres of land, capable of producing the finest timber, are lying waste in our own country, that the farmer from year to year cuts down vast forests to enlarge his fields, and only saves what will suffice for his domestic uses, and seldom that; that the population of ths country is daily increasing, the wood-consuming indus tries are developing year by year to large dimensions, and hundreds of miles of new rail- road are added annually to those already in operation; and, in general, that while the ood- producing area has been greatly reduced, the demands upon the wood have been multi. piled.
 Mir. Schatzke believes that if the present order of things continues there will be an actual famine for wood in this country within the next thirty years, and he rightly believes that forest culture cannot safely be left to private enterprise. It is evident that upon the government rests the necessi- ty and duty of providing against the antici- pated deficiency in the supply of timber, by initiating and controlling the planting of new forests, as we'll as the preservation of the 1lI