St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-03-05
THE IRREPRESSIBLE RE
SERVE.

To the Editor of the Globe.
L have just read your criticism of
the I'd inst upon Prof. Fernow's
carefully prepared explanation of
the methods suggested .by which
to operate forest administration
in our country, and am not a little
surprised at your deductions WHEN
your name is also on the petition calling
for reserve. AS then presented it was
unavoidably crude and open to far
more objections, if any such were valid,
than as now defined. But your review,
damaging though it be, is ali right.
since it further agitates the important
problem that's as irrepreSsible, sir, as
the anti-slavery cause in .'the sweet long
ago." The park, as originally outlined,
was objected to because men
took it for granted that it ex
cluded raiiroading, mining, lumber.
ing and agriculture. Now that we
are better able to define an administra-
ton more explicitly with view to en-
courage and protect all these industries
by means of competent officers with
United States soldiers (Which costs the
state nothing) to prevent trespass and
fires, and develop continuous forestry
for our successors, a more emphatic OBJ
lection is raised under the charge or
.spaternaljSm.' What next?
The friends of forestry all over the
country are trying to make move in
the right direction. 1t is better to go
forward with prudent experimentation
than not to go at all. | think you Will
agree with us that the present method
of managing our forests is wasteful and
destructive to our best interests. Should
we not try to correct the popular mis-
chief, or must we continue in the
name Of personal liberty to cut and
slash without thought of consequences,
and invite the annual CONGREGATIONS
that destroy hundred times more trees
than the unwisely welded Ak can? II
we are wrong in our effort at saving our
forests, please substitute a better
method. We do want to be on safe
footing. You ring the changes on the
vandalism going On-''Ghat commercial
self-interest will naturally protect
valuable timber land in the Northwest"
Do you not know that he cream-skim-
ming process is yet operating on all our
timber lands in the United States?
That nothing has yet been done to re-
cIothe the denuded sections with like
valuable timber, nor to prevent fires?
Do you call this protection of valuable
timber in the Northwest" Yesterday
rode through a portion of our Big
Woods via Princeton and Milaca to. Mora.
Where the pines had been cut otf-a
legitimate industry to be encouraged
the fires had ragged this last year, sweep
ing vast territory to the river clear of
much valuable timber and other prop
erty; and such stretch of deSolation on
every hand All the young pines and
hardwoods are destroyed ON thousands
upon thousands of acres, leaving the
black domain to cover itself, it possible,
with refrigerated mat of poplars.
Men homesteaded these lands, not to
live on permanently, but to get the best
of the timber and let 1.-The devil take
the hindmost." Soon deserted by the
occupants, the lands are turned over to
the state, so poor and desolate nobody
even ventures to repurchase them by
tax certificates. Under the monopoly OF
commercial self-interest" all our pines
are soon gone, and then our valuable
hardwoods; then the desert and the
whirlwlnd- the last at last of ''protec-
| ton of valuable timber in the North
west" }. o. BARRETT,