The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-07-02
A VERY PRETTY SCHEME.

Most people are engaged all their
lives in trying to get a chance to work
for other people whereby they can
earn a compensation that will allow
the qualification of their frugal wants
and an occasional wild indulgence in
some such extravaganza as a ride of
an evening on the street cars or a
cooling draught of effervescing soda
water. These form, probably, ninety
Fer cent of all the people who are
born into this world and in due course
Of time, make their exit. But some
people are differently endowed and,
therefore, hold different views Of life,
their fellow men and their own rela-
lions to them. They engage them
selves constantly in devising schemes
by which other people may be made
to work for them without recompense
and, usually, in blissful ignorance that
they are laboring for others without
pay and furnishing their own board
and lodging and raiment Probably
five per cent of all people are of this
class and 1t is they who ride in chaises
while the remaining ninety-five out Of
the hundred walk.
Thoughts like these run along with
the eye as it passes over in the ac-
count of the meeting of the state hor-
ticultural society in Minneapolis the
other day, the plan proposed by Capt.
]. N. Cross for the foresting of the
pine lands from which the owners had
cut the pine. There was the same old
pretense Of public benefit and utility
with which we who have kept track
or the plans and schemes Of the Five
Per Cents, as this class may be called.
are so familiar with. Aridity threat
end the land because the ground has
been denuded Of the moisture-making
and Withholding trees, and, unless they
are replaced, the sand that covers an
cfent Babylon will some day drift be-
fore the winds over the ruins of orr
cities, and the fertile prairies of our
state will be turned into sage brush
deserts pasturing only agile Jack rab-
h1ts. Vast tracts of land have been
purchased from the state or the gem
eral government and the winds no
longer sough through the needles of
the stately pines. The Iumberman's
ruthless axe has laid them low and
their trunks have gone into making the
habitations of men and the other
structures modern civilization de-
mands. The lumber king has aban-
doned them, for they have nothing of
further value to him, and the state has
levied its taxes on them and thew have
not been paid.
Year after year they curnber
the tax books of the counties
and increase the emoluments of the
printers, and year by year the accum-
ulation grows. Meanwhile the mower
of trees has passed on to the denuda
ton and abandonment of his timbered
lands and the forfeited tax lists march
further and further into the interior.
Now comes Capt. Cross and others
of the Five Per Cents and proposes,
all in behalf of the dear public, that
the owners of these tax-laden AMI tax
abandoned lands convey them to the
state for forestry purposes. The state
organizes its forces and proceeds to
reforest them. 1t takes the convey
ance in trust subject to all taxes due
and all tax titles taken out on lands
forfeited for nonpayment of taxes.
Then, in the indefinite future when the
state shall have grown another crop of
trees on the land, the state shall sell
the crop or such as 1t shall, in that
omniscient wisdom with which states
are miraculously endowed, deem best.
and the proceeds shall be divided.
How? One-third to the state to REIN
burse it for its work, expense and lost
taxes. One-third to the donor or his
heirs 1.-the same to be made inalien-
able if he so elecD" for the first sew
enty-five or one hundred years and
thereafter to such educational insti-
tuition as he may endow with it. The
remaining third to go to such educa-
tional institution, private, public or de-
nominational as he shall select. or,