The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-02-17
WEDNESDAY, FEB. II, 1904
A REAL FORESTRY MOVEMENT.

One Of the benefits of combination in
on a large scale which never would
have been on a small, is found in the
prospect of real forestry movement.
This is inaugurated in the proposition
made by President Howard Elliott, of
the Northern Pacific railroad, and Mr..
Frederick Weyerhaeuser to the United
States governments bureau of forestry.
1t contemplates the holding and opera
ton Of immense tracts Of wooded land
in the West as a permanent, yet pro-
ductive forest reserve.
The trouble with forestry in this
country has been that it was mostly
academic. We have had a number of
scientific gents" at washington and
elsewhere who knew just what ought
to be done to preserve and promote
forest growth, and nobody who was
willing to carry out their ideas. On
federal forestry reserves a little work
is done along this line, but not much.
The foresters in charge make study
of standing timber and it's conditions
and keep an eye on depredators, but
they do not utilize these reserves as
commercial resources. To that point
government activity has not yet reach
ed.
Now what we need more than any
thing else in the United States is a
demonstration on a large scale of the
value of forest preservation and resto
ration, not as a matter of sentiment,
but as one of cold business. It is a
business proposition that will pay the
handsomest returns. The tree crop is
more certain and more remunerative in
the long run than any other crop which
the earth produces. 1t requires, how
ever, to be cultivated on such a mag
nificent scale, over areas measured by
millions of acres, with capital meas
ured by millions of dollars and
through time measured by hundreds Of
years, that hitherto individual or even
corporate resources have not attempt
ed the work. All that we have had in
our timbered areas has been individ-
uals or small companies owning tracts
of land which it was to their interest
to denude at once. So they cut down
and marketed the timber, destroyed an
invaluable natural asset, put an end
to the lumber business and moved on.
leaving desolate and barren wastes be-
hind them, with a climate unfavora-
bly, affected and water courses ruined
by the process.
Every student of forestry has seen
that if capital could be induced to 90
into this business, as it can into the
business of iron production and manu-
facture, for example, it would be a
great thing for both capital and the
country. Let a great field of, forest
land be withdrawn from this indis,
criminate slaughter; let it be worked
commercially by experts, just as the
soil is worked for other crops: let a
certain percentage of it be stripped
of its timber each year and then re-
forested; let only trees be cut down
that are really available for lumber
Ing; let the product be studied and
adapted to the soil and all means taken
to stimulate and improve it's growth
and it is a clear case that millions of
revenue could be drawn from this in
dustry every year indefinitely, because
1t would be left in as good condition as
a wealth producer at the end of each
year as it was at the beginning.
The resources and the intelligence
necessary to this great undertaking
are now available. The Northern Pa
clfic and the Weyerhaeuser interests
own priceless tracts of timber which
are among the last commercially avail