The Glenwood post., 1906-08-11
SHOSHONE LANDS PLEA FOR Trees
COLORADO MAKING RAPID AD.
vATCE IN FORESTRY.
WORK DONE IN INSTITUTES
Need of Forestry Course in State Agri-
cultural ColIege-lt Will Pay to
Plant Trees-City Trees Would In
voice Fortune.
(By w. G. NJ. Stone.)

| (By w. u. NJ. StOne.)
The State Agricultural College is
| like Galileo's world-it moves, and 1t
to know 1t is moving toward the
woods" For the last two years its
movements in this direction have been
rapid Its bulletin on the trees OF
Denver; the starting of an arboretum;
the cooperative experiment in tree
planting recently undertaken and now
in progress embracing nearly $1,000
utility trees; the putting Of forestry
in the programs of the farmers insti
! tutes last winter and now selecting
forestry for one OF the short course
the coming winter, is, on the whole, a
movement so rapid and SO progressive
as to stamp it as phenomenal.
But this is not all Two years ago
the subject of putting full course OF
| forestry study in the college was
| brought before the State Board Of Agri-
culture. To-day the board would do
so if there were funds available for the
! purpose. b1L lue SLdIe HdS HduS plO-
vision for no forestry work The
| friends of the college and the advo-
Gates of forestry should combine and
call to their aid all available help to
induce the next Legislature to adopt
forest policy and provide for its applI-
caticn and efficiency.
If our legislators could only be i'm
pressed with the importance of the
| subject; if they could realize that
| there are not trees enough in the
! United States outside of Alaska, to
supply the present demand for lumber
| beyond the year 1923; if they could
| but know that our timber peril tai
ready being felt in the price Of lumber
which, in spite of all prOtestation, will
continue to inCrease) is going to force
the country into tree planting and that
| education in forestry will be as neCes-
sary as education for scientific or pro
! fesslOnal pursuits, they would not hes
itate to provide literally for forestry
work in the Agricultural college. Such
| provision will have to be made, to be
carried out either by the State Aglicul-
tural College or the State University, or
| by a separate and distinct institution
| like the State School of Mines.
The last is not to be thought Of. As
| between the other two forestry, like
| horticulture, is nearer akin to an agri-
! cultural college, per Sc, than to q uni -
versity. But one or the other mus
take it up. One or the other will take
| ii up. In Michigan both have done so.
| The time may come when, in Colorado,
| both will incorporate it. Both the
| State Board of Agriculture and the col
!
| of forestry in the college as soon as an
! appropriation for the purpose can be
| secured.
The imperative need of immediate
action is not deeply impressed upon
The people, indeed nobody is i'm
! pressed as deeply as the subject de-
mands. The impending peril of forest
| exhaustion. so rapidly approaching,
| and so dangerously near, does not
move us as it should, nor are we drawn
| to avail ourselves of the alternative,
offered by nature, with that avidity
that self-interest would suggest. Some
may say that if we run short Of timber
we can do without. What great peril
is there in that" they ask.
We fail to realize that when our tim
| Der is gone it closes thousands of mills
! factories and mercantile houses manu-
4
of the forest. Hundreds of thousands
of people, directly and indirectly, live
off of the forests of the country. Their
| permanent idIeness would force the
| idlencss of thousands more. 1t would
mean panic, anarchy, social and bust
ness chaos.
Nature is very kind and yet she is
ns stone, as rcscntful as merciless as
kind. For the sin OF deforestation she
drives civilization from any land. She
always has AS Adam was driven from
the garden of Eden so was civilization
| driven from Palestine, Syria and other
countries for this cause and the sword
| of Aridity set against its return.
Unless We stop our present course,
unless we adopt some method to re
pair, to restore. to replace, to build
| new, our doom is just as certain, as
Fixed. as fore-ordained as the doom OF
| Carthagenia or Babylonia. The law is
| ineXorable. But, when the American
! people come to see ana realize the
| pitiless pit to which they are newt
ubly tending they will suddenly stop
and unhestatingly seize the aLerna
| live. Our forest remnants will become
sacred and tree planting will become
! one stupendous vocation.
| Some will stop and ask. will it
| pay :. lnefe Is no motive ike Sell-ln-
| terest This is the very pivot on which
our salvation will turn. "Will it pay to
plant trees?" 1t pays in Kansas, and il
it will pay there it will pay here. Our
soil is just as good we can raise bet.
ter farm crops. Why can we not raise
| Just as good trees as they and make
as much money? 1t is worth trying,
and the Agricultural college has taken
| the lead and will show us the way.
But aside from this it is worthy of
note, and reflection, that in the city of
| Denver there are thousands of black
| locusts that have been set and grown
for shade which If in a single planta-
ton would be worth, commercially,
| bags of gold. Any one who knows a
locust from a mullen stalk can starL