Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1875 — Our Forests. [ARTICLE]

Our Forests.

The tree-plantingread by Mr. Leonard G. Hodges before the Minnesota Agricultural Society contained a striking sketch pf the pressing need for forest-culture. Although it referred only to Minnesota, it applies throughout the West. The annual consumption of wood in that State is estimated at 1,710,000 cords. As much more is shipped outside the State. Thus, 150,000 acres of woodland are stripped bare every year. The result of this, by 1900, is summed up by Mr. Hodges in this cheerful picture: “ Our pineries exhausted, the Big Woods pretty well thinned out, the Mississippi drying up, St. Paul and Minneapolis 300 or 400 miles above the head of steamboat navigation, mercury forty degrees below zero, and the wind blowing a hurricane.” The remedy for the growing-evil is treeplanting. Something Las been done in this direction. The Congressional acts of 1873 and 1874, which allow a man who plants and tends a certain number of trees to enter land free, have stimulated individual action. Altogether, nearly 20,000,000 trees have been set out in Minnesota. Of these, 4,000,000 have been planted by the St. Paul & Pacific Hoad, which has found the business a profitable one. Mr. Hodges, indeed, claims that it is more profitable than grain-growing, although it yields small immediate returns. He declares that “ tlie net profits on a quarter-section of prairie, properly prepared, planted and cultivated with forest trees, will, within ten years, exceed the net profits of ten quarter-sections of wheat,” and that “ the genuine white willow, properly handled, will increase fas er than money at interest at 4 per cent., per month.” While these statements may be, and probably are, somewhat exaggerated, they have a solid basis of truth. There can be no doubt that the destruction of forests in the Northwest is working d 1 vast injury to the country. The winters are already growing colder, so that we may, ere long, be forced to abandon the cultivation of the more delicate Northern fruits. The drought which makes the great interior basin worthless is creeping eastward. We need forests to break the violence of freezing gales, to preserve the moisture of the ground, and to serve for the new raw malerial for buildings; fences, fuel, railroad ties, etc., in the future. The West is beginning .to appreciate this fact. Congressional action has been wisely tak< n, Nebraska lias, established a legalholiday, called, we believe', “Tree-Plant-ing Day.” There is,a State Superintendent of Arboriculture, and prizes are given to the men who plant the most trees during the year. The plan is said to work very well. It should be tried elsewhere. The Northwest, in cutting down her forests at the present rate and making .no provisions to replace them, is living on its capital, as Virginia planters did when they ruined the soil of the *Old Dominion by growing successive crops of tobacco. The man who makes tw T o trees grow where one grew before is a public benefactor.—Chicago Tribune.