Hoping that the bill now pending in your Legislature will meet the desired success, and that you will also succeed in your efforts to establish the experimental station spoken of in your former letter, I remain faithfully Your friend, CHAS. MOHR. Dr. Charles Mohr, State Botanist of Alabama, and Vice-President of the American Forestry Congress, is, without doubt, the best authority in forestry in the Southern States. He was one of the chief workers on the forestry census report of 1880, and has a world-wide reputation. OPINIONS ON THE NECESSITY OF PROVIDING FOR THE INSTRUCTION IN THE SCIENCE AND During the summer of 1889, I addressed a number of men of high standing in political economy, education, science in g-neral and in forestry, soliciting their views regarding the necessity of providing for the instruction in the science and practice of forestry. The following are the replies received: ARBOR LODGE, NEBRASKA CITY, NEB., August 5, 1889. DEAR SIR: The necessity of providing for instruction in scientific and practical forestry is so obvious that I can think of no statement that would be good and new, too, with which to drive it into the money-blunted brain of this woodland-wasting generation. Every body knows that going out into a heavy down-pour of rain insures a wetting, and all students know that the complete denudation of valley and mountain and plain on this continent causes infertility, long drouths, disastrous floods, and at last desolation and death for our race. The fate of the Orient will be repeated in the Occident unless we conserve and plant forests. Yours, To Adolph Leué, Cincinnati, O. J. STERLING MORTON. REMARK: Ex-Governor J. Sterling Morton is the originator of Arbor Day.-A. L. STATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, COLUMBUS, O., August 5, 1889. Prof. Adolph Leué, Secretary State Forestry Bureau, Cincinnati, O.: DEAR SIR: In reply to your letter, I have to say, that I consider the necessity of instruction in practical forestry an urgent and important one. What the State most needs is an object lesson in forestry. A few hundred or thousand acres of our cheap lands should be applied to this use. No investment that the State can make will return so large a dividend when a term of twenty-five to fifty years is taken into the account. To initiate and support such an enterprise, renders necessary instruction in forestry. As the minds of our people now seem to be, I see no great advantage in simply lecturing on the advantages of forestry. What is needed, in my judgment, is the demonstration of the practicability of the work. Very truly, EDWARD ORTON, State Geologist. HAMILTON, O., August 5, 1889. MY DEAR SIR: We have just completed our destruction of the forests of Ohio. This frightful work seemed to be necessary under the circumstances, and by that I mean that it was inevitable. The forest fell because it was a lurking place of vermin and of the red man. It hindered cultivation, and it limited the growth of grasses, which make valuable pasture. It made the whole country swampy, and it made the construction of roads a difficult task; it obscured the distant view, and in every way it isolated the pioneers, and overwhelmed them with loneliness. That the forest tempered climate, the pioneers did not know, and could not know that one-fourth of the whole extent of forest should have been spared; this is our wise afterthought, and retrospective knowledge is very cheap. Had you and I been here seventy-five years ago, we would have fought the forest with fire and axe, merely to have breathing room, and merely to make ourselves safe. Had we been here fifty years ago, we wise foresters would have had so little foresight that we would have rejoiced in a market for forest products, and we would have continued the destruction of the woods for the sake of wood. Had we been farming on well timbered farms only twenty-five years ago, we (most of us) would have cleared new fields recklessly for the sake of availing ourselves of the stored humus and potassium salts in the new ground." We have only ceased the most active destruction of the forests, and are only beginning to contemplate the construction and re-construction of our forests. We are like a baby, which, at a certain stage of its existence, will knock down a pile of blocks with the greatest enthusiasm, but can not be induced to put one block upon another. Our ignorance in all forestal matters is great. Men in Ohio, who are very wise about field crops and domestic animals, positively do not know how to put a tree in the ground to grow. They know nothing of the adaptation of species to soils and to localities. They know nothing of the distances at which trees ought to be planted, and they are profoundly ignorant of nursing, of thinning, of pruning, and of all the details of forestry. Such, then, being the extent and the density of our ignorance, what need is there for me to say that there is need of instruction? Such being the need of instruction, what need is there to speak of the need of an instructor? Instructors should certainly be provided, and an instructor should certainly be provided for. As much as any man, I reseat the idea of a paternal government to look after every little detail of life. I would have a simple government, and the less government the better. But I say that a State which has a commissioner to look after insurance companies, and keep them within the bounds of the law and their charters, a State which inspects steam boilers, a State which restrains pharmacists and physicians, and which regulates the manufacture of illuminating gas, that State can not consistently refuse to look to the forests of the State, to preserve them, and to re-establish them. This work can not be done-it can not even be begun, without the dissemination of knowledge of trees, and masses of trees. And that precious knowledge can not be disseminated save through able instructors. Then you are answered, my dear Mr. Forester. The need of an instructor goes with the great need of instruction. Aside from his teaching, I would gladly see an instructor in forestry well maintained, so that, by virtue of his office he might continually suggest to the public that there is such a noble and important art as forestry; aye, and a science too-one worthy of the worthiest. I am sorry to write in such a haste. If I do not make myself understood, pray quiz me again. Sincerely yours, To Adolph Leué, Secretary Ohio State Forestry Bureau, Cincinnati, O. DAN. MILLIKIN. REMARK: Dr. Dan. Millikin, who is well known to the readers of the Ohio Forestry Reports, is one of the few men who commenced their labors in the interest of forestry, in the earlier period of his life, and, what is more, kept up this interest.-A L. INDIANA REFORM SCHOOL FOR BOYS, PLAINFIELD, IND., August 21, 1889. Peof. Adolph Leué, Secretary State Forestry Bureau, Cincinnati, O.: DEAR SIR: You ask my views as to the "Need of providing for the instruction in the science and practice of forestry?" I answer that in my judgment there is a great need for such instruction. Our forests are fast passing away through needless waste. Our prairies have lost their small belts of timber which they once had here and there. The times are rife for an awakening of a public interest in forestry. If each State could secure lecturers to address the various educational institutions, it would do much good. This should be followed by a course of instruction. How this can be provided I am not prepared to suggest, but your experience and that of your colleagues on the Forestry Bureau of Ohio fit you to outline a course to pursue that would be practical. Yours truly, T. H. CHARLTON, Superintendent. DENT, O., September 16, 1889. DEAR MR. LEUE: I find that I shall have no time to write the article you request by your favor of August 1. I am busy in writing my life, and will need, all my spare time now for revision of the manuscript. One idea I can suggest to you; it is that a State that has forest-culture proves, eo ipso, that it is disposed to be provident. And the counter proposition is also true: A State without forest-culture is improvident, i. e. barbarian. Truly yours, CHAS. REEMELIN. REMARK: Hon. Chas. Reemelin, who is an acknowledged authority in Political Economy, is one of the most ardent advocates of reform in matters pertaining to our forestry interest.-A. L. STATE OF NEBRASKA, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, Adolph Leué, Cincinnati, O.: LINCOLN, September 15, 1889. DEAR SIR: Yours of August 31 was duly received. I am in favor of every measure designed to promote the raising of trees and the protection of our forests. Very truly yours, JOHN M. THAYER. REMARK: Gov. Thayer is not a man of many words, but of deeds. His influence upon the forestry interest in Nebraska has made itself felt every-where.-A. L. MINIER, ILL., September 8, 1889. DEAR FRIEND LEUE: "I will go a thousand miles to see a man who can tell me something he never learned." So said a learned man, a scholar, and the president of a college in my hearing. Does any one doubt the truth of this observation? I suppose not. But how few of our colleges and universities act up to this truth! Schools established for mere mental training will never meet the necessities and the requirements of the American Nation. We are not to be confined to the ruts of the schools of the older nations. We have agricultural colleges or universities in all the States, but they are treading in the footsteps of the old colleges, or, at least, fast tending thitherward. All honor to the colleges and universities. But something more practical must be taught. Agricultural colleges should not come down to the mere technicalities, the verbiage and the shibboleths of the church, the law and the schools. The truth is patent, the knowledge of trees, their utility and the art of tree-planting should be taught in our common schools. Warm the substratum of the air of rooms, and the genial influence will rise of its own volition to the higher. So educate the masses in our common schools, and the colleges will be compelled to teach the science and art of tree-planting-forestry. Only about one boy or girl in twenty ever graduate at colleges, so our common schools are nineteen times more important to us than are our colleges. I am more than pleased, I am delighted, with what you are trying to do in Ohio. May heaven's blessings attend your labor. I will end my letter by quoting the seventh and eighth resolutions adopted by our Forestry Congress at its meeting in Denver, Colorado, in 1886: Seventh, That the principles of forestry and practice of tree-planting should be taught in the public schools, normal schools and agricultural colleges of this country, and that we urgently recommend suitable legislation to that end in the several States and territories. Eighth. That in our opinion the agricultural colleges of the various States should give special attention to the propagation and cultivation of forest trees, and especially for the purpose of determining the most useful and robust varieties of timber for their respective States and for the various portions thereof-and for the proper dissemination of the knowledge so obtained. Yours for forests, GEO. W. MINIER. REMARK: Hon. Geo. W. Minier is an ex President of the American Forestry Congress, and for years has been an ardent student of forestry and a successful arboriculturist. Mr. Adolph Leué, Cincinnati, O.: NEWARK, O., August 25, 1889. MY DEAR SIR: I suppose it is scarcely necessary for me to say to you, either with voice or pen, that I attach very much importance to forestry in whatever phase or aspect it may be viewed, either as a promoter of health, or as a potential agency in administering to man's comfort and enjoyment, or when considered only from an æsthetic standpoint, and doubly more so when viewed from an economic or utilitarian standpoint, or as an efficient agent or instrumentality exerting a highly favorable climatic influence. Thus estimating it, I would, of course, urge the newspaper writer, the e-sayist, the pamphleteer, the author, the literarian, the belles-lettres scholar, the lyceum lecturer, the platform orator, the political economist, the common school teacher, the learned instructors of our academies, the scholarly college and university professors, in short, the peoples' instructors of whatever class or character; all these moulders of public sentiment I would implore to bear in mind the importance and value of forestry as a branch of study, and keep it in the foreground, and urge the use of adequate means, efforts and time to the work of popularizing forestry, and impress the public mind with a proper estimate of its importance. Especially would I have the pulpit orator make prominent in his teachings the moral aspects of forestry. With no less zealous enthusiasm would I have the mass of the people enter into the spirit and observance of Arbor Day as a national holiday, incidentally by so doing, promoting the great and growing interests of forestry. Why should not forestry be as certainly a branch of study by the American people as botany, chemistry, history, philosophy, geography, zoology, geology, archeology or astronomy? And why should not a taste for the study of forestry be cultivated by the present and on-coming generations of American youth? "So long as the rivers flow, The garden of God's own hand." This, by way of conclusion, in the beautiful thoughts of Prof. Venable, and finally in the pertinent truths poetically expressed by the poet Whittier* in harmony with the foregoing: "The wealth, beauty, fertility and healthfulness of the country largely depend upon the conservation of our forests and the planting of trees." Yours truly, ISAAC SMUCKER. REMARK: Hon. Isaac Smucker is one of the pioneer advocates of forestry in Ohio, and a man of great public spirit.-A. L. CINCINNATI, O., May 13, 1889. Adolph Leué, Cincinnati, O.: DEAR SIR: I received yours of the 12th inst. in regard to endowment of a Chair of Forestry in the university of -.' I think such a movement would be of incalculable good in view of the continued depletion of our forests. Something in the way of systematic scientific efforts should be done at once to repair the waste and not leave it to individual efforts. Much has already been done in that direction by your society, and especially by your aid, but there should be more means and a contribution by the State to the university should be made for that purpose. Truly yours, JOSEPH COX. *In a letter to Dr. John B. Peaslee. 3 F B |