ht say that an acre of northern Minnesota
pine trees makes it possible for a farmer in Dakota or Nebraska to have
a house, farm buildings, and fences, with a holding of at least one
hundred and sixty acres upon which he will successfully cultivate
several acres of forest trees of different kinds. Even if the denuded
pine lands of the region south and west of Lake Superior would not
readily produce a second growth of dense forest--which, it should be
said in passing, they certainly will--their loss would be far more than
made good by the universal cultivation of forest trees in the prairie
States. It is at least comforting to reflect, when the friends of
scientific forestry warn us against the ruthless destruction of standing
timber, that thus far at least in our Western history we have simply
been cutting down trees in order to put a roof over the head of the man
who was invading treeless regions for the purpose of planting and
nurturing a hundred times as many trees as had been destroyed for his
benefit! There is something almost inspiring in the contemplation of
millions of families, all the way from Minnesota to Colorado and Texas,
living in the shelter of these new pine houses and transforming the
plains into a shaded and fruitful empire.

PIONEER LIFE IN THE SEVENTIES.

[Illustration: SLUICE-GATE.]

The enormous expansion of our railway systems will soon have made it
quite impossible for any of the younger generation to realize what
hardships were attendant upon such limited colonization of treeless
prairie regions as preceded the iron rails. In 1876 I spent the summer
in a part of Dakota to which a considerable number of hardy but poor
farmers had found their way and taken up claims. They could not easily
procure wood for houses, no other ordinary building material was
accessible, and they were living in half-underground "dugouts,"
so-called. There was much more pleasure and romance in the pioneer
experiences of my own ancestors a hundred years ago, who were living in
comfortable log-houses with huge fire places, and shooting abundant
supplies of deer and wild turkey in the deep woods of southern Ohio. The
pluck and industry of these Dakota pioneers, most of whom were Irish men
and Norwegians, won my heartiest sympathy and respect. Poor as they
were, they maintained one public institution in common--namely, a
school, with its place of public assemblage. The building had no floor
but the beaten earth, and, its