buy hundreds of acres of city land within fifteen miles of the city.  With the aid of a municipal nursery, such as every park system should have, this land could be planted up at a total expense, for stock and labor, of six to eight dollars per acre.  The cost of maintenance would be limited to the patrol of the tract to prevent fire and trespass.  Of course, there might be no money revenue from the forest for many years, but in a comparatively short time it would begin to fulfill its purpose as a park, and once the timber is mature, there would be a continuous net annual income of from five to ten dollars per acre.  Suppose that the city had 10,000 acres of such forest paying a net annual revenue—­in addition to its full services as a park—­of from $50,000 to $100,000 toward the maintenance of the other city parks, and it must be remembered that for every dollar of net revenue the forest would pay an additional dollar or more in wages to swell the coffers of the city;—­certainly that would be something very much better than anything that the city has at present.

St. Paul, with the bottom lands and cliffs on either side of the river between Hastings and Minneapolis, could make a beautiful and profitable park of what now threatens to develop into a monumental waste.  Duluth could make a forest which would be unsurpassed in beauty and usefulness by any in the world out of the brushy, unoccupied, rock-bound hills as far west as Thompson.  Mankato has a glorious chance for the same work along the Minnesota valley.  Virginia and Hibbing could do nothing better than make such use of the rocky, mine-scarred hills in their vicinity.

And so opportunity might be cited for almost any city in the state.  For the municipal forest need not be confined to the big cities.  In fact, in some respects the smaller city has an advantage over the larger place.  Suitable land can usually be obtained near the city at a much more reasonable price and the revenue obtained bear a much larger ratio to the total expenses of the town.  There are some small towns in Germany where the entire running expenses are paid by the revenues of the town forest, and one or two where the forest not only pays all of the taxes but also pays a cash pension to a number of the older inhabitants.

Certainly our towns, looking forward to an endless and progressive existence, cannot afford to neglect this opportunity to develop a useful park, to provide a source of cheap wood and lumber for future generations and a substantial revenue for the city.

Expert advice need not be employed until the size and revenue of the forest warrants it, for the State Forest Service stands ready to help—­by the selection of land, the formulation of plans, and consultation—­any city that is wise enough to take advantage of this law.

The “city forester” can then be a forester indeed, and one of the good points of the European city government will have been adopted in fact as well as in name.