alled the Duluth district, were cutting about 500,000,000 feet a year.
It was expected that there would be a gradual increase in the
consumption of lumber made by Minnesota mills, and it was therefore
estimated that in about fifteen years, all the white pine in the state
would be cut into lumber and sold; but such has not proved to be the
case, although the production has rapidly increased as was expected. But
this difference between the estimate and the result is not of much
consequence, as there is nothing more unreliable than an estimate of
standing timber, and especially is such the case when covering a large
area of country. Since 1880 the production of lumber in the state has
increased from year to year, until it is at the present time fully
1,629,110,000 feet of pine logs every year. The cut made by the
Minneapolis mills alone in 1898 was 469,701,000 feet, with a
corresponding amount of laths and shingles. But this pace cannot be kept
up much longer, and apprehensions of the entire destruction of the
forests of the state are becoming quite prevalent among the people.
These fears are taking the shape of associations for the promotion of
scientific forestry, and the establishment of large forest reserves near
the headwaters of our streams, which are to serve also the purpose of
national parks. In assigning a cause for the lowering of our streams,
and the drying up of many of our lakes, in a former part of this work, I
attribute it to the plowing up of their valleys and watersheds, and not
to the destruction of the forests, because I do not think that the
latter reason has sufficiently progressed to produce the result,
although it is well known that the destruction of growing timber about
the head waters of streams operates disastrously upon the volume of
their waters and the regularity of its flow. Minnesota is the best
watered state in the Union, and every precaution should be taken to
maintain this advantage. From the extent of the interest displayed in
the direction of forest reserves and their scientific administration, we
have every reason to hope for speedy and final success. The state and
interstate parks already established will be noticed hereafter.

RELIGION.

The growth of the religious element of a new country is always one of
its interesting features, and I will endeavor to give a short account of
the progress made in this line in Minnesota from the mission period,
which was directed more part