20 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



of Jlount Washington, was cut and completely burned and this loss of a much 

 prized and well known region coupled with the growing interest to protect 

 and conserve led the legislature in 1881 to appoint the first state foresti'y 

 commission, consisting of Governor Hale and seven others, chief of whom was 

 the Hon. Joseph B. AValker, who had worked assiduously in the state senate 

 for its creation, helped largely in its investigations, and finally wrote out its 

 findings in 1885 in an excellent and far-seeing report on the following sub- 

 jects: (1) The area of forests; (2) their relation to the rainfall and climate; 

 (3) trees and shrubs found therein; (4| forest management; (5) reforestra- 

 tion. Their report being finished they disbanded. 



After the report of the first forest commission in 1885 nothing further 

 was done until 1889, when the Governor and Council appointed a second 

 commission, consisting of Joseph B. Walker, George B. Chandler and J. B. 

 Harrisou, who made a report in 1891, and forestry bills were introduced 

 embodying their recommendatious. Favorable action was not secured until 

 1893, when the legislature passed a law which created a forestry commission, 

 to consist of the governor and four members, to investigate the extent and 

 character of the original and secondary forests in the state; the removal and 

 disposition made of the woods therefrom ; all revenues derived ; the damage 

 done by fire; methods of lumbering pur.sued, and efi'ects on the timber supply, 

 water power, scenery and climate. This commission, which consisted of 

 George B. Chandler, Napoleon B. Bryant, James F. Colby, and George H. 

 Moses, got out the first official forestry map of the state, and for a few years 

 thereafter laid the foundation of fact upon which to base a proper forestry 

 policy. Little or no money was appropriated and the work done was left to 

 the patriotism and loyalty to the cause of these men to awaken public interest. 

 In 1895, however, the legislature empowered the commission to pay through 

 the county one-half of the cost for fighting fire in unincorporated places, the 

 other half to be borne by the owner, and passed more stringent laws against 

 the setting of fire. They succinctly illustrated the general feeling of the times 

 in their second annual report under the chapter heading: "Lumber vs. For- 

 estry," and found their first problem to demonstrate the mutual interests 

 which should bind the two. 



Probably no one did more for the solution of this problem {ban Mr. 

 Austin Cary, who commenced an exhaustive study of the northern spruce 

 under the direction of Dr. B. E. Fernow, then head of the Forestry Bureau of 

 the United States Department of the Interior. Mr. Gary applied himself to the 

 practical .solution of adapting foreign methods to American conditions; of 

 demonstrating the practical value of conservation to pulp and lumber com- 

 panies, and of securing the first practical cutting according to foresti-y meth- 

 ods. His careful research also of the insect and fungus enemies of the northern 

 woods was of much scientific value. LTp to the eighties lumber companies 

 had cut only the larger trees for saw logs and unwittingly had left a con- 

 siderable stand for future growth and reproduction. Upon the first advent 

 of the pulp companies, however, this condition was changed for a period to a 

 strip cut, and Mr. Gary's demonstration of the ultimate unprofitableness of 

 this procedure was of inestimable value to the state. Studies by Henry S. 

 Graves and others in 1894 of spruce under Adirondack conditions supple- 

 mented his work and a meeting of the American Forestry A.ssociation at 

 Plymouth August 24, at which Joseph B. Walker, and George B. James 

 spoke, aroused national interest in New Hampshire's problem, and an 

 offer of co-operative assistance was made in 1898 to interested owners of 

 woodland by the Division of Forestry, Department of Agriculture, at Wash- 

 ington, then under Gifford Pinchot. 



