STATE FOREST WORK 



501 



Vermont Planting Season 



Now that the forest planting season has 

 closed the following summary of the 

 nursery stock sold by the state nursery 

 may prove interesting. The total number 

 of trees sold was 463,200, an increase of 

 85,500 over 1910. These went out to 73 

 different parties, private owners and cor- 

 porations. An encouraging awakening oc- 

 curred on the west side of the state. Where- 

 as Windsor county has formerly led in this 

 enterprise, Rutland county has this year 

 planted the most trees, largely through the 

 activity of the Vermont Marble Company 

 and the Rutland Railway, Light and Power 

 Company. Windsor county ranks second 

 in this respect, the most extensive planting 

 being done by W. D. Woolson, of Spring- 

 Beld; and Windham county is third. Con- 

 siderable planting was done in Bennington, 

 Essex and Lamoille counties this year, 

 where very little interest has been shown 

 previously. The largest private plantation 

 made this year was that of Dr. William 

 Stanford Stevens, of Enosburg, where about 

 45.000 trees were planted, part of which 

 had been raised on his farm. Extensive 

 plantations were made also on the state 

 lands in Plainfield and Sharon and by the 

 International Paper Company on its Ver- 

 mont lands. 



Up to the present time the state nursery 

 has been unable to supply the demand for 

 three-year-old trees, but from now on it is 

 expected that practically unlimited orders 

 can be filled, as about 600,000 two-year-old 

 pine seedlings were this year transplanted 

 in the nursery. White pine will continue 

 to be the chief tree raised on the light soil 

 of the Burlington nursery, but at the Sha- 

 ron nursery, where the soil is somewhat 

 better, it is planned to raise a large supply 

 of Norway spruce. Great loss was suffered 

 during the past winter In both nurseries on 

 account of damage by ice, several hundred 

 thousand seedlings being destroyed. 



The forestry interests of Massachusetts 

 are now, according to an observer, facing 

 the most critical situation in their history. 

 It has been said before in print that it is 

 a waste to appropriate additional state's 

 money for reforestation while fires and 

 insect pests continue to destroy the forests. 

 Ten trees are now cut down, owing to the 

 oppressive tree moth-cleaning laws, to one 

 that will ever be i)lanted. 



This state's supply of wood for all pur- 

 poses is in her woods, and not in her shade 

 or ornamental or roadside trees. Conse- 

 quently the oppressive and so obnoxious 

 tree-moth cleaning laws must be at once 

 modified to bear less heavily on the forest 

 owners, or they will be forced to cut down 

 their trees, for, as the average value of 

 the standing wood as it is in this state is 

 from $20 to $35 per acre (and the cost of 

 cleaning it the first year is over $31 per 

 acre by this state forester's report for 



1910) the value of the wood is practically 

 absorbed in the first year's cost of cleaning 

 it. Therefore, the woodland owner must 

 spend his money in destroying his forest 

 before cleaning it at all, to prevent his 

 being robbed of its whole value. 



The Government's representative of the 

 bureau of entymology in Boston says in 

 his last report, issued August 13, 1910: 

 "In eastern Massachusetts and southern 

 New Hampshire there are large areas of 

 forest lands which are covered with an in- 

 ferior growth of trees and which are badly 

 infested. In most cases the cost of clean- 

 ing up such areas would be more than the 

 value of the property." This statement 

 practically shows that it does not pay to 

 clean forest lands of tree-moth insects, and 

 corresponds with the statement said to have 

 been made by this state's former superin- 

 tendent of gypsy and brown-tail moth clean- 

 ing work. Mr. Kirkland, who was a great 

 expert in that direction, said that he "could 

 do practically nothing about properly clean- 

 ing forest lands." 



Mr. D. M. Rogers, special Government 

 field agent, is reported to have said of for- 

 est lands that "they are a loss to the owner 

 practically in any event; for if he holds on 

 to and cares for them, the expense is as 

 much as the standing wood on them is 

 worth. If he doesn't take care of them the 

 moths will surely kill them." This proves 

 that the sooner a forest owner eats down 

 all of his woods the more money he will 

 make or save. Mr. Rogers is also reported 

 to have said that $31 per acre for the first 

 cleaning was as cheaply as it could be 

 done. 



The average woodland owner does not 

 care a particle about scientific reforestation 

 and ordinarily has no time or inclination 

 to carry it on under the existing oppressive 

 tree-moth cleaning laws and the constant 

 meddling of moth cleaning officials with the 

 trees on his lands. 



All the woodland owner has in mind is 

 the cash value of his standing wood, and so 

 he wants to have his trees and his property 

 let alone by the oSicials and the laws. 

 The more rigidly the cleaning laws are 

 enforced and the more persona! and sec- 

 tional favoritism there is shown, the faster 

 the woods will be cut down by their angry 

 owners, and more fires must result; for as 

 its does not pay the owner of the woodland 

 to clean the standing wood, it surely will 

 not pay him to clean the moths off the 

 bushes, and so he must burn such brush- 

 land over every six months to kill these 

 bushes to prevent the leaves from growing 

 at all in order to stop the moths nesting, 

 and therefore greater forest fires must re- 

 sult from such burnings in the future than 

 in the past. 



It is estimated that it would cost from 

 five to ten million dollars annually to 

 clean up at all thoroughly the whole of the 

 forest brush, and new-growth land in this 

 state. 



