FORESTRY BEGIN XiXGS IX VERMONT 



87 



Five years' experience in propaganda 

 work has convinced me that the only 

 way to get any real results from this 

 educational work is to advocate some 

 specific line of work. Planting is the 

 one phase of forestry which interests 

 the average lay mind. While it is the 

 least important branch in the East and 

 the least interesting to the forester, it 

 does furnish a handle by which to get a 

 ■great many people actively interested in 

 forestry work. When a man has once 

 planted a thousand trees he will protect 

 them from fire and begin to study their 

 growth. He soon notices natural re- 

 production, and it is only a step to more 

 conservative cutting. The leaders of 

 the forestrv movement in Vermont real- 

 ized the educational value of planting 

 and secured in 1906 an annual appro- 

 priation of $500 for five years for a 

 forest nursery, following the precedent 

 started by Connecticut of selling forest 

 seedlings to land owners at cost price. 

 With the increased appropriations avail- 

 able this vear, the nurserv has now been 

 extensively enlarged, so that we now 

 have a total growing stock of about 

 1,500,000 seedlings. The past spring 

 we sent out to land owners 200,000 

 trees, mostly white pine. The encour- 

 aging feature of this is not the number. 

 but the fact that they went to ever}- 

 county in the state, and to over seventy 

 dififerent people, of whom at least ten 

 are lumbermen, and as many bona fide 

 farmers. 



In A'ermont the general movement 

 is now gaining headway — how efifect- 

 ively. we cannot say — to reorganize the 

 rural schools with the purpose of fitting 

 the pupils for life in the country rather 

 than in the city, which has formerly un- 

 doubtedly been the tendency of all edu- 

 cation. \'ermont must always remain 

 primarily an agricultural and forest 

 state. The sooner we can instil into 

 the young new ways of looking at the 

 forest, the sooner will forestry ideals 

 be realized. By this we do not mean 

 a sentimental regard for the forest, but 

 a knowledge of the laws underlying for- 

 estry, so that the forests will be man- 

 aged in the future as a crop and not as 

 a mine. As a first step toward coop- 

 erating with the more progressive teach- 



ers in their desire to incorporate these 

 new ideals, we supplied the past spring 

 a limited number of "Arbor Day pack- 

 ages" with detailed instructions for use 

 in a bed eight b}- two feet in the school 

 yard. These packages contained seed- 

 lings of various ages of wdiite, red, and 

 Scotch pine, and X'orway spruce ; and 

 small papers of white pine and locust 

 seed. A charge of 50 cents was made 

 for the package. 



Xo event is .so much anticipated in 

 rural communities as the agricultural 

 fair, a series of which is held every fall 

 in all our eastern states. Our legisla- 

 ture has finally recognized their value 

 by appropriating money for a state fair. 

 Besides this state fair, there were ten 

 corporation fairs in Vermont this fall. 

 These have an average daily attendance 

 of from four to fifteen thousand people 

 coming from the most remote parts of 

 the state. At most of these fairs the 

 state forest service this year had an ex- 

 hibit consisting of several boxes six feet 

 by one foot by six inches, containing 

 various kinds of forest seedlings; bot- 

 tles of tree seeds, anfl sections of N^or- 

 way spruce trees growai in \^ermont 

 showing very rapid growth. The in- 

 terest in these exhibits was entirely be- 

 yond our expectation. One and some- 

 times two attendants were kept con- 

 stantly busy from morning until night 

 explaining the exhibits and answering 

 questions on all phases of forestry. 



That the people of the state are fully 

 awake to the importance of the forestry 

 movement their interest at these fairs 

 demonstrated. The press of the state 

 has also shown an unusual appreciation 

 of the importance of the work, and the 

 state forest service has been particu- 

 larly fortunate in this progressive atti- 

 tude of the press. 



The annual appropriation available 

 for forestry purposes is now $8,500, 

 and we hope soon to accjuire some lands 

 for state forests which will be pur- 

 chased primarily for educational pur- 

 poses. Later on I hope that the state 

 will enter upon the policy of acquiring 

 large tracts in the Green Mountains. 

 In no state, I believe, is there a more 

 sane and thorough interest in for- 

 estry to-day than in Vermont. 



