1 86 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



tendency is to cut closer, as the lumbermen say; that is, to 

 use small and younger trees and cut further up into the tops, 

 thereby wasting less timber. Nearly every month we read 

 in the lumber journals of the shutting down of mills, especially 

 in the Lake states, on account of the exhaustion of white 

 pine, and their removal to the South or far West. In Maine 

 the spruce industry is today no longer a lumber industry, but 

 one controlled by the paper interests. Pulp manufacturers 

 can use smaller timber than the saw-mill men, and they can 

 use coarser and less perfect logs. In consequence they can 

 pay a higher price for the logs, and now the saw-mill men are 

 being crowded out and are obliged to turn their attention 

 to other classes of timber. 



But lumbermen are not alone in being embarrassed by the 

 exhaustion of certain species of trees. In many places of 

 central New York the stumpage price of cord wood is as high 

 as $2.50 per cord, and a farmer is considered fortunate who 

 has a wood lot of ten acres. In southern Michigan and Ohio, 

 where there were formerly extensive hardwood forests, even 

 the farm wood lots are now very small and decreasing in size 

 every year. New Englanders often complain of the stony 

 soil and poor farming land, not realizing how fortunate they 

 are in the possession of abundant wood land. Though set- 

 tled nearly three hundred years ago, we have in our New 

 England states sixty per cent, of wood land, and at the pres- 

 ent time this percentage is probably increasing. In New 

 England there is a large amount of land more suitable for the 

 growth of trees than for agriculture ; while in central New 

 York, in Michigan, in Ohio, and in many other sections of 

 the country, much of the land covered with timber can be 

 used for agriculture; and the wood lots are remnants of the 

 virgin forest rather than second growth, as with us. In 

 Ohio and Michigan the wood lots are not as a rule repro- 

 ducing themselves rapidly. They are used for pasturage, 

 young growth is kept down, and each year the farmer clears 

 a little more and plows it. In New England, however, the 

 wood lot is usually on land which can be used for no other 

 purpose, and when it is cut ofif it is replaced by a second 

 growth. 



The question which is now before the public is no longer 

 whether forestry is desirable, but how can it be practically 



