OUR FORESTS. 95 



and scientific men of France and Germany have written and 

 studied upon the forests and their influences, until the science 

 of sylviculture is acknowledged in those countries as of the 

 greatest importance. 



The proportion of woodland required for an agricultural 

 country, according to Rentzsch, is twenty-three per cent, for 

 the interior and twenty per cent, near the coast. Of all the 

 countries of Europe, not more than four or five have over 

 twenty-three per cent, while some are reduced as low as five 

 per cent. For the whole of Europe the proportion is but 

 twenty-six and one-quarter per cent., while in the United 

 States and Canada it is as high as forty-eight ; but while in 

 Europe the proportion is increasing, with us it is decreasing. 

 If we proceed with the destruction of our timber-lands at the 

 rate with which they have disappeared for the last eighty 

 years, we shall in less than thirty years reduce our proportion 

 of timber to but thirty per cent. 



There are thousands of acres in New England fit for no 

 other use than to grow wood. If the farmers of Massachu- 

 setts, and all our Eastern States would restore their rough 

 and rocky fields and steep hillsides to forest-growth, and 

 expend their time on half the land they are now trying to 

 cultivate they would be far better oflf than they are to-day, 

 both physically and financially. The East needs a work of 

 restoration, and the West a new creation. Let our New 

 England hills and mountains again be clothed with forests, 

 and the fertile prairies of the great interior dotted with groves 

 and woodland until they shall become still more beautiful and 

 fruitful. Let the now barren and desolate plains of the far 

 West be planted with trees, until the future years shall 

 behold them covered with fruitful farms and the happy abodes 

 of a grand civilization. 



Our agricultural societies can help along this great work 

 by ofieriug suitable premiums for plantations of forest-trees. 

 Many of them have done this, but more needs to be done in 

 this direction. 



Our state governments can aid, by exempting standing for- 

 ests from taxation, by imposing taxes on wood felled for fuel 

 or timber, and by off'ering premiums for the planting of trees. 

 Some of our Western States have already done this, and 



