258 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



with correctness, that forests, in order to maintain normal 

 physical conditions, and to supply the material so essential to 

 every branch of human industry, should occupy about twenty- 

 five per cent, of the area of the country to be influenced and 

 supplied by them. 



By the census of 1870, of the 4,992,000 acres which con- 

 stitute the State of Massachusetts, only 766,714 were reported 

 as woodlands, or nearly 550,000 acres less than the proper 

 amount. A comparison of Mr. Bigelow's Report on the 

 Industry of Massachusetts for 1837 with the United States 

 census of 1870, shows a decrease in the amount of Mas- 

 sachusetts woodlands of some 23,000 acres. The methods 

 used, however, in preparing the statistics of these two 

 reports were so widely different, that I am inclined to 

 doubt the value of such a comparison, and to coincide 

 with the opinion of many intelligent observers, that the 

 Massachusetts woodlands are at least holding their own in 

 extent; and if we consider the very encouraging attention 

 which has been, for some years, paid to tree-planting for 

 ornamental purposes, it must be conceded, I think, that 

 there is now as large a proportion of Massachusetts covered 

 with arborial growth as at any time during the past fifty 

 years. 



As compared with most of the other States of the Union, 

 this condition of things would be extremely gratifying were 

 it due to a desire on the part of our people to maintain a 

 proper proportion of forest within the limits of the State, and 

 not to the forced abandonment of much improved land ; the 

 result in no small measure of the folly of those who stripped 

 the land of its protection, and subjected their descendants to 

 the evils I have tried to point out. 



Grantino; that the area covered with forest growth in Mas- 

 sachusetts has not diminished during the last fifty years, we 

 are still short, by over half a million acres, of the amount sup- 

 posed essential to maintain proper physical conditions ; while, 

 if we examine the actual state of the woodlands, it will be 

 found that the}^ are very far from being able to supply suffi- 

 cient forest products for the requirements of the inhabitants 

 of the State. 



The abandoned lands have generally grown up with trees, 



