APPENDIX. 51 



FOREST PLANTING AND MUNICIPAL OWNER- 

 SHIP OF FOREST LANDS. 

 By George F. Talbot. 

 To Eon. Gyrus A. Packard^ Forest Commissioner : 



Sir — In answer to your communication addressed to me of 

 December 10th inst., asking me for a paper, to be embodied in your 

 report, on the theme, "How shall our waste lands, that have been 

 denuded of forest growth, be re-timbered?" I beg you to accept 

 my thanks for the opportunity to urge upon the legislature and the 

 people of the Slate the immense importance of this question. 



The rapidity with which we are consuming the enormous natural 

 wealth stored in our forests, and the near approach of the period 

 when Maine, once called the Fine Tree State, will be as treeless as 

 Spain, forces upon every intelligent and public spirited citizen the 

 consideration of the problem : How is this natural wealth to be 

 restored and perpetuated ? How is the greater portion of the surface 

 of our State, but little fitted for profitable agriculture, to be covered 

 again with those magnificent woods which once adorned and enriched 



it? 



The cutting and clearing of our forests have been greatly facili- 

 tated and stimulated by the recent opening across the center of the 

 wooded part of the Slate of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, soon to 

 be connected with our own sea-board system of railways by inter- 

 secting lines, and to be fed by similar intersecting lines, that shall 

 bring the forest products of our most northern and eastern frontiers 

 into the great markets of the United Stales. The remarkable facilities 

 for transportation that railroads furnish, have rendered profitable 

 and greatly stimulated the lumber business. No longer dependent 

 on obstructed streams and precarious freshets, nor hindered by long 

 hauls to lakes and drivable streams, the large operators are able to hold 

 out inducements in offered freight to railway corporations to estead 

 their branch lines into forest regions heretofore practically inac- 

 cessible. 



The manufacturer of barrels and packing cases, of wooden ware, 

 matches, agricultural implements and furniture have made a con- 

 stantly increasing demand, chiefly for those kind of growths which 



