APPENDIX. 53 



it took only three trunks, and that for every merchantable tree trunk 

 taken away, ten other smaller tree trunks must be cut and wasted 

 in swamping and road clearing, we can understand that the diminu- 

 tion of the myriad trees that compose our forests is going on at a 

 rate increasing by an arithmetic, if not geometric progression, 



"When it is remembered that it was the magnificent forests, that 

 once lay in a continuous body from the seaboard to the northern 

 boundary' of Maine, that attracted to it its first settlers ; that the 

 various branches of the lumber business give employment still, as 

 they always have done, to a large fraction of our people, and that 

 our agriculture has depended largely on this leading business for its 

 markets, our railroads and commercial marine for their freights, our 

 local trade for its circulating medium and commodity of barter, we 

 are forced to confront the question : Can our population stay within 

 our borders after this magnificent heritage has been exhausted? If 

 we may judge by those movements of population from Canada and 

 the Maritime Provinces, climatically similar to Maine, and by what 

 the national census has for three decades exhibited as to the waning 

 or stationary populations of New Hampshire and Vermont, we must 

 conclude that an intelligent people cannot be induced to maintain 

 their permanent homes in a region where so laige a part of their 

 income must be expended in maintaining an artificial climate under 

 which human life is possible, after the inducement that brougbt their 

 ancestors and kept their fathers here, no longer invites them. 



Tne legislature, who-^e function it is to look wisely after the 

 interest of coming generations, to restrain the inordinate acquisitive- 

 ness ot the strong in maintaining the rij;ht8 of the weak in the strug- 

 gle for life, must therefore face with some wise and salutary 

 {)r()vision, the problem of how to save, how to restore to its profita- 

 ble maximum, the forest area of tbe State. 



It may be that human ingenuity, aided by an ever expanding 

 science, may be able to invent or discover some material which will 

 supply the place of wood in all its multiff.rious uses. There are 

 examples, where a providential invention has come in, just in time 

 1o coirect and relieve the wasteful and improvident practices of men. 

 Bjt have we any right to anticipate any such invention or discovery ? 

 To any piactieal anticipation the loss of our forests now looks 

 like an irreparable loss ; and we are compelled to consider with 

 solicitude, what methods are open and practicable, to preserve the 

 relics of that splendid domain, we have so imprudently managed, 



