Vermont Agricultural Report. 55 



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machine which has already put the industry on a safer, fairer 

 and more solid basis than before and laid the foundation for a 

 brighter future, S. C. Thompson. 



FUNDAMENTALS OF FORESTRY. 



BY B. K. FURNOW 01^ ITHACA, N. Y. 



It is an old experience that this world is moved by emotions 

 rather than by reason. When we have succeeded in enlisting 

 the heart for a cause, our arguments need not be so strenuously 

 correct or cogent. We accept as truths readily, what appeals 

 to our emotions. 



Economic reforms, such as the one your association is en- 

 gaged in, while, of course, in the first place based on economic 

 arguments, find popular support through appeals to patriotism, 

 to public spirit, to a regard for the general welfare, rather than 

 through a clear, coherent, systematic presentation of the argu- 

 ments which a business man demands. 



Yet, while general sympathy with your efiforts in securing 

 an intelligent treatment of forest properties may be and must 

 be aroused by these general appeals, if you wish to take definite 

 steps in forwarding your reform,, you must come down from 

 generalization to definite concrete facts, you must distinguish 

 between the ideally desirable and the practically possible, you 

 must in a measure at least become familiar with some of the 

 technical details, the fundamentals, which need to be considered 

 in devising practical measures of reform. 



The attempts at forestry reform even in your state arc 

 nearly a quarter century old. The report of your Forest Com- 

 mission of 1882 contains much common sense and many good 

 suggestions ; yet it has remained, as far as I know, all these 

 years without any practical consequence. And that in spite of 

 the fact that the sympathy of such good practical business men 

 as your former Governor and present Senator, Rcdfield Proctor, 

 was really fully aroused. 



What is the reason of this apparently entire lack of prac- 

 tical results from this early movement? Why was nothing done 

 to improve matters? Partly, I believe, because the necessity for 

 action was not pressing at the time, and partly because the sub- 



