278 The jfoiirnal of Forestry. 



If we turn our eyes northward, from whence the valuable white pine 

 lumber is exclusively obtained, we find that many thousands of acres which 

 only a few years ago, comparatively, were covered with dense growth of 

 this invaluable timber, have been cut oif j and they who cater for the timber 

 market have receded almost out of sight, ere they can find further supplies. 

 Maine, once by way of distinction termed the White Pine State, is now 

 denuded; and mills erected for manufacturing pine lumber are content to 

 saw spruce logs less than a foot in diameter; and to-day, were it not for the 

 paralysis which has seized on industry, the price of white pine would be at 

 least several times 'greater than ever known within the memory of those 

 whom I now address. 



The same condition of affairs applies to hemlock, one of our valuable 

 American trees, which, like the buffalo, is recklessly slaughtered for its 

 hide, until shortly it must cease to exist upon our continent, unless the 

 practice of this generation be radically changed. How sad to know that 

 the noble hcmlcck isthus ruthlessly cut down for the simple bark which 

 encases it — itself, many times left to lie and rot, a monument, perishable 

 fortunately, of the profligacy of man, who, to supply a present want, reck- 

 lessly destroys that which should be the invaluable heritage of his children. 

 Now where is all this to stop ? Legislation cannot be invoked to correct 

 the evil. A man has a right to do in these particulars as his ideas of 

 private interest j^rompts; and unless by moral suasion, and the argument 

 be successfully enforced that he is killing his own goose which is laying 

 golden eggs, the error will doubtless go on to the bitter end, until every 

 primitive tree within reach of market has been laid low, disregarding the 

 fact that the annual increase in cubic contents and the certainty of 

 enhanced prices present the best investment the present money values 

 could be placed in. Fortunately, those of us who reside upon the seaboard 

 have a resource not likely to fail ; and the more especially in view of the 

 large areas of once tilled land now being re-clothed by forests. I refer to 

 the Southern Pine, of which there are several species, each of value in the 

 departments of the coarser arts. 



Those who less than a quarter of a century ago traversed our seaboard, 

 beginning at Portsmouth, Virginia, and extended their route through the 

 Carolinas, Georgia, and onward, could not fail, it is said, to be forcibly 

 impressed by the apparently interminable forests of this valuable timber — 

 stately trees in absolutely countless numbers — each representing a value 

 which to a northern eye could be as surely estimated as the sheep on the 

 hill-side, or the [^cattle on the broad prairies. Alas ! in most cases the 

 denizens of these roadside forests have disappeared; and he who now makes 

 the journey to which I have referred will find on tens of thousands of broad 

 acres only the blackened and charred stumps of those once stately trees — 

 the needs of the passing hour having comjoelled their improvident owners 

 to convert them into ready money. We have only, however, to advance 

 inward, westward of the coast-line a few miles, to find ample store of 

 similar timber, which lateral railroads are piercing ; paving the way, as it 

 were, towards the marts of the great cities. Happily to restore the ex 



