a6 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



exliaiisted and when you know tlint ii little 

 slate like Massachusetts last year consumed 

 :t(iO.Oi)0.llOO feel you will leallze more fully the 

 condition of things. 



The lumher business be;;iui in niir siniiv Tlif 

 foundation of tlie commonweallli of .Massiiclui- 

 setls was llie forest and the sea. and our arlsto- 

 (•ratic families, who have blue IiIikkI In their 

 veins, laid their foundation in codlisii. rum aiul 

 luniber. 



I had occasion a few years ago 1*' make a 

 speecli in New Haven and I tlio\i^'liI (hai it 

 would be a good idea to look up some points in 

 the encyclopedia, and I found that in ISlill that 

 little town had l.udO inlialiilanis, and that it 

 was noted for its religion, and that at the same 

 time Rnston was a town of :iS.iMM» inhabitanls. 

 and had lliirty-five distilleries. X()w Hoston 

 was tile hub. and this shows what rum lias done. 



The tirst shipments were about l.S(i2 from 

 Portsmouth. X. IF., and the royal .ii;overiior sen! 

 a very strong remonstrance to tlie king. Iliat he 

 was not getting a reasonable rake-off from the 

 shipments, htit matters ran along until in ItUtl) 

 the English government sent three commission- 

 ers over here. They came in a sailing vessel. 

 and a wind blew them out of their course and 

 the}' landed on the West Indies. Two went nn 



B. V. SWAIN. SlIEI.HYVII.I.i;. DlRECTnl!. 



a spree, and died, and the other came to New 

 York and reported, lie was sent to Portsmouth : 

 he came within sixty miles of Boston, and his 

 commission was to "examine liis majesty's woods 

 in North America," whidi was a pretty large 

 commission. He marked al)out 6. Olio trees for 

 the king's use. and in Iti'J'.l. the tirst cargo, so 

 far as I know, was shipped from Portsmouth to 

 England and the royal governor sent a letter 

 saying that tlie cargo no doubt would create 

 consternation among the dealers who were get- 

 ting their supply from Norway and Sweden. It 

 is said that they measured from seventy-tive to 

 one hundred feet long and from three to five 

 feet in diameter. That was the kind of lumber 

 that New England had in those days. 



Now practically nothing has been done until 

 within the last few years. I want to say. Mr. 

 President and gentlemen, that perhaps no in- 

 fluence has been greater to educate the American 

 people to the true condition of things than the 

 lumber press and the press of the United States. 

 They have begun to realize that one of the first 

 and greatest and most important things for us 

 is to conserve our natural resources. We should 

 realize that the forests are an inlieritance and 

 not destroy nor devastate them, but save them 

 so that they may yield an annuity in perpetuity 

 and those Uiat come after us may have some- 



thing. I haven't any sons to engage In the lum- 

 ber business, and possibly II Is Just as well. I 

 don't know where the supply of the future is ii> 

 lome from — wliere we will get our supply uf 

 liardwood In twenty, thirty or forty years. 1 

 went to work in our legislature twenty-five years 

 ago to show I hat the forests are of immense In- 

 terest to the stale. 



The only wealth we have nr evi'r had is in I be 

 forest. (If course we hail llii' fish and the sea, 

 but the forest is the <inly natural resource In 

 New England. We have neither silver, gold, or 

 iron, or gas. or anytliing of ih.ii kind. W'r 

 have a bad climate and do ikiI have a fertile snil 

 so tlial we have to depend entirely on maniifai-- 

 tiiring and must have it to keep us busy. We 

 have to have something In manufacture, and It 

 is the liaven of woodworking people. Some of 

 the best work in tlie I'nited States is done there. 

 We have trained and skilled mechanics. 



I called the attention of our honoraiiie leg- 

 islature to tile fact that there were in our com- 

 monwealth i;7."i.O0O acres, absolutely valueless 

 for taxation, and I recommended that the state 

 commence a forestry reservation, and that they 

 take the inmates of our correction institutions 

 and put them to work on the land and that it 

 would be better f<u' them, and jiay a gocid per 

 cent of interest. 



Some years ago I went tu l-;iirope with letters 

 from the Iiepartment of Agriculture to the head 

 foresters of (Jermany and France, for I wished 

 1o find oul about their expenses and methods. 

 I found (lermany and other countries liad gone 

 at it in a systematic way and that their forests 

 returned large interest on the investment. Of 

 course we have to take into consideration the 

 education of tlie public up to this point. 



Now of course every one of us realizes the 

 esthetic value of the forest. It is a thing of 

 beauty and a .ioy forever. The poets look at it 

 as a desecration to cut down a piece of timber 

 but utterly fail to recognize the fact that the.se 

 wooded lands represent so much capital — so 

 much money. I have been trying to educate 

 the people of Massachusetts to the fact that this 

 must be looked at from a financial standpoint. 

 If I own a number of acres of timber land I can- 

 not afford to run the risk of fire and cannot af- 

 ford to pay taxes on the land for thirty or forty 

 years for the sake of pleasing people. In my 

 native state of New Hampshire from eight to 

 ten million dollars are left there every summer 

 by the tourists. The woods are an attraction ; 

 they are beautiful. There are many sides to 

 this question and a thousand and one things 

 enter into it. but primarily we must look at the 

 financial side of it. 



I had a long argument with our distinguished 

 ex-Oovernor Iiouglas on this question. lie said 

 "let the lumber of other countries come in free 

 and save ours until the rest is exhausted." I said 

 that sounded well in theory, but asked if he had 

 a thousand acres of timber laud that was read.v 

 to cut, would he be held out of that money and 

 sit idl.v b.v for thirt.v or fort.v years antl let some 

 one else supply the market. I think it sliould be 

 converted into money the same as a stock of 

 lumber in the .yard or any other stock of goods. 

 We live in sucli an age of haste we cannot afi'ord 

 to wait thirty or forty or fifty years, but the 

 government can. and the amount of taxation 

 would be infinitesimal per capita and we could 

 make a beginning which would be the foundation 

 of a future supply forever. 



I think I can fairly claim to be the author of 

 arbor day in our commonwealth, and I also es- 

 tablished the State Forestry Bureau, and the 

 first thing we did was to get a basis to start 

 from. We tried to find out how much wooded 

 land we had. the conditions, etc. We started on 

 an appropriation of $5,000, The state began to 

 realize the importance of forestry and bought 

 000 acres of land at .$,"(0 an acre for an experi- 

 mental station, and took Hie prisoners out of our 

 institutions and put them on this land and 

 cleaned it up and cut out the undesirable spe- 



cies, and where there were not any. planted 

 siinii' seedlings, demonsl rating I hat it is a prae- 

 ilcal scheme. This Is a Iremendoiis big question 

 and to cover the whole of ll a man could take a 

 week. It Is a matter of vital imporliince and it 

 seems to me. gentlemen. Hie cimiing economic 

 i|iiesllc)ii for this nation to consider. 



In I.SOT New Hampshire sold a tract of land 

 for .'tL'.-i.oOd and if 11 were put up today at pub- 

 lic auction ll would bring f.'i.ooii.iioo. It was 

 thought that this money should go inlo the treas- 

 ury for teachers' Inslllutes. Y<ai lake the great 

 inrluslries of this country and Hiey have to look 

 ahead into the future the same as great cities 

 and commonwealths. This city has to look 

 ahead for its water supply. Our city Is spending 

 millions of dollars; I don't know how much New 

 York is sjiending. We are looking into the fu- 

 ture. It is Imperative. 



Now I do not mean any disrespect to the Con- 

 gress of Hie I'nited Slates, or to the professions 

 that compose it. for they are big-hearted, hon- 

 orable men. but they are not In touih with the 

 conditions of this country as a rule as the active 

 business man is. We must provide for the fu- 

 ture. We must make a beginning very soon or 

 you know from the history of tlie world what 

 (he results will be. There is not a coiinlry in 



(■LAiriE MALEY. E\ANSVII.I,E. DIUECTOU. 



the world that its decadence has not begun with 

 tile destruction of its forests. The history of 

 the world proves it. 



Now take the great pulp industry — the Dia- 

 mond Match Company: they have to look for- 

 ward fifty years in the future for their supply. 

 I wonder if you realize that it takes IIOO.OOO.OOO 

 tons of pulp for newspapers and piu-iodicals 

 alone. When you get into figures it is alarm- 

 ing. The railroads and the big lumber corpora- 

 tions are seeing the necessity of making some 

 provision and realize that there must be some 

 provision made, and I have made it my business 

 to go to Washington to interview the senators 

 and representatives from our state and try to 

 persuade them to use ail of their influence to 

 pass this bill creating the Appalachian and 

 White Mountain reservations, so that those who 

 come after us may have lumber for their needs. 

 This is certainly a tremendous big question, but 

 I am sorry that I have taken so much of your 

 time for I am afraid I have worn you out. You 

 know you are up against it for another hour 

 or two tonight, f Applause. ] 



President Barnaby — We thank you very much 

 for your eloc]uent speech. There are others in 

 our state who realize that we have an important 

 subject and we would like to hear fi;om some of 

 these people. 



