(532 JOURNAI, OF FORESTRY 



abstract way he can see that trees might be handled as a crop, but as a 

 staple, standard, every-day, plant-care-for-and-harvest crop, the forest 

 does not appear in his categories. It is not at all unreasonable that this 

 should be the case, for the world's advance in agriculture during the 

 last fifty years has been marvelous and its possibilities and limitations 

 may not now be sounded out by any one — certainly not by a straying 

 forester. 



The introduction and acclimatization of exotics, plant-breeding, and 

 new technique in farm operations constantly modify current practice. 

 Under the new combinations, old and profitless systems become again 

 profitable and new agricultural industries constantly arise. The silo 

 makes dairying a great industry, where corn cannot be depended upon 

 to ripen. Alfalfa opens a new economic era for whole territories ; 

 prophylactic treatment of seed and spraying technique and artificial 

 fertilizers re-establish old industries where they were likely to be wiped 

 out.i*' 



Professor Nourse ^^ points out that "the stone rejected bv the build- 

 ers may become the head of the corner ;" that "we have gone to Arabia 

 for the date palm, to Africa for kafir, Manchuria for kaoliang, and have 

 not yet forgotten that for sheer bone-dryness, our cacti beat them all ;" 

 that "Michigan grows celery and Wisconsin cranberries in once worth- 

 less swamps, the South grows dasheen, Arkansas overflow lands are 

 producing rice . . . fortunes are being drawn from sand lands 

 through the medium of berries, melons, peaches, and . . . vege- 

 tables. But of all the agricultural Cinderellas, none presents more 

 engaging possibilities than those ofifered by the hill lands. It would 

 seem that it was in this field that the most egregious blunders have been 

 made in the past. . . . We know that the hills of New England 

 were pressed into flat-land uses with the most melancholy results, and 

 in every hill section — Appalachians, Ozarks, or wherever — we find the 

 early settler . . . essayed to raise his valley crops instead of de- 

 vising a hill technique really suited to the circumstances. Hence the 

 backward and unprosperous hill folk. . . . Today the apple and 

 live stock make the Piedmont rich, and so of sheep-raising and horse- 

 breeding on the hillsides of \'ermont and New Hampshire which 

 were once insanely belabored to produce wheat ; peaches in the rock 

 lands of Connecticut, and fruit and butter from the broken portions of 

 New York." 



'" See, for instance, Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, Wooster, Bulletin 

 217, 1910; ditto, "Monthly Bulletin," January, 1919. 

 ^'■Scientific Monthly, Februar}-, 1918, p. 116. 



