482 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



The financial risk in proportion to the amount invested is less in this 

 project than in many other conservative business ventures. Nearly a 

 third of the cost of the land and the planting, the initial investment for 

 which bonds should be sold, is the cost of the land itself. On it there 

 can be no depreciation because in most cases it is considered almost 

 valueless today. It is producing little of value to its owners and scarce- 

 ly anything for the Commonwealth in taxes. Hence, under forestry 

 management, its value must naturally increase and this increment will 

 go to the public which owns the land. Of course there are risks due to 

 fire, insects, fungi, and climatic conditions, but these dangers must be 

 met anyhow even though direct appropriations are made from time to 

 time. Calamities such as the chestnut blight cannot be foreseen but 

 the knowledge we now have of forestry, fire prevention, insects, and 

 fungi, will enable us to avoid pitfalls which we might have stumbled 

 into twenty years ago. The fact that these forests would be widely 

 distributed, would likewise distribute the risk due to fire and other local 

 disturbances. If we truly believe that reforestation is a profitable 

 business undertaking we should not be timid in recommending that the 

 work be undertaken on a large scale. Once the State has made a large 

 investment in reforestation it will no longer be niggardly about making 

 appropriations to protect that investment. The benefits from timber 

 production are such that forest conservation should be self-supporting, 

 and the money put into it should be treated as an investment and not 

 as an expenditure. 



Presented in this light the public — our prospective purchaser — will 

 be more ready to enter upon a program for forest restoration on a 

 scale that will meet the need then if it were asked to pay cash. This 

 proposition is one which will benefit our children more than ourselves, 

 and our policy of demanding direct appropriations for reforestation 

 is comparable to asking the citizens of a town to pay for a huge 

 reservoir now, which they know will be needed in the future, but which 

 cannot be used to advantage during their lifetime. We are not accus- 

 tomed to shortages in any of the natural resources in this country and 

 consequently the average citizen cannot see why he should be taxed to 

 meet some future calamity which we believe may overtake the next 

 generation, and therefore he is inclined to take our warnings with a 

 grain of salt, or as the fulminations of enthusiasts. 



When the legislature of Massachusetts was petitioned last year for 

 a law to provide for the purchase and reforestation of 250,000 acres 



