486 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



As a matter of practice the cutting would extend over a period of 

 ten years or more, and all the land would not be given over to white 

 pine production, which would probably reduce to some extent the 

 net profit. But $68,000,000 is a fair margin of net profit on a 

 $01,000,000 investment, and if under the most adverse conditions the 

 State should only break even on the financial side, the fact that this 

 timber had been produced on land which otherwise would have re- 

 mained a waste would make it a paying business for the public. The 

 use of this timber in the industries, the protection of the water supplies, 

 the recreational value of these forests, are only a few of the by- 

 products of this enterprise. It would create an industry employing 

 several thousand men, and would help to bring back to use many of 

 the abandoned farms, besides retaining the wood-using industries in 

 the sections where such forests were created. 



The Massachusetts legislature did not accept this plan last year 

 although the Committee on Agriculture reported it unanimously. 

 When it came before the Ways and Means Committee, the President 

 of the Massachusetts Bankers' Association, the United States Forester, 

 Colonel W. B. Greeley, leading lumbermen, paper manufacturers, 

 wood-using manufacturers, farmers, sportsmen, representatives of 

 labor, chambers of commerce and other organizations appeared in 

 favor of the bill and of this plan for financing the project. There is 

 no doubt that the members of that committee were convinced of the 

 soundness of the financial schedule, but the legislature had just voted 

 a bond issue of $8,000,000 for the purchase of a subway, and politics 

 decreed that the people might not understand, if further bond issues 

 were approved. Hence the plan fell a victim to political expediency. 

 On the other hand the legislature did recognize the justice of our 

 demands and the necessity for some action, and accordingly authorized 

 the expenditure of $3,000,000 for the purchase and reforestation of 

 100,000 acres in fifteen years. 



If the sale of bonds for forest restoration is practicable, and many 

 foresters and business men agree that it is, are we justified in con- 

 tinuing to ask for direct appropriations for this work? With 81,000,000 

 acres of idle, potential forest land in the country surely the National 

 Forest area should be increased by at least half that amount. The 

 land so purchased should be planted where necessary as soon as 

 possible, and millions of acres in the present National Forests .should 



