A FORESTRY ENABLING LAW 503 



of a discovery of valuable mineral resources and consequent growth 

 of a city. Suppose such an event happened 10 years after a plantation 

 was started and the owner desired to sell the land for building lots, 

 then he could pay the Government the $5 'per acre plus interest on 

 that amount compounded annually at 4 per cent for 10 years and have 

 his land released by the Government from the mortgage encumbering 

 it. And the Government could invest the amount received at 4 per cent 

 to be compounded annually and the proceeds therefrom in 45 more 

 years would meet the payment of the principal and the interest on an 

 amount of 55-year bonds which were issued the same year the particu- 

 lar plantation was made, which covered the cost of planting an equal 

 number of acres. 



This outline is based upon the belief that there are many farmers 

 who have land that they consider practically valueless which they 

 would be glad to see growing up to trees but who are deterred from 

 incurring the expense of setting the trees out by the long time they 

 believe they would have to wait before they got any return. Through- 

 out New England and New York are farms that are entirely worn out 

 or have one or more meadows completely played out or pastures 

 grown up to such weeds as western oats or paint brush. With the 

 forest gone, with the fox and squirrel and partridge that used to make 

 the country so interesting, when the farmers were young, also gone, 

 and with even the trout brooks now dry, many a valley is ranged by 

 bare, bleak hills that furnish little interest for the rural people and less 

 profit for those who try to farm those hills. Also there must be 

 many lumber men and pulp men who would be glad to have their idle 

 lands producing another crop but who do not consider themselves in 

 a position to incur the initial expense. The reader can go into any 

 backwoods community and find men who like such pursuits as hunting, 

 fishing, picking berries, hunting ginseng, lumbering and other things 

 that take them into the fields and woods but who will not come out 

 into civilization to take up regular work where they will be restricted 

 to regular hours under a boss. Yet they can get such work as they 

 will do for only a small part of the year. If they could get a fair day's 

 wages for setting out trees, perhaps on their own little played-out 

 farms, or on the neighboring denuded or burned-over tracts of the 

 lumber or pulp company, the potential value of their wasted labor 

 power would be saved, they would be happy in seeing come back the 



