REFORESTATION IN MASSACHUSETTS. 17 



Reforestation Work done by the State. 



Under "An Act to provide for the purchase of forest land 

 and for reforestation," passed by the Legislature of 1908, pro- 

 vision is made whereby private landowners may deed tracts of 

 land suitable for reforestation purposes to the State, to be 

 planted and handled under practical forest management, such 

 owners reserving the right to redeem the land at any time 

 within ten years for the actual amount expended. Provision 

 is also made for the distribution of seeds and seedlings at not 

 less than cost to landowners who are citizens of the Common- 

 wealth. 



The State has now acquired over 150 tracts of land under 

 this act, comprising in all about 6,000 acres. The number of 

 trees required in planting these areas, and in supplying the 

 State institutions, the Metropolitan Water Board, the cities, 

 the towns and the schools, has been so great that few, if any, 

 have been left over for the private landowner until the present 

 year. During the spring of 1918, however, we distributed at 

 cost more than 500,000 four-year transplants of white and Scotch 

 pine to citizens in all parts of the State. The price charged for 

 these trees was $7 per 1,000, representing the actual cost of 

 raising them in our nurseries. 



ACTS OF 1908, CHAPTER 478. 

 Reforestation Act. 



SECTION 1. For the purpose of experiment and illustration in forest 

 management, and for the purposes specified in section five of this act, 

 the sum of five thousand dollars may be expended in the year nineteen 

 hundred and eight, and the sum of ten thousand dollars annually there- 

 after, by the state forester, with the advice and consent of the governor 

 and council, in purchasing lands situated within the commonwealth and 

 adapted to forest production. The price of such land shall not exceed hi 

 any instance five dollars per acre, nor shall more than eighty acres be 

 acquired in any one tract in any one year, except that a greater area may 

 so be acquired if the land purchased directly affects a source or tributary 

 of water supply in any city or town of the commonwealth. All lands 

 acquired under the provisions of this act shall be conveyed to the common- 

 wealth, and no lands shall be paid for, nor shall any moneys be expended 

 in improvements thereon, until all instruments of conveyance and the 



