72 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Chester. Now, on this Manchester lot of twentj-'five acres the 

 growth was all cut off some forty-five 3'ears ago, and now I am cut- 

 ting on that same land wood which averages thirty to thirty-five 

 cords to the acre, of maple, beech, poplar; and there are a number 

 of trees of hemlocks of considerable value ranging from a foot to a 

 foot and a half and some two feet in diameter. The poplars are 

 from six inches to fifteen in diameter. I am selling wood every 

 3'ear now from that lot, the best of hard wood bringing me six dol- 

 lars a cord dry and five green. For the poplar I get four dollars a 

 cord. 80 I may safely say that that wood brings me in an average 

 of five dollars a cord. At thirty cords per acre that would be one 

 hundred and fifty dollars per acre from that growth of forty years. 

 Now isn't that land worth preserving? And wouldn't many of our 

 farmers be better off if they had taken the pains to enclose the 

 land where they cut off their forest? I know right in the city of 

 Augusta there are forests, on the Bond brook road and on Mt. Ver- 

 non Avenue there are forests of fine gfowth where only fort\' or 

 fifty years ago the land was stripped, because cattle have not occu- 

 pied it ; and close to Hallowell there is a valuable growth of wood 

 on a piece that in my boyhood days was entirely stripped. The 

 wood lot is now very valuable and is owned by the Winthrop heirs 

 of Boston. 



Sec. Gilbert. The matter of the proper time for Arbor Day is 

 one of some importance and I fully appreciate the remarks of the 

 gentleman last up in regard to the situation last year. While we 

 know that the matter of the appointment of that day is in the hands 

 of the Governor, yet I presume he would be glad of suggestions on 

 our part, or from a meeting of this kind, representing a wide area 

 of the State, in regard to what date would be suitable to set apart 

 for that purpose. And I think it would be a very good thing indeed 

 to suggest a day or a week here at this time and communicate the 

 same to the Governor. 



Mr. Briggs. There was one point advanced, in regard to cut- 

 ting wood for timber, that I should not entirely agree with the 

 speaker about. I have been in the wood and lumbering business 

 twenty-five or thirty years until some five or six years ago. For- 

 merly, I had my choppers take out the old growth. I soon found out 

 that that was not the best way to protect our wood lots. Latterly, 

 I have cut everything clean when cutting for timber. If you wish 

 it to grow up to any other growth or to reproduce itself, it should 



