478 United States. 



forests and forestry has been productive of an in- 

 creased interest in the subject. Arbor days have per- 

 haps also had a retarding influence upon the practical 

 forestry movement, in leading people into the mis- 

 conception that forestry consists in tree planting, in 

 diverting attention from the economic question of the 

 proper use of existing forest areas, in bringing into the 

 discussion poetry and emotions, which have clouded 

 the hard-headed practical issues, and delayed the 

 earnest attention of practical business men. 



Private efforts in the East in the way of fostering 

 and carrying on economic timber planting should not 

 be forgotten, such as the offering of prizes by the 

 Massachusetts Society for the Promotion of Agricul- 

 ture (as early as 1804 and again in 1876), and the 

 planting done by private land holders at Cape Cod, 

 in Rhode Island, Virginia, and elsewhere. These 

 efforts, to be sure, were only sporadic and unsyste- 

 matic, and on no scale commensurate with the destruc- 

 tion of virgin forest resources. 



A touching attempt of two noble Frenchmen to 

 teach their American hosts a better use of their mag- 

 nificent forest resource, although of little result, 

 should never fail of mention. Andre Michaux and 

 his son, Andre Francois, who, between 1785 and 1805, 

 explored and studied the forest flora of the United 

 States, and published a magnificent North American 

 Sylva in three volumes, left, in recognition of the 

 hospitalities received, two legacies of $20,000 for the 

 "extension and progress of agriculture and more 

 especially of silviculture in the United States," which 

 bequests became available in 1870. The American 



