60 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



The land which is naturally adapted for a forest growth is 

 not suitable for pasturage ; and inversely, the land which is 

 suitable for pasturage is too valuable to be given up to 

 forests. 



The economic value of the forests of Massachusetts may 

 be summed up in a few words, — enough, however, to show 

 the importance of fostering care to preserve our present 

 forest growth and of encouraging its increase. The value 

 of the wood used for fuel in Massachusetts reached, in 1880, a 

 sum of upwards of four million six hundred thousand dollars ; 

 and, aside from this, capital to the amount of two and on.e- 

 half millions of dollars is invested in lumber manufacturing 

 in this State, in which business thirty-one hundred hands arc 

 at times engaged, to whom nearly half a million dollars are 

 annually paid for wages.* 



This is in a State which is hardly considered in making up 

 the lumber statistics of the country ; and yet Ave have at 

 Winchendon some of the most important wooden-ware man- 

 ufacturing establishments in the world. f We must feel, 

 therefore (small as we appear on the map, and insignificant 

 as is our position in the list of lumber-producing States), 

 that we have industries in wood by no means to be despised, 

 and which, owing to the favorable condition of the climate 

 and soil for the production of certain useful woods, and the 

 changes taking place in the uses of land for agricultural 

 purposes, may be profitably encouraged and greatly devel- 

 oped . 



The only forest planting, however, likely to become 

 general here must be upon a small scale. For such planta- 

 tions no tree is so well adapted both to soil and climate, or 

 so free from destruction by drought, disease or the attack of 

 insects, as the white pine. It is readily obtained, easily 

 cultivated, and is more certain to bring profitable returns, — 

 and that too in a shorter time, — than almost any other 

 species. For drier soil and upon the sandy coast the red 

 pine or the pitch pine may, of course, be substituted, with a 

 success proved by actual experiment. 



Profitable plantations of European larch have also been 



* Forests of N. A. Rep. U. S. Census, 1880, Vol. IX., p. 486. 

 t Ibid., p. 501. " The most important point in the United States." 



