76 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



looks ! " Trade comes in, and trade does not want any trees 

 in the streets of a city. 



Now as to fires : I agree with the essayist that anything 

 that can be done to prevent the burning of the woods should 

 be done. I would agree to a law providing no man should 

 go into a wood lot with a gun or with a dog. [Applause.] 

 They are perfect nuisances. Every Sunday, not only from 

 the villages, but from the cities, men go up and down over 

 our fields with their dogs and guns, and the first you know 

 almost every Sunday in the summer there is a fire in the 

 woods. I would do anything to stop that. Then the rail- 

 roads. There are gentlemen here who know the damage 

 that is done by fires started by sparks from locomotives on the 

 New England road all the way down from Woonsocket Falls to 

 Putnam. Almost every year one, two, three or four hundred 

 acres of heavy chestnut wood are burned. This very last 

 year I was called upon as a referee to appraise the damage 

 to sixty acres of chestnut wood that was destroyed in this way. 

 Again, 1 would prevent the village hoodlums from going to 

 our chestnut trees in the fall and pounding them, as they 

 do about six feet from the ground, with sledge-hammers and 

 axes to bring the chestnuts down. When those trees come 

 to maturity and are cut down we have to throw away about 

 six feet of the trunk of almost every tree. I will agree to 

 anything to keep those hoodlums out of the fields. 



I do not want to be misunderstood. There has been a 

 good deal said about planting forests, having foresters, and 

 all that. I tell you that in my judgment the forests of New 

 England will take care of themselves, if you will take care 

 of the fires and dogs and guns. When my friends talk about 

 setting out trees near school-houses and along roadsides, I 

 agree ; but when they talk about setting out pine trees for 

 profit, I say I can get as much pine in Worcester for nine 

 dollars a thousand, five-inch stock, as there is money to pay 

 for. AYhen you count the cost of cutting it and getting it 

 to market you will see there is more profit in lecturing than 

 in raising pines. [Laughter and applause.] If I lived near 

 Maiden, where they are going to set out a lot of trees, I 

 should not object to that. When I was down there they 



