08 



place, and all through low water, streams would have trickled 

 through the woods and swollen the Merrimack when it was low/ 



"Remarking upon the experience of European countries in this 

 matter, especially France, along the valley of the Rhone, by which 

 they were compelled to adopt stringent measures to protect the for- 

 ests along the rivers and their affluents, Mr. Coolidge proceeds to 

 point out the great seriousness of the subject to such a, city as 

 Manchester, and such a state as New Hampshire, It is the power of 

 her rivers which gives New Hampshire its greatest importance. The 

 damage done, he declares, is already most serious, 'and if this state 

 of things continues, manufacturing by the water power of the 

 Merrimack will become, in my judgment, impossible. No new mills 

 will be put up and the old ones will have to use steam, which places 

 them at a great disadvantage with regard to other manufacturing 

 cities where coal is much cheaper owing to less transportation. Our 

 coal has to be carried to the seaboard at Baltimore or Newport News, 

 transported by water to Portsmouth at a cost ranging from sixty 

 cents to |2 per ton, and taken by car to Manchester at an addi- 

 tional price of twenty-five cents for unloading and seventy-five cents 

 for freight from Portsmouth to Manchester.' 



"The strength of such manufactories as the Amoskeag Mills con- 

 sists largely in their situation where, nature pours over their water- 

 wheels, at the lowest possible cost, the power that moves their 

 spindles and looms. If these water powers are to be destroyed, such 

 industries will be practically destroyed. If steam must be used, 

 and coal brought from the distant mines, the condition will be revo- 

 lutionized. Compared with Fall River, Manchester is at a disad- 

 vantage of f 1 a ton in the purchase of coal, and compared with mills 

 in the South, |2 a ton. 'I appeal to you, gentlemen,' earnestly says 

 Mr. Coolidge, 'for the interest of New Hampshire, which depends on 

 the success of the manufacturing corporations situated on the Mer- 

 rimack and the other streams of the State, to exert your utmost in- 

 fluence to induce the next Legislature to protect the forests re- 

 maining.' " 



You will recognize that this most vital relation of the forests to 

 the water power of the State is not new here. It was most fully 

 brought out by the Commissioner of Forestry and enforced by pho- 

 tographic illustrations at the meeting of the State Board of Agricul- 

 ture, held in Bethlehem in June, 1893. What gives, however, special 

 weight to it now is the fact that the statement above quoted is from 

 a practical man, with large business interests, and is his well- 

 weighed, deliberate utterance, after the threatened danger had de- 

 veloped into an accomplished fact. Surely, it may be regarded as 

 beyond the dictation of mere sentiment, and as a timely and needed 

 warning to us. If the condition of things which Mr. Coolidge depicts 



