2 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



Perhaps it would not be premature here to indicate what 

 steps have already been taken in the new direction in this 

 country, ist. The general government has already set apart 

 46,828,449 acres of the public domain as forest reservations. 

 2d. The State of New York is already in possession of more 

 than 1,000,000 acres as a forest reserve, and hopes to add at 

 least two million acres more to that which it already possesses. 



3d. Pennsylvania has purchased nearly 150,000 acres dur- 

 ing the past three years, and will probably not stop until at 

 least 2,000,000 acres have been converted into a well-timbered 

 forestry reservation. 



4th. The states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, 

 seeing the disappearance of their forests, are now actively 

 striving after some plan by which their lumbering industries 

 may be perpetuated. 



5th. Maine, too, and Massachusetts have in one way or 

 another sought the restoration of their forests, on such ground 

 as is not better adapted to other crops. 



Clearly then there is some force at work which has in- 

 troduced this change in our ideas about forests. This is the 

 very first generation of native born citizens that entertained 

 any ideas concerning perpetuation of our timbered areas. All 

 who came before them were concerned mainly with converting 

 timbered into cleared land, nor can we wonder at it, because 

 whatever came afterwards, the daily bread was produced upon 

 the farm, and not in the forest. 



It is hard to say with certainty to what this change is 

 mainly due. Probably to several causes, rather than to a 

 single cause. 



It was easy enough, back in the seventies, to recognize 

 that, as a whole, over the entire land, forests were being cut 

 faster than they were being reproduced. But this alarmed 

 almost no one, for we had such boundless faith in the resources 

 of the country that no anxiety was felt. Then there came 

 statements more or less clearly made and substantiated that 

 removal of the forests was diminishing the rainfall of the 

 country. After years of attention to this statement the worst 

 that can be said of it is that it is not proved that the presence 

 or absence of forests increases or diminishes the rainfall of 

 any region. It was charged later that as we removed the 

 forests we invited the tornadoes which were so frequent in 

 the treeless regions of the West. This, too, proved to be a 



