\«». L] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xi 



Financial and Premium Returns of the Agricultural 



Societies. 

 The financial returns of the various incorporated agricul- 

 tural societies, together with an analysis of the premiums 

 and gratuities paid by them, with their membership and 

 institutes for the year 1901, will be found tabulated and 

 printed in this volume. 



Forests and Forest Preservation. 



The forests of a country are its grandest charm. A tree 

 is an inspiration to the noblest thought, the purest aspira- 

 tion. On its beauty the poet has dwelt, and it has inspired 

 the noblest songs. The sage of Concord was a noble exam- 

 ple of tree love and communion with nature in her noblest 

 gift of beauty to a lovely world. " The groves were Clod's 

 first temples." Yes, and when they are defaced, enfeebled 

 or destroyed, something of God's love is lost and a thrill of 

 joy departs from the earth. Travel where you will in our 

 beautiful New England, and the beaut} r that first enchains 

 the eye and enraptures the heart is the beauty of tree and 

 foliage. Flowers are lovely, and their presence is a min- 

 istry full of gentleness, grace and love, but the tree is 

 grander and nobler and higher. The beauty of its foliage 

 is a delight : its graceful form, the artist's dream ; and its 

 sturdy strength, defying the tempest's wrath and the winter's 

 blasts, and gaining strength from the very contests with 

 nature in her roughest moods, imparts strength to human 

 endeavor and gives power to bullet and succeed. The old 

 Scotch saying, " Plant a tree, Jamie, and it will grow when 

 ye be sleeping,'' has in it something more than Scotch thrift- 

 mess, — it indicates his sturdy strength and his honest char- 

 acter. We can conceive of no calamity more to be deplored 

 than the defoliating, enfeebling, destructive work of the in- 

 sect pests, sapping the life of these grand monarchs of hill 

 and dale. To save them is the duty of the present time, 

 when they are menaced by so many dangers, — the gypsy 

 moth, the brown-tail moth, the elm-leaf beetle and the San 

 Jose scale. Add to these the lumberman's greed and the care- 

 less destruction of our forests by fires, and the list is alarming. 



