No. 4.] REPORT OF STATE FORESTER. *315 



tree crop than used for any other purpose. These acres should 

 therefore be converted to forestry as rapidly as possible. If each 

 farmer will act accordingly, it may be only a matter of a compara- 

 tively short time when New England would be blessed with well- 

 balanced rural conditions. The State Forester, agricultural colleges 

 and forestry schools of various New England States are ever ready 

 to assist and advise in forestry work. 



The same culture that will return saw logs to our mills, make work 

 for our country folk in winter, replenish our town treasuries, repaint 

 the old red schoolhouse, pay the sexton to again ring the country 

 church bell, make better roads, and, in short, return the former sub- 

 stantial livelihood of country life, will also conserve moisture, pro- 

 tect and enrich the soil, give an equitable climate, and return to New 

 England the natural beauty we all would love so much to see. 



This is a seed year for the white pine in Massachusetts, and it 

 may be elsewhere. Let each farmer collect some cones before they 

 open, which is very shortly, then extract the seeds and plant them 

 next spring in a bed in the garden. In two years' time he wUl have 

 enough seedlings, if they are i^roperly cared for, to set out many 

 acres. We must learn to plant and care for our forest lands in the 

 same way we do our better tillable soils, and they then will bring 

 proportional yields of profit. The beauty of the whole forestry 

 problem of New England is that in its practical solution it not only 

 results in economic forestiy, but solves the aesthetic side as well. 

 It is entirely wrong to think that trees should never be cut. Lumbei-- 

 ing is as important to successful forestry as is the digging of potatoes 

 or the harvesting of any crop when it is ripe. The same essentials 

 of culture, also, must be understood in getting maximum returns in 

 the one case as in the other. 



F. W. Rane, 

 Massachusetts State Forester. 



"Row TO COLLECT AND USE WhITE PiNE SeED. 



White pine seeds sell at $4.50 retail, $2 in large lots, in Boston 

 this summer, and the seeds of some other evergreen trees are still 

 higher. Every owner of woodland with matured pines is in a posi- 

 tion to take advantage of these almost fabulous prices, for the time 

 has arrived when the pine cones should be picked. The white pine 

 cones containing the seeds are ripe, and should be picked at once. 

 This dry weather will open the cones before many days, and the 

 seeds will drop out and scatter to the four winds, almost a total 

 loss, while prudent lumbermen all over the country are paying high 

 prices for seeds picked elsewhere. The market has to be supplied; 

 it fixes a price that will produce the goods. If the seeds cannot be 

 obtained at $4.50 per pound, they will go higher, until the farmers 

 go into the business of seed picking or give away their prospects to 



