FOREST TREE PLANTING. 53 



and protection, and make them understand that we must have laws 

 for the protection of forests. 



J. W. Manning said that the Red Cedar is an excellent tree 

 for bleak places, and is easilj' transplanted. He had set out ten 

 thousand, of which not one in ten died. He thought the lumber 

 supply is improving in the White Mountains. Fires destroy more 

 wood than cutters, and are fed by the waste, rotten trees left by 

 the lumbermen ; but there are no Norway Pines among theSe, for 

 they do not decay at the heart. 



Fire is one of the most difficult things to deal with ; one lum- 

 ber man estimated that it does a hundred times as much damage 

 as the axe. Sometimes the soil is composed of spongy vegetable 

 matter to the depth of two or thiee feet ; the trees root all through 

 it and if it is burnt off trees will never flourish there again. He 

 had seen white pines five feet in diameter where the soil below 

 looked like ashes. 



Asa Clement said he had been much interested in Mr. Slade's 

 paper, and concurred in almost ever3'thing he had said. He spoke 

 with regret of the noble White Oaks once common in our forests, 

 but now exhausted, having been used for ship-timber. They were 

 dug up to get knees for ship-building ; the carpenters would bring 

 patterns to get such as were wanted. He has White Oaks and 

 Hickories which he has been nursing for forty or fifty years. Some 

 manufacturers have to send hundreds of miles to get such timber 

 as thej' want. In cutting firewood for tiie Lowell market iiis 

 practice is to cut clean, and leave the stumps to sprout, as hard- 

 wood trees will do if not too old. He hoped that such discussions 

 as this would arouse men to care for the timber they have, and to 

 provide for the future, and not destro}' trees for the sake of de- 

 struction. 



Mr. Strong could not agree with the recommendation of some, 

 to prune in summer. It is true that the wound will be covered 

 sooner, but the shock to the tree from taking off large limbs is 

 much greater than when the tree is dormant. 



William H. Hunt said that the question before the meeting is a 

 very important one. There is a diflference between the situation 

 here and that at tlie West. Taking the country as a whole the 

 forests are disappearing, but here they are increasing. In New 

 England there is much land not profitable for cultivation, on which 

 much labor has been expended that has been substantially thrown 

 awaj', — land so stony that no one ought to have attempted to 



