FORESTRY AND ARBORICULTURE IN MASSACHUSETTS. 63 



But considerable intelligeuce, instruction, observation, and fore- 

 thought may be required to determine what lands are really 

 available for profitable agriculture. A great deal of land is 

 farmed in New England which should never have been cleared or 

 cultivated. When farms are abandoned it means that the}' should 

 never have been there. The land would have been more valuable 

 under permanent forest conditions. 



Our agricultural methods are steadily impairing the fertility and 

 productiveness of a large proportion of the soil of our country. 

 It is tilled and pastured to the last degree of exhaustion. A 

 little while ago I saw the great wheat country of the Red River 

 of the North ablaze with burning straw over hundreds of square 

 miles. We are not worth so much as we think. Much of our 

 agriculture impairs and exhausts the capital invested in land. 

 Methods of life which exhaust the soil of a country cannot 

 rightly be called civilized methods. 



The wants of our people are increasing. More and more is 

 required to make life comfortable, interesting, and satisfactory for 

 the inhabitants of this country, while we deal more ignorantly 

 and carelessly with the soil which is the storehouse from which 

 nearly all our wealth must come. 



I think that in New England forestry and arboriculture should 

 be considered largely in their relations to agriculture and to the 

 permanent fertility and productiveness of the soil. It is impor- 

 tant to observe that while no method or system can reasonably be 

 recommended which would be permanently unprofitable, yet much 

 of experiment is necessar}' in forestry and arboriculture as in 

 other fields, and we cannot expect that each particular step or 

 effort will in itself be profitable or yield a good return for the 

 capital invested. No considerable advance is easily or quickly 

 made, and changes of methods are necessarily attended with some 

 inconvenience. There is no wa}^ of learning all about these sub- 

 jects at once. The great need is, not that people should accept 

 an}' particular opinions or judgments regarding subjects about 

 which there is room for difference and uncertainty, but that they 

 should examine these subjects connected with forestry and tree 

 culture with a new degree of attention and interest, especially in 

 their economic aspects and relations. We do not need a senti- 

 mental fashion of talk about them, but we do need, as a means to 

 an important end, to have the people of our country think, talk, 



