THE FOREST INTERESTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 39 



as much. They must be judiciously pruned ; it will not do to trim 

 up a young tree too closel}', but the limbs should be cut off six 

 inches from the trunk. The stump will then die and can be 

 knocked off the next year ; and in this way you will get clear pine, 

 worth from four to six times the value of that from knott}^ trees, 

 where small limbs have been cut close. The Black Walnut, if 

 pruned, will be of great value. The Chestnut grows well all over the 

 State, and always makes good timber. The Larch is a very useful 

 and rapidly growing tree ; the speaker planted some for ornament, 

 and twenty-six years after wanted twenty sticks, to square eight 

 inches by ten and thirty feet long. He could not get them without 

 resorting to his ornamental trees, and so he cut out alternate trees ; 

 some of which showed annual rings three-quarters of an inch in 

 thickness. The larch holds its size well, and makes stiff timber 

 which cannot be sprung. There are many other trees that will 

 grow on waste land. Farmers say that tree planting does not 

 pay, but they who plant will see their account in it, and they or 

 their heirs will reap great benefit from it. 



Francis H. Appleton said that the present laws in regard to 

 forest fires refer only to malicious or wilful injury-, and if the law 

 were made to include fires set carelessly' or negligently the judges 

 could use their discretion in regard to young persons brought before 

 them for that offence. 



E. W. Wood thought that the statements of the essayist in re- 

 gard to barren lands were perhaps true. Among the early set- 

 tlers, the farmers had so much land that they could not cultivate it 

 all. Within the last twenty-five years so much land has grown up 

 to wood, that we have more wooded land now than we had before 

 that time. Then the farmers got an income from old wood 

 lots, but now the wood is largely a new growth. There is not 

 one-fourth part as much wood used for fuel now as there was 

 twenty-five years ago. Then there was not a ton of coal used in 

 the native town of the speaker ; now the fires are all of coal. The 

 locomotives were all run with wood then. We are likely to have 

 enough firewood to supply the demand, but not enough timber. 

 Much of the land where it has been recommended to plant forest 

 trees is adapted to apple trees ; strong land on rough sidehills is 

 the best in the world for them, and they will bear full crops in ten 

 or twelve 3ears, and bring in quicker returns than forest trees. 



Mr. Brewer thouo;ht we mioht be in danger of losing sight of the 



