40 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



fact tlial the argiiniont is uot in favor of cherisliing the wild growtlj, 

 or of producing firewood, but of systematic planting of trees for 

 timber. 



C. L. Allen of Garden City, Long Island, said that a friend of 

 his who has a farm on Long Island of two hundred and forty 

 acres, one hundred and forty of Avhieh is rough land, unlit for 

 agricultural purposes, thirty or forty years ago cut olf all the wood 

 except the chestnut from the latter portion and planted locust ; and 

 this is now the most profitable part of the farm. He goes to his 

 wood to get money to pay his taxes ; in fact the rou>2h portion of 

 the farm brings in more mone}' annually than the arable land, with- 

 out labor other than cutting and carting the timber, and without 

 manure. The speaker has on his own farm fifty acres of white 

 sand — as poor as any soil can be — whore a former owner planted 

 a portion to ailanthus trees, which are nearly as valuable as the 

 locust, and which will make timber fit for mechanical uses in 

 fifteen years from the time of planting, and yield a large revenue 

 on the investment. 



William II. Hills of Plaistow, N. IL, said that he was a member 

 of a committee to investigate the effect of forests on the rainfall 

 and the tendency of removing them to produce drought in his 

 State, and it was found that cutting off forests did not aflect the 

 rainfall, but did produce drought ; the snow melting much more 

 quickly, making the floods greater in the spring, and the rivers 

 lower in summer. In regard to reforesting, if he were a young 

 man, he would like no better speculation than growing and plant- 

 ing seedling forest trees. It is easily done. Nature is constantly 

 doing it. He has planted Scotch Larch and Norway Spruce trees 

 which are now two feet in diameter and are stocking up all his 

 neighbors' pastuies. Seedlings can be bought of nurserymen at 

 an exceedingly low rale. One can also easily stock his land with 

 oaks and nut-beaiiiig trees. He has white birches which sprang 

 up Iron) seed as thickly as rye, and are now six feet high. The 

 statutes thus far enacted in New Hampshire to prevent forest 

 fires are of very little value ; no one has ever been convicted under 

 them. He lives near the line Itetween New Ilauipishirc jmd Mas- 

 •sachusetts, and many |)eople come over there from the latter State 

 and eithei- wilfully or neligently set lire to the forests, and it is 

 dillicult to detect them in the act, but hundreds of acres are burneil 

 over. The land is being stripped rapidly by portable saw mills. 



