40 MASSACHUSETTS lIOKTrCULTUKAL SOCIKTV. 



regions onco fiTlile have become thus blighted, and now siiow 

 league after league of rocky, seamed, and scarred desolation, as 

 irrecoverable as the deseit of Sahara ; and it is now too late to do 

 much towards preserving what remains. We go on cutting limber 

 because it is proHtable, and fire soon comes in among the brush and 

 debris left, and the soil, being largely composed of vegetalde mat- 

 ter, is to a great extent consumed. The lirst tire makes it easier 

 for the next, and soon there is no soil left on slo|)ing grounds, but 

 it is washed down, choking streams and destroying springs, until the 

 barren waste that remains is a pitiful sight. Saw-mills are de- 

 serted, having neither water nor logs to keep them working. There 

 are iu the Adirondack region the ruins of many saw-mills where 

 one wonders that a saw-mill should ever have been built. In New 

 Hampshire the water suppl}' is found to fail ; and when the cause 

 is inquired into it is found that the springs were at the heads of 

 ravines covered with forests which the farmers cut off, burning the 

 dry rubbish. As a result the surface became disintegrated and 

 too diy for further vegetation, and soon thore was the l)eginning of 

 a vast chasm, ^^'hole farms have thus been destroyed, and the 

 sand creeps over them. There are in that State ninny plains 

 formerly covered with white pine, but which, since the forest was 

 cut off, have become deserts of shifting sand. People lament 

 this result, but they are responsible for it. 



IIuw to prevent this destruction and rei)lacc our forests is one 

 of the most iniport:int (piestions of the (lay. The first step must 

 be to educate tlie piililic to a sense of the urgency of the case. 

 There has been much agitation of the subject, and much has been 

 published in the journals of the day ; various agricultural and hor- 

 ticultural societies are now debating the subject with interest, and 

 doing much in the right direction, — yet thus far we have not sulli- 

 ciently protected an acre of forest, or stayed the lumberman's axe 

 at tiie foot of a single tree. The State of New York has a forestry 

 commission which last year presented to the Legislature three bills 

 designed for the [)rotection and renewal of forests, but it was ira- 

 [jossible to persuade politicians of their necessitj', and only one 

 was passe<l, and tiiat was first shorn of its most usefid parts. The 

 result was worse than if nothing had been done. One of the mem- 

 bers of this commission was a lumberman. 



It is a question how far we can depend on the means hitherto 

 used to awaken- interest in this subject ; proI)ably we have about 



