STATE LAWS FOR PROMOTION OF TREE-PLANTING. 207 



proofs of planting and of condition were to be established, and an annual 

 report was required.^ 



The above was amended February 29, 1872, by requiring the planta- 

 tion to include at least 160 trees to the acre, and allowing bounties to 

 begin with 1872 and to continue twenty-five years.^ 



This act was repealed March 26, 1874.' 



By an act approved March 3, 1868, it is provided that if any person 

 shall cut down, injure, or destroy or carry away any tree placed or grow- 

 ing for use, shade, or ornament, or any timber, «&c., the party so offend- 

 ing shall pay the injured treble the value of the thing so injured, with 

 costs, and shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be subject 

 to a fine not exceeding $500. 



The general statutes of Kansas (chap, xl), allow owners who may wish 

 to plant a hedge along the highway, to fence in for not more than five 

 years, a strip of the road not more than eight feet from the outer line, 

 except in the corporate limits of cities. 



MAINE. 



The Maine Board of Agriculture, in January, 1869, appointed a com- 

 mittee, consisting of Mr. Calvin Ohamberlain,'and Stephen L. Goodale, 

 their secretary, to present to the legislature such suggestions as they 

 might deem important with reference to the expediency of inaugurating 

 a State policy for encouraging the preservation and production of fov- 

 est-trees, and to call the attention of Congress to the same subject. 

 Their memorial is given in the annual report of the Board for 18G0 (pp. 

 65-85), accompanied by the draught of a bill. The action of the legisla- 

 ture at that session was limited to its being printed for the use of the 

 two Houses and referred to the next legislature. The memorial, in 

 speaking upon the duty of the State in this regard, says : 



Men need to be taught that we have no moral right to follow blindly an iustincfcthat 

 leads only to present personal advantage, regardless of wide-sprtad future evils as a con- 

 sequent ; that we are but tenants of this beautiful earth, not owners in perjietuity ; and 

 that we have rko right to injure the inheritance of those who succeed us, but rather a 

 duty to leave it better for our having occupied it our allotted time. Men need to bo 

 taught to plant trees, and their children to plant trees and to love them. Owners of 

 poor lands need advice and direction iu planting wood uron them, as a crop more hope- 

 ful in riches to future heirs than usual expectations from wasted fields. Owners of 

 good lands in Maine, or elsewhere, will, in the future, learn that their bleak fields, if 

 judiciously planted with wood to the extent of 40 per cent, of area, will produce on 

 the remaining 60 more in all kinds of crops than the whole now does, or can be made 

 to do under any other possible course of treatment. Lands well sheltered can and do 

 produce winter wheat in Maine as well as in England, or on the new lands at the West. 

 An immediate adoption of shelter to all lands would result, as soon as such shelter 

 could be matured, in the independence of our State from imported grain. We speak 

 confidently, because advisedly, on this point. While the State has manifested a lauda- 

 ble ambition in developing its resources, while it has wisely provided guardians for 

 the fisheries, and a commission on water-power, it has not yet recognized the more im- 

 portant public concern that underlies both those and all other int'erests. We believe 

 this to be an important public matter that does not lie outside of legitimate legisla- 

 tion. Shall the legislative voice contiuue silent on the matter oi forests till the last 

 tree shall be cut, thus insuring dry channels to the rivers and the consequent death of 

 the^sftes ? Must the man of Christendom be taught that monarchies alone are com- 

 petent to guard and preserve physical nature so as to yield its sustenance in a perpetual 

 round ? Or shall a professed Republic for once arise from an nnaccountable lethargy 

 and assert its force in its determination to protect itself, and make its declaration of 

 intention to have a country in the distant future worth possessing and worth preserv- 

 ing still? F o 1 



1 General Statutes of Kansas (1868), p. 1094. 



2 Chap. 204, Laws of Kansas (1872), p. 402. 



3 Chap. 7G, Laws of Kansas (1874), p. 110. 



