FOREST^ VEGETATION IN NEW HAMPSHIEE. 401 



done with the lot for the next twenty-five years — having sold it, how- 

 ever, during that time. Upon examining it he found that, by a careful 

 estimate, the lot which had been thinned was worth at least a third more 

 per acre than the rest which had been left. It was worth at that time 

 at least $100 an acre. He thought that had the land been judiciously 

 thinned yearly, enough would have been obtained to have paid the taxes 

 and interest on the purchase, above the cost of cutting and drawing out, 

 besides bringing the whole tract up to the value of the two acres which 

 had been thinned out. 



At the time when this part was thinned, (twenty-five years from the 

 seed) he took a few of the tallest, about 8 inches on the stump, and 40 

 to 50 feet high, and hewed on one side for rafters for a shed. At the 

 next twenty-five years, (fifty from the seed), he and the owner estimated 

 that the trees left on the two acres would average six or eight feet 

 apart. They were mostly Norway pine, ten to twenty inches in diam- 

 eter, and eighty to a hundred feet high. He was greatly surprised seven 

 or eight years" after, to seethe increase of growth, especially the two 

 acres thinned thirty years before. The owner had done nothing, except 

 occasionally cutting a few dead trees. It was now the opinion of both, 

 that the portion thinned out was worth twice as much as the other; not, 

 however, that there was twice the amount of wood on the thinned portion, 

 but from the extra size and length of the trees, and their enhanced value 

 for boards, logs, and timber. There were hundreds of Norway and white 

 pines that could be hewn or sawed into square timber, from 40 to 50 feet 

 in length, suitable for the frames of large houses, barns, and other 

 buildings. There were some dead trees on the two acres thinned at an. 

 early day, but they were only small trees shaded out by the large ones. 

 On the part left to nature's thinning, there was a vastly greater num- 

 ber of dead trees — many of them fallen, and nearly worthless. Of the 

 dead trees standing, cords might be cut, well dried, and excellent for 

 fuel. Estimates were made that this woodland would yield 350 cords of 

 wood, or 150,000 feet of lumber per acre. Allowing that these were too 

 large, the real amount must have brought a very large profit on the in- 

 vestment. 



It is estimated by Mr. Joseph B. Walker,^ that about 3,000,000 of 

 acres, or half the area of New Hampshire, is wooded — some with primi- 

 tive, but much of it with recent, growth, scattered over all parts of the 

 State, in tracts varying from a few acres to a few thousand. 



It is interesting to notice traces of regulations tending to the preser- 

 vation of forests in this region in the earliest periods of settlement, evi- 

 dently by those who had witnessed the worth of timber, or who had felt 

 its want. In 1640, only two years after settlement, the inhabitants of 

 Exeter, regulated the cutting of oak timber by a general order, and in, 

 1708, the Provincial Assembly forbade the cutting of mast-trees on uu- 

 granted lands, under a penalty of £100 sterling. The province at that 

 period had a surveyor-general of forests, for preventing depredations; 

 upon timber. 



Carroll County. — Poplar timber is in fair demand, and is manu- 

 factured into excellent shingles, boards, &c., though to lay on the roofs; 

 of houses, they are inclined to warp. (J. L. Hersey, Carroll County,. 

 N. H.) 



Cheshire County. — The area of woodland in this county is con- 

 stantly increasing, a state of things which speaks well for the future, as 

 the people are becoming aware that the farms high up among the hills. 



' Address upon the forests of New Hampshire. Delivered under the anspices of the 

 Board of Agriculturo during tjie winter of 1871-72. dvo., pp. 20, 



26 F 



