PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 207 



Two thousand watermelons, filling a train of twenty-five cars, have been pro- 

 duced upon one acre of Alabama soil. It is evident that markets could not be 

 found nor transportation facilities afforded for so vast a quantity of market 

 vegetables and fruits as might be produced in the State. 



You appeal to cotton, but already, as has been clearly demonstrated, this 

 staple is overproduced. In fact, the area which may be profitably devoted to cot- 

 ton is much smaller than that now in use. 



Beyond the necessities of your citizens for home consumption, you can not be 

 expected to produce Indian corn; yet this cereal should be far more extensively 

 grown than ever before. 



After considering every crop which may be grown and marketed, there will 

 still remain twenty million acres which is better adapted for the production of 

 timber than for any other purpose. 



Wood is now one of the world's most important staples, and the principal one 

 which is continuously decreasing in supply. The world is your market for lum- 

 ber. The world demands all the railway cross-ties, telegraph poles, furniture, 

 building and ship timber which can be produced, while with the growing scarcity 

 prices are advancing rapidly. 



Who will be wise enough to provide for the coming emergency ? Will Ala- 

 bama make an effort to check the unnecessary and extravagant wastefulness which 

 has characterized the American people? What will be the State's revenue from 

 several million acres of pine lands which are being cleared by the lumbermen of 

 every available stick of timber, and by the turpentine operators, who are murder- 

 ing the baby pines in almost every locality? 



In every State there are antagonistic interests which must be harmonized if 

 the best interests of the State are to be subserved, and all true, broad-minded citi- 

 zens will recognize the rights and interests of others and sacrifice somewhat of his 

 own in view of the public good. 



The owners of forest lands should aim to make them produce a perpetual 

 income, which can only be accomplished by saving the trees of inferior size, pro- 

 tecting the young growths, and removing only such as are of marketable char- 

 acter. 



To enable this program to be carried out by the land owners, your Legisla- 

 tures should enact such laws for the prevention of forest fires and the encourage- 

 ment of forest perpetuation. 



There is no doubt but fires have caused the destruction of the young seedlings, 

 and if the timber possesses any importance to your State, if the forests promise 

 a revenue for the commonwealth or for the citizens in the future, every possible 

 effort should be made to check the fires and preserve the seedlings, which are the 

 beginning of forests. 



There is no practice so destructive of the South's forests as the present 

 method of turpentine boxing. No sane man will deny that the boxing of pine 

 saplings, four to nine inches diameter, checks their growth and prevents their 

 maturing into lumber. For the sake of a trifling income the importance of a forest 



