AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 271 



gramme to give an address upon horse-breeding, but I do not 

 intend to do it. I do not know how it could have got into 

 print. I knew there would be no time for it, and to-morrow 

 we have a very important jjaper, which Mr. Moore will an- 

 nounce, and it will be impossible, probably, for me to say 

 any more upon this subject than I have said to-night. But I 

 know that the suggestion is all that you want. I hope you 

 will bear it in your minds, carry it to your neighbors, and 

 make it a matter of common information. 



The Chairman, The tirst matter on the programme for 

 to-morrow, is a paper from Professor Sargent, on forest fires. 

 It is a very important subject, upon which we may desire 

 to take some action with a view to securing legislation upon 

 it. This meeting will be adjourned to meet here to-morrow 

 at half-past nine o'clock, as it may take considerable time to 

 get through with the paper and the discussion upon it, and 

 after that perhaps the Secretary will give you a lecture on 

 the horse. 



THIRD DAY. 



The meeting was called to order at nine and one-half 

 o'clock, Mr. Avery P. Slade of Somerset in the chair. 



In the absence of Mr. Sargent, the Secretary read his 

 paper on forest fires. 



FOREST FIRES. 



BY PROF. C. S. SARGENT, BROOKLINE, MASS. 



The necessity of devising methods for preventing the 

 spread of forest fires cannot, with the growing demands of a 

 larger population upon our forests, be longer safely neglected. 

 The forest question has become a question of dollars and 

 cents ; we cannot loriger aflbrd to allow our forests to burn. 



The proportion of actually productive forest to population 

 is in New England already too low, and we have long im- 

 ported most of our forest sui)plies from Canada, from the 

 Western pineries, and from the South. The centre of lum- 

 ber distribution has moved westward from New England to 

 beyond the Hudson, and then to the shores of Lake Michigan. 



