276 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



possible moment, and thus reduce the risk of probable loss 



l)y fire. 



Under these circumstances it is useless to adopt any of the 

 methods of thinning or pruning by which the value of young 

 forest trees for timber may be vastly improved, or to guard 

 the woods from roaming and destructive cattle; and it fol- 

 lows that a large portion of the profits which our forests 

 could be made to yield, under a different policy, are lost. 



The forest fires, then, destroy the trees. They destroy 

 the capacity of the land to produce again during long years 

 similar trees ; and, finally, they so shake the public confi- 

 dence in the permanent value of forest property that, even 

 in a State like Massachusetts from which the original forest 

 has long disappeared, and where the value of all forest prod- 

 ucts is°enormously high, capital will not engage in forest 

 production, which, with the condition of our forests, could 

 certainly be made enormously profitable, until the risks from 

 fire are reduced to a minimum. This is a matter of special 

 interest to New England to-day, because upon it largely 

 depend the country's supply of White Pine, and the greatly 

 enhanced value in the early future of much New England 



land. 



Not a small part of central and southern New England, 

 no longer profitable for agriculture, is now growing up with 

 White Pine ; and this White Pine, if it can only be pro- 

 tected, will, in a few years, it is safe to predict, exceed in 

 value the net profit all the New England f^irms can produce 

 during the next fifty years. In some parts of New England 

 this second growth of Pine has been growing for a consider- 

 able time, aiul has already given rise to large and profitable 

 industries. The value of logs cut in Massachusetts during 

 the census year, reached nearly two million dollars ; at least 

 one-half were second-growth W^hite Pine. More than one 

 hundred million feet of second-growth White Pine were 

 sawed during the san)e year in Vermont and New Hamp- 

 shire, and nearly if not quite as much more in Maine. The 

 manufacture of wooden ware, an important and growing 

 Massachusetts industry depending upon this second-growth 

 l>ine, has made Winchendon, Worcester County, the great 

 centie of this business in the United States, if not in the 



