282 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



spring up around, and are cut off as fast as they get large 

 enough to use, and they grow very luxuriantly. I recollect 

 going, some years ago, to a forest that had been used as a 

 family wood-lot, and was cut into every year, and the pines 

 and oaks there were the second growth. 



There is one point suggested by the essayist which would 

 seem to be quite a tax upon a person cutting off wood ; that 

 is, that he should be obliged to burn up the brush. Now, 

 l)erh;ips it would cost five cents a cord more to pay a man to 

 pile up his brush in winrows. He has got to handle most of 

 the brush to get it out of his way, and to put it in winrows 

 would not be any great hardship. 



I have a case in mind where a lot within a mile of me is 

 being cut oft' this winter. It is covered with chestnut, which 

 was sold for a hundi-ed dollars an acre, and the man has been 

 offered four hundred dollars for his bargain. Three French 

 Canadians are cutting that off, and for their own convenience 

 in hauling, they are piling the brush in winrows ; of course 

 it is more convenient for those who draw the wood off. 



Mr. Manning. I do not understand that the same kind 

 of forest may not be continued for any length of time, if 

 the trees are thinned out, and the smaller ones allowed to 

 grow ; under such circumstances, the same kind of wood 

 will continue for a long time. Frequently, after a growth 

 of pine is cut off, fire burns over the ground, destroying all 

 small evergreens, and if anything comes up, it is the small 

 deciduous trees that were imder the pines, but not very 

 conspicuous until the pines were taken away. If pines do 

 come up, it will be because there are seed-bearing trees near 

 by. I have seen a case where the fire killed every tree in a 

 certain section excepting a few seed-bearing trees a little 

 higher up on a hill ; and yet, in not more than five years, 

 the land was coming up with a new growth of pines, from 

 seed wafted by the Avind from the few remaining trees. If 

 these trees had not been there, there Avould not have been 

 another growth for many years. 



The injury to the land and to growing trees of any kind, 

 where fire has burned, is very great. The injury is much 

 greater where the land is dry and rocky than on fertile land 

 and deep soil. Many fires come from locomotives on the 



