IQO FORESTRY IN NEW ENGLAND 



mistakes made by a people just beginning to govern themselves. 

 Canada has been fortunate in escaping a policy which, until the 

 administration of President Cleveland, was followed by our state 

 and national governments. 



Naturally the lumber business grew rapidly with the removal 

 of the old restrictions and the passing of these great tracts into 

 private hands. The French traveler Michaux ^ says, that when 

 he was at Windsor, Maine, in 1806, "the river was covered with 

 thousands of logs of which the diameter of the greater part was 

 fifteen or sixteen inches, and that of the remainder (perhaps one- 

 fiftieth of the whole) twenty inches. The blue ash and red pine 

 were the only species mingled with them (white pine) and these 

 in not the proportion of one to a hundred." He adds elsewhere: 

 "For a space of 600 miles from Philadelphia to a distance beyond 

 Boston, I did not observe a single stock of the white pine large 

 enough for the mast of a vessel of 600 tons." In 1807 the im- 

 portations of timber to Great Britain from the United States 

 amounted to $1,302,980, of which white pine formed about 

 one-fifth. This sold in Liverpool at that time at about $20 

 per M. 



Probably the greatest transfer of lands ever made in New 

 England was that known as the "Bingham Purchase," by which, 

 in 1793, William Bingham, of Philadelphia, secured 2,107,396 

 acres in Maine at twelve and a half cents an acre. Much of the 

 land disposed of by the state in these early days went to pay 

 soldiers of the Revolution and the War of 181 2. Perhaps the 

 best disposition of public land was to the various colleges which 

 were established about this time. According to an early history 

 of New England, about 80,000 acres were originally granted to 

 Dartmouth College, and it was estimated that the income from 

 this in 1805 would be the munificent sum of $2000, a little 

 over two cents an acre. The Legislature of Vermont granted 

 about 33,000 acres in 1791 for the support of the University at 

 Burlington. Unfortunately this was scattered through every 

 section of the state, and an economical management of it was 



^ See "History of .\merican Lumber Industry," Defebaugh. 



