RECENT TROUBLES WITH OUR FOREST TREES. 

 By Frank W. Rane, State Forester of Massachusetts. 



Delivered before the Society, with stereopticon illustrations, 

 February 10, 1917. 



The John Lewis Russell Lecture. 



We are inclined to think that originally, before our forefathers 

 discovered these shores, America was a country largely covered 

 with magnificent forests which had stood unmolested for centuries 

 upon centuries and were absolutely free from all sorts of depreda- 

 tions particularly insects and diseases. These conditions appar- 

 ently prevailed also throughout our pioneer days in every section 

 of the country, and it is only within recent years that our real 

 forest and tree troubles have come upon us. 



As long as the normal conditions prevailed the balance of nature 

 was preserved and there was little trouble, but with so-called 

 development through the agency of man, complicated conditions 

 have arisen. We have not only been cleaning up forests and utiliz- 

 ing the land for agriculture, which is a legitimate undertaking, 

 but we have been recklessly allowing indifference as to future 

 conditions until today we are beginning to reap the results. In the 

 struggle for existence of all kinds of vegetation, particularly forest 

 trees which are trying to exist in every condition possible excepting 

 their normal environment, is it any wonder that they have become 

 susceptible to all kinds of troubles? 



Forest fires alone have been allowed to run rampant over our 

 slashings and forest tracts, laying waste great expanses of territory 

 and destroying the leaf mould and reservoirs of plant food which, 

 had they been preserved, might have given growth to sufficient 

 forests in the future to supply a growing nation with all the forest 

 products it could possibly use. With the changing environment of 



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