58 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



forests and trees, likewise has come the unbalanced conditions of 

 animal, bird, fish, and insect life, as well as the more favorable 

 conditions for the development of various possible plant diseases. 



It is evident to the student of plant life that the above named 

 conditions are sufficient to lead us to expect in time troubles for our 

 forest trees, but when to this condition we add the innumerable 

 diseases of plants and insects that have been imported from foreign 

 countries, the whole situation becomes indeed complicated. It 

 naturally follows that in the older sections of the nation like New 

 England in particular, we are among the first to be affected. Here 

 conditions have apparently reached the climax. Realizing that 

 our future depends upon a better and more constructive agriculture 

 and forestry our people in Massachusetts at least are awaking to a 

 realization of the conditions which confront them. 



We have been steadily but surely perfecting a state forest policy 

 for the past ten years and while the results are not as apparent to 

 the casual observer as we wish they were, nevertheless, like the boy 

 who was flying his kite above the clouds, although he could not see 

 it, he knew it was there-by its pull, so in the forestry work the pull 

 is there in Massachusetts and now and then we have the pleasure^ 

 of seeing results. Every ten years we predict will revolutionize our 

 former conditions. What Germany has accomplished in centuries 

 from a wise forest policy we should be able to accomplish in Massa- 

 chusetts in a far less time. May we not all have an active part in 

 such a laudable undertaking? 



In forest troubles we include a very large number of depredations, 

 the more important of which are damage to forests from fire, 

 disease, insects, wind, and animals. 



In a comparatively new country like ours where practically no 

 attention was given to future conditions, and where due considera- 

 tion of them is gained only by severe experience, we awaken to find 

 many disastrous things have been done which now must be rectified. 

 The problems now are many and complicated, and they could have 

 been avoided with comparatively little effort, if we had had our 

 present knowledge. 



In forest troubles coming from insects and diseases we are finding, 

 as was the case in the fruit-growing industry, our greater troubles 

 come from introduced or so-called foreign insects and diseases 



