No. 4.] FORESTRY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 43 



A FOREST POLICY FOR MASSACHUSETTS. 



BY B. E. FEIiNOAV, LL.L)., ITHACA, N. Y. 



Simple truths rule the world, and if we would only find 

 them out and appreciate them in time, and act accordingly, 

 there would be less friction, and the world would be better 

 ordered. " Times change, and we change with them ; " but 

 ive are always more or less behind with our changes, and 

 must pay the penalty of our tardiness. And if we are indi- 

 viduall}^ slow in recognizing truths and in changing our 

 habits and modes of life, the aggregates of individuals, the 

 comnmnity, the public and the republic, are still slower to 

 understand, to move, to change. 



These commonplace observations on the manner of progress 

 in the world force themselves with a sad foreboding upon 

 him who contemplates or interests himself in the progress 

 of the forestry movement in the United States. To bring 

 about a better, more rational use of our forest resources is 

 the object of this movement, and the truths upon which it is 

 based have been recognized and preached by the thoughtful 

 these hundred years, but the many have hardly yet a concep- 

 tion of what the movement means. 



It was your own Massachusetts Society for Promotino- Ao-ri- 

 culture which oflered prizes for the encouragement of forest 

 culture as early as 1804, and similar interest in the question 

 was shown even earlier by the sister society in New York, 

 the Society for Promoting Agriculture, Arts and Manufac- 

 ture, publishing in 1795 a report "On the best mode of 

 preserving and increasing growth of timber." 



The wise governor of your neighbor State, New York, De 

 Witt Clinton, of Erie Canal fame, in a message in 1822, fore- 

 boded an evil day from lack of attention, because no " sys- 



