52 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



forest care profitable business ; it pays only in the long run. 

 Especially is this the case with new plantations, while in the 

 virgin, or even in a culled but full-grown timber forest, 

 with present prices and their tendency to rapid increase, it 

 would be possible to figure more readily immediately profit- 

 able forest management. So, then, the individual bent only 

 on gain cares little \vhether the management and neglect of 

 his property injures his neighbor or the future by curtail- 

 ment either of wood supplies or of water flow, or by soil 

 washes and deterioration. 



The town certainly has, or should have, much more inter- 

 est in its surroundings, for the present as well as the futiu^e ; 

 yet, if expenditures are to be made by the present for a 

 future contingency, it will probably move slowly and think 

 twice. If a town situated in the lower reaches of a river 

 should suffer from uneven water stages, this will probably 

 not affect the policy of the town at the headwaters. 



Here lies, moreover, another most important aspect of the 

 financial question in caring for slow-earning forest property. 

 In a State like Massachusetts the bulk of the permanent 

 forest area is naturally confined to the mountainous sections, 

 hence to the poorer parts. After the original valuable tim- 

 ber is removed, such towns become necessarily^ less able 

 financially to make any expenditures which are not demanded 

 by present necessity. 



With great wisdom did your Legislature recognize this 

 time element by enacting a law which permits towns not 

 only to take or purchase a public domain devoted to forest 

 purposes, but to go into debt for such lands, creating a 

 " public domain fund," to be wiped out by sinking fund 

 arrangements. In this way the laAV accentuates the interests 

 of the future and the benefits from forest management accru- 

 ing to it rather than to the present. I should like to know 

 how many, if any, towns have taken advantage of this act in 

 securing forest, — not park areas. As far as \\\y information 

 goes, none. 



Finally, however, the State's interest cannot be satisfied 

 with merely permitting its small town aggregates to help 

 themselves, but it nuist more actively assist in establishing a 



