82 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



vicinity burned over 25 acres of this land, and damaged the 

 property considerably. In 1898 another fire set by the rail- 

 road some 5 miles distant went up through that section and 

 burned it over again. In 1901 a fire said to have been set 

 by hunters bui-ned the property over once more. I sold it 

 last winter, since which time it has been burned over again. 

 I speak of this instance as but one of the serious objections 

 to cultivating forestry in certain localities. 



Mr. John F. Anderson (of Shelburne). We do not 

 seem to have nuich trouble with fires. Each one of us has a 

 telephone, and when a fire starts we telephone all over town, 

 and our custom is to take hold of the fire and put it out. A 

 few days ago one of my neighbor's buildings took fire, and 

 in less than one hour's time there were fifty men and forty 

 women there. We took ten feet out of the roof, and we 

 lugged carpets and put everything out, and we did it by all 

 taking hold. In Shelburne there is a very eccentric man. 

 He said once, in town meeting, of all the beautiful things in 

 nature the tree and shrub were the most beautiful ; and 

 that man has allowed his trees to grow, and has never 

 allowed any man to cut them. He has 30 acres of pine 

 trees, the whole of which I played over when a boy. To-day 

 he has been offered $3,000 for those 30 acres. Nature 

 sows the seed, and these eccentric fellows do not allow any- 

 body to disturb them, and it pays. To-day this man's farm 

 is worth more than it w^ould have been if it had been well 

 cared for and cultivated. Pine pays best of an}^ tree in 

 Shelburne. 



Mr. Q. L. Reed (of South Weymouth). I want to say 

 a word in regard to forest fires. It is severe enough to have 

 the timber burn, but when the soil also burns, I think that 

 the result is a great deal worse. From 1845 to 1870 I was 

 pretty intimately acquainted with the timber in the forests 

 of Maine. I used to think at that time that it never would 

 be exhausted, but it is now, and there is hardly any pine to 

 be found. This last spring thousands of acres of some of 

 the best spruce in the world were destroyed. The best 

 quality of spruce grows in the longitude of Bangor, and as 

 you go west it grows smaller, what you call " huckleberry," 



