No. 4.] REPORT OF STATE FORESTER. 333 



Agriculture. The library has not only been of great value 

 to the forest service, but many visitors have made use of it 

 during the year. 



It is very pleasant to record in this connection the loan, 

 by the Appalachian Mountain Club, of a set of United 

 States geological reports, many of Avhich deal with for- 

 estry. 



The State Forest Nursery. 



By authority given in chapter 409 of the Acts of 1904, a 

 forest nursery has been established on the grounds of the 

 Massachusetts Agricultural College at Amherst. Through 

 an inexplicable delay on the part of the trustees of the col- 

 lege to act in the matter, work on the nursery did not begin 

 last spring until all the good land available for the nursery 

 had been assigned to other purposes. The onl}^ ground left 

 was the worst for a forest nursery that there is on the 

 college grounds. Rather than throw away the seeds that 

 had Ijeen collected the nursery Avas begun. In spite of the 

 adverse conditions, the luirsery will furnish a few thousand 

 seedlings for distribution the coming spring, and some 

 25,000 in the spring of 1907. The nursery Avill be ex- 

 panded until an annual output of 125,000 seedlings has 

 been reached. 



Practical Assistance to Owners or Woodlands. 



The offer of practical assistance which the Commonwealth 

 makes to owners of woodlands has been responded to with 

 alacrity. Forty-six applications have been received ; 34 of 

 these, representing 6,545 acres, have been examined by the 

 forester and his assistants, and advice in regard to their 

 proper management has been given. 



This, as well as the other branches of the work, has been 

 hindered considerably by the impossibility of the present 

 force to make examination promptly upon application. The 

 owner who is about to cut his timber and who wishes to cut 

 in such a way as to insure reproduction, or the owner who 

 is about to plant and wants advice on the care of seedlings, 

 species suited to his soil, and the like, ought not to be .re- 

 quired to wait until a man becomes available. This and 

 other lines of work would become much more effective if 



