32 



BULLETIN OF 



Massachusetts Board of Agriculture. 



POSSIBILITIES FOR FARM FORESTRY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 



By Allen Chamberlain, Secretary Massachusetts Forestry Association. 



Notwithstanding the innumerable articles which have been printed 

 by the daily and weekly press of the whole country during the past 

 five years on the subject of forestry in general, there still exists in 

 the minds of many only a vague idea of the true meaning of the 

 subject. This misunderstanding cannot be attributed to the fact 

 that agitation in favor of forestry is new to this country, for it has 

 been urged in this State of Massachusetts by individuals and 

 societies for more than one hundred years. The failure to make 

 the proper impression seems to be due to a too general treatment 

 of the subject so far as the country at large is concerned, and in 

 our own State to a too limited propaganda. All this talking has 

 not been entirely in vain, however, for there have been and still 

 are farmers in Massachusetts and in New Hampshire who have 

 applied the science of forestry in part to their woodlands, and with 

 profit to themselves and to their children. But the day of widely 

 applied forestry is only just at hand, and our farmers are beginning 

 to ask how it can affect them and their woodlots. That the farmers 

 are generally becoming interested is the most hopeful sign of the 

 century so far as this subject is concerned. 



Although the subject has been agitated for so long a time, the 

 first general public awakening to it was caused by President Cleve- 

 land's proclamation in February, 1897, by which 21,000,000 acres 

 of government-owned timber lands were set aside as permanent 

 national forest. For a time the people in those western States 

 where these reservations were established struggled madly to secure 



