No. 4.] TIMBER AS A CROP. 27 



he sowed two quarts of pine seed to the acre broadcast. Then 

 he rolled the land, and the result was a splendid catch of 

 pine. I refer to the Avhite pine. lie followed this for a 

 number of years, until he had some one hundred and hfty or 

 two hundred acres in pine. Later he sowed one quart of 

 seed to the acre. Those trees are not as good. They are 

 farther apart and have a good many limbs low down. Some 

 successor of his — for he passed away — ploughed up forty 

 acres of these pines, among the last sown by Pease, because 

 he thought he could raise rye on that ground. His rye did 

 not materialize, and the land for many years has lain idle. 

 By the way, I would advise any of you who are interested in 

 the subject to go there and sec that magniticent growth of 

 pines upon that extremely })oor plain land. Most of these 

 pines are said to be on the Massachusetts side of the State' 

 line, and exempt from taxes the first twenty years. 



I catch the eye of my friend Pratt sitting before me. 

 Probably most of you know that he planted thirteen acres 

 of poor land (I suppose it was poor, because he said it was 

 covered with hucklel)erry bushes and weeds) to pines The 

 planting cost him eight days' work. He planted in hills, 

 digging little holes among the weeds and blueberry bushes, 

 and putting in pine seed. He has cut some of those trees, 

 and you see he is not a very old man yet, notwithstanding 

 he parts his hair by a little bare strip in the middle. He 

 wrote me a few years since, when he ^'as cutting those pines, 

 that he was getting more than forty cords of box-l)oard logs 

 to the acre, and the trees were forty years old. He was 

 selling those logs at six dollars a cord, delivered. They 

 were measured as wood is measured, and not scaled as logs. 



I do not come here for the sake of talking. I come here 

 to ask you to plant your waste land with forests. You send 

 your money to your sister States for lumber ; you even send 

 it to the British Dominions ; and still, according to the cen- 

 sus report, you have more than two million one hundred 

 thousand acres in forests, and you have more than a quarter 

 of a million acres of land lying idle that has once been pas- 

 ture or field. This forest and waste in proper condition 

 would annually grow from five hundred to one thousand feet 

 of boards for every person in the State. Now, there is no 



