28 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



reasonable doubt that by far the larger per cent of that land, 

 nearly all of it, probably, would grow valuable timber. I do 

 not say that white pine would l)e the l^est and most profitable 

 tree to grow on every acre of it. The chestnut is in some 

 instances a more profital)le tree, especially on account of its 

 being so early useful for posts and sleepers. By the way, 

 the census report says that this land, this waste land, is 

 increasing each year, that you are yearly turning out more 

 of it. 



Suppose I stand facing my deserted farm referred to. 

 Much the better portion of my farm is on my right as I 

 stand facing this little clump of forest trees. It is by far 

 the better i)ortion of the farm. I would be glad to sell it 

 to-day for a dollar an acre. It has been idle and unused for 

 the last forty or fifty years. It is too far from my home for 

 me to utilize it. Take the land on my left. That land is 

 covered with growth that has never had any attention given 

 to it. It is all scrub pine. I can stand on the ground and 

 cut branches from it as large as ni}" liml)s. In that little 

 cared for clump there is not a limb within twenty feet of the 

 ground ; every one of the bodies is smooth, and the butts 

 will all make excellent boards when they are sawed. This 

 illustrates the difference between utilizing land and leaving 

 it alone to nature. 



I wish to say another thing. I spoke about trees standing 

 close together. In the city of Dover a few years ago I saw 

 a man cutting down one of the handsomest pine groves I 

 ever saw. It was on excellent land. I asked him why he 

 cut them, and he said, "Look up; they have not tops 

 enough to grow into timber trees, so I cut them for wood." 

 His loss by not thinning was more than the wood brought. 



Now, "here is a pine [specimen shown] that started slowly, 

 and the poor thing got shut out from the sunlight and the 

 air. You see it had more air on one side than on the 

 other, more sunlight on one side than on the other, — very 

 much more. It did the best thing it could do, — it grew 

 one-sided, and then concluded to die. It was suffocated. 

 My friend Hersey will tell you that he can grow good-sized 

 box-board logs from the seed in thirty years. Here is a pine 

 of seventeen years' growth, so crowded that it is only about 



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