60 JAMESTOWN CONGRESS OF HORTICULTURE 



trouble in collecting seedlings from the forest, or, better, having one's 

 own nursery. The farmer can afford to start a nursery even in the 

 garden and enlarge upon it as he gains experience. I visited D. Hill's 

 large evergreen nurseries at Dundee, 111., and I saw, with a great deal 

 of interest, their beds of pine seedlings. Mr. Hill grows upon an area 

 four feet wide and forty feet long, from ten to fifteen thousand seed- 

 lings. These seedlings have been sold at $4.00 to $8.00 a thousand in 

 New England. We have been sending for the most part clear out to 

 the prairies of Illinois and shipping these pines back to New England 

 where they are indigenous. Every farmer ought to be able to collect 

 his forest seeds just the same as he would any. other crop. We ought 

 to be able to grow pine seedlings for at least $2.00 a thousand and 

 it is just as easy to grow them as almost any vegetable crop in the 

 garden. 



Lastly, what are our prospects? I think our prospects are bright, 

 but, on the other hand, it is going to take lots of interest from the 

 standpoint of men who have influence, like the men that compose this 

 Congress. The subject of forestry is one of the great economic prob- 

 lems, not of the present alone, but the future. In our mines we can 

 take out all the gold and silver and leave them worthless. On the 

 other hand, if we take our lands and carry them on systematically, we 

 can expect a financial annual income. Look at Germany. From some 

 of her forest lands she is getting so much an acre annually. Their 

 method of management would keep up agriculture and would foster 

 industries. 



There are many other points I would like to take up, the subject 

 of forestry management, the subject of the price of lumber and why 

 it is going up, for example. Box boards nine years ago were selling 

 at $9.50 per thousand in Boston; this past winter, these box boards 

 sold at $20.00 per thousand. When I first went to New England 

 twelve years ago we were, buying, for example, Georgia pine from 

 the South, shipped into Dover, N. H., paying from $16.00 to $18.00 a 

 thousand. At the present time, it is selling at $30.00 and upwards. 

 When I was a youngster in southern Michigan, I can remember that 

 my father bought pine lumber at from $12.00 to $14.00 a thousand, 

 most of which was practically free from knots. To-day Michigan 

 clear pine lumber is worth over $100.00 a thousand. In regard to 

 forest fires, it is a question to be taken up by the various states who 

 shall regulate it and get at the natural channel whereby we can stop 

 fires; we can educate the lumbermen and farmers to make forestry a 

 definite system of agriculture. It seems to me this is undoubtedly 

 one of the great problems of to-day. Our National Government is 

 doing a great deal; it is doing magnificent work along this line, but 

 every state ought to be doing equally strong work and our individual 

 lumbermen and our farmers as well. I thank you. 



Mr. Manning: There is a state law in Massachusetts in regard 

 to forest reserves and in their great public reserves the forests are 

 retained primarily for their beauty, and this is a phase that ought to be 



