342 
sible that this wasteful lumbering still exists; though it must be 
uncommon. 
As late as 1892 the farmer was obliged by the fence law of 1700 
to fence out his neighbor’s cattle from his fields. Thus each indi- 
vidual stood in a condition of armed neutrality with his com- 
munity. The special bearing of the fact, however, lies in this, that 
to maintain this fence law, which was a relic of barbarism, we were 
wasting, in the State of Pennsylvania enough of valuable timber to 
have made a five-rail fence around the globe thirteen times. In 
other words, there were standing in our State in the year 1893 about 
325,000 miles of fences. Nothing more wasteful than this in rela- 
tion to our timber resource is known to have existed since the 
pioneer period, when the settler was driven to roll his logs into piles 
and burnthem. It is hardly creditable to the law-making intelli- 
gence of the State that a law so false in principle, as this, was al- 
lowed to stand unrepealed upon our statute books for one hundred 
and ninety-two years. 
Forest fires are allowed to rage during the drier panied of each 
year, until competent authority has placed the average annual loss 
of forest property in the State at the enormous sum of between two 
and three millions of dollars. In fact, under certain conditions, 
frequently existing, no insurance company will assume risks on such 
property. Worst of all, the public mind accepts, too often, this 
state of affairs as inevitable. 
In the spring of 1893, there existed in Pennsylvania but one arti- 
ficially planted forest, which was conducted on business principles 
and with a prospect of financial return for the capital invested. 
The forestry movement indicates a reform in other directions than 
appears on the surface. It is a recognition of the broad fact that 
we as a young people have been wasteful in the use of all our re- 
sources; but that now we are coming under the inexorable laws of 
economy which govern older nations. ‘The altered conditions will 
probably be none the more pleasant because enforced. 
To-day we celebrate an anniversary of our Society, and it would 
appear to bea fitting occasion for a statement of facts concerning 
the forest regime which is passing away before a new and better one. 
Especially is this so when it is remembered how conspicuous a part 
the Society has taken in bringing the change about. 
