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higher prices resulting. Enough has been said to convince all that the 

 only hope for the future prosperity of great areas of our State lies in re- 

 foresting. In the first place, reforestation should be urged upon the 

 present land owners. Many an acre of untillable soil could be planted in 

 black locust, catalpa, black walnut or shell-bark hickory with good pros- 

 pect of speedy returns upon the investment. Wealthy men, interested in 

 the preservation of game or fish, should be encouraged by favorable laws, 

 or otherwise, to purchase large tracts of the hill lands of the State, and 

 to plant them in timber. 



Our State has already made a good, although very small, beginning 

 in forestry. In the writer's opinion it would be the highest economy for 

 the commonwealth to purchase and reforest tens of thousands of acres of 

 her rougher hill lands along the Ohio and other streams. These lands are 

 almost valueless for agricultural purposes. Covered with a growth of our 

 most useful trees, they would in time return a rich revenue to the State; 

 they would again become covered with soil ; the present unsightly and un- 

 profitable gullied fields and yellow clay points would disappear; the loose 

 soil and leaf mulch resulting would again absorb great quantities of 

 moisture, reduce the immediate run off, and hence diminish the volume 

 of the flooded streams. At the same time the ground water supply would 

 be greatly augmented ; our late summer rains would be more numerous 

 and more copious ; wells and springs would be more permanent and give 

 larger volumes, and our most severe drouths, destructive to all life, 

 prevented. 



The probabilities are, however, that private enterprise alone will 

 never restore the forests to our hills as fully as the best interests of the 

 people demand, hence the State and Nation must be called upon to take a 

 leading part in reforestation. 



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