44 REPORT OK THE FOREST COMMITTEE 



Mr. Harris R. Reynolds, of Massachusetts : In this connection I should like 

 to tell you what the Massachusetts Forestry Association is trying to do. I think 

 the plan we have been following in Massachusetts is somewhat different from 

 any thing that has been brought out in the matter of getting publicity and putting 

 through legislation. We believe the only way to properly educate public opinion 

 and public sentiment is to put yourselves in touch with men who know forestry. 

 Newspaper work is all right, but, as a matter of fact, a great deal of it is bosh. 

 We are putting out over the State young men who have been trained in our 

 forest schools. The forestry association has had this year from an average of 

 from six to eight young foresters from various schools. Harvard, Yale, Penn 

 State, Syracuse, and Amherst, and these men solicit members for the association 

 and answer questions, besides giving free advice to anyone who wants it along 

 forestry lines. When one-of these men goes into a business man's office he will 

 frequently find that he is not welcome. But if he is properly coached he will 

 soon interest- that man in what ought to be done for his own trees. It is the 

 dollars and cents idea that has to be brought forward, and as soon as a man feels 

 he will get something out of it himself, he is willing to contribute, to an organiza- 

 tion of this kind that will give him support. 



We are organizing in various towns branch associations and through these 

 branches hope to get support in matters of legislation. We have tested that 

 scheme out pretty thoroughly and it has worked. As soon as a representative 

 finds that fifteen or twenty of his best citizens in his home town want a certain 

 thing, he is going to vote for it because he wants to get back in that job another 

 year, and that is the way in which we are attacking the problem in Massachusetts. 



Mr. J. H. Foster, of New Hampshire : I have just been requested by Mrs. 

 Avery, who is here representing the conservation commission of Louisiana, to 

 say that we should not overlook the fact that the wbmens' clubs of this country 

 are doing a good deal of work along publicity lines. Mrs. Avery has just told 

 me that in Louisiana it is the practice of all the women's clubs of the State to 

 have one paper each winter on forestry, and in addition to that, they are offering 

 prizes to the different grades of school children throughout the State each year, 

 and in that way they develop an immense amount of interest among the children 

 on the subject of forestry. 



Other gentlemen who participated in the discussion were : Mr. W. T. Cox, 

 of Minnesota; Mr. Filibert Roth, of Michigan; Dr. B. E. Fernow, of Canada; 

 Mr. Philip W. Ayres, of New Hampshire; Mr. W. O. Filley, of Connecticut; 

 Mr. F. W. Kelsey, of New York; Mr. Geo. H. Rhodes, of California. 



