FIFTH NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS 89 



rotations. In this case, however, no additional expenditure is necessary for 

 establishing or caring for the plantation. The amount invested is, therefore, 

 $33.25 ($30 for land and $3.25 for capitalized taxes and protection). A return 

 of slightly more than 19% would thus be realized in growing each of the sprout 

 crops following the first, or planted, crop. This is assuming that the value of the 

 land remains unchanged and that this amount is re-invested periodically after 

 each crop is harvested. 



In the figures just given it is assumed also that the operation is handled by 

 the individual investor on an area large enough to be managed economically. 

 This should be xiot less than 50 acres.* 



Eucalyptus planting has not solved the problem of the afforestation of the 

 treeless southern California hills, as the more optimistic hoped it would. No tree 

 is superior to the eucalypts for the better class of arid land. The unfavorable 

 chapparal-covered hillsides, however, which have so far resisted all attempts to 

 reforest them with eucalypts and with conifers must probably long remain 

 forestless. 



THE DISCUSSION ON THE REPORT OF THE SUB-COMMITTEE ON FOREST 



PLANTING 



THE Chairman : The very admirable report presents an exceedingly impor- 

 tant question, analyzing, as it does, the situation and making it clear that 

 forestry is not all planting as it used to be thought. 



Professor J. W. Tourney, of Connecticut : What has interested me the most 

 in recent years has been the growing tendency for the artificial establishment of 

 forests by corporations and municipal organizations, where I think there is a 

 great outlook in the future. Even in the State of Connecticut, a public corpora- 

 tion, the New Haven Water Committee, has nearly 10,000 acres of land, and that 

 company is planting some 3,000 trees a year. The whole forest is organized, and 

 it is a sufficiently large body of land that it can be maintained as a working circle 

 and handled progressively with somebody in charge of it. The Hartford Water 

 Company has a forest which protects its water shed, which is an admirable illus- 

 tration of what can be done in the artificial establishment of forests. The water 

 company of the city of Bridgeport has several thousand acres. 



In the aggregate, these public corporations, water companies and municipal 

 organizations which control the water sheds from which they derive their water, 

 are going to be, in the near future, an enormous factor in the East," and it is going 

 to extend elsewhere. Those are the people who will promote the regeneration of 

 forests, and it seems to me almost better than any other body of men, except where 

 it is done by the State and by the nation. 



Furthermore, as expressed in the report, there is a great need for the different 

 States to undertake systematic reforestation of certain portions of those States 

 that are absolutely non-productive at the present time. For instance, where a 

 State like Connecticut, I am bringing these things down to the specific cases, can 

 put up a million dollars to build good roads, it can put up some money to improve 

 waste lands, and where Connecticut will now put up $1,000,000 to build State 

 roads and only $2,000 to improve her forests, that is entirely out of proportion. 

 What Connecticut ought to do and what the other Eastern States ought to do is 

 to put up money, not by $2,000 and $1,000 and $3,000 amounts, but by $50,000 



* "Yield and Return of Blue Gum in California," by T. D. Woodbury. Forest Service 

 Circular 210. 



