38 CONFERENCE OF GOVERNORS. 



are coming up, but we cannot solve them until we have State forest 

 service in all our States, and therefore I would beg to recommend 

 that those States that have not such a service should adopt one. 

 I am employed by the State Forestry Association, and not by the 

 State of New Hampshire. We need in New Hampshire a State 

 Forester, who can protect and help to cultivate sentiment which 

 will further protect the State from the ravages of forest fires. This 

 suggestion I am going to leave with you. 



Mr. a. W. Elson of Belmont, Mass., Treasurer, Massachu- 

 setts Forestry Association. 

 I wish to say that I do not speak oflBcially at all for the Forestry 

 Association, and my only reason for asking an opportunity to speak 

 was to bring forth a certain suggestion which I had to make. In 

 the first place, I want to say that I am not in any way a trained 

 forester. I want further to say that I am not a lawyer. There 

 is one point, however, which I think is of general interest to us, 

 and which should be spoken of. The thing which is first in order, 

 apart from tree planting in Massachusetts, is tree conservation in 

 forestry. If I am rightly informed, there are two great enemies 

 to that conservation, — one is fire and the other is taxation. The 

 nature of timber land is different from other land that is used for 

 cultivation. The fire question has already had partial attention, 

 and no doubt the Massachusetts laws will be so revised finally as to 

 give it as complete attention as can be given. The taxation ques- 

 tion, however, is one that has been unsolved. You hear of indi- 

 vidual instances from time to time of gentlemen who say they 

 bought a certain piece of land with the idea of taking out timber 

 from time to time, but find that the taxes are being so increased 

 that they cannot afford to hold the land. The forestry problem 

 as a whole, it seems to me, must be treated by the State as a whole ; 

 that is, we cannot allow it to rest upon individual taxation by 

 individual towns. That at once carries our minds along to the idea 

 of a State regulation of the whole matter of forests. We can see 

 now that, although we have national problems in New England 

 in the Appalachian reservation, we have also local problems. We 

 have a State problem, and we may have a municipal problem 

 later. It had occurred to me, in connection with that view of the 

 matter, that in all cuttings that might have to be made land situ- 

 ated throughout the State and owned by individuals might be 

 treated as a whole. In other words, we might have something like 

 a forestry commission, and arrange so that cutting in the State 



