CONFERENCE OF GOVERNORS. U 



THE CULTIVATION OF FOREST TREES. 



By Gifford Pinchot, National Forester, Washington, D. C. 



Xew England's interest in forest jjlanting began before the 

 independence of the United States, and no other part of the 

 country has taken a more active interest in the subject, or done 

 more effecti\e work in recent years. No other part of the country 

 offers greater opportunities for profitable forest planting, and the 

 conditions in none are more favorable. The Xew England forests 

 now standing are of impressive value in connection with the de- 

 mand for wood, which is going to become more and more urgent 

 as time passes. You have a big problem before you to manage 

 your present merchantable timber lands in such a way as to make 

 them meet the pressing needs of the next quarter of a century 

 as fully as you can, and to perpetuate them for continued useful- 

 ness. It is equally necessary that natural forest land which has 

 been denuded and is now either bare or growing up to inferior 

 species should be made productive through planting profitable 

 trees. There are at least 8,500,000 acres in Xew England which 

 could be devoted to forest planting, — G per cent, of the whole 

 area. 



Xew England was a pioneer in forest planting. The earliest 

 work here began as long ago as 1760, when a successful attempt 

 was made to raise ship timbers. Between 1820 and 1880 there 

 were probably 10,000 acres of pine planted in Massachusetts. 

 Nowhere else in the country during recent years has so much 

 planting been done on so limited an area as on the waste land 

 in eastern Massachusetts. Since 1894 the practice of forest plant- 

 ing has been on the increase, especially during the last few years. 

 The purposes of this planting have been very definite, and older 

 plantations — many of which lia\'e been harvested — show that 

 the undertaking is both practicable and profitable. Not only does 

 it offer a means of profitably utilizing . waste sandy areas unfit 

 for agriculture, but it has been a great aid in the fixation of shift- 

 ing sands. Water companies in Connecticut and Massachusetts 



