2IO FIFTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



Report on Lopping Branches in Lumbering Operations 



Mr. Austin Cary, Superintendent State Forests: 



Dear Sir. — The earliest settlers on our eastern shores found the 

 country, for the most part, covered with a dense forest growth. Before 

 they could hope to produce those grains, fruits and vegetables so essential to 

 the welfare of civilized man it became necessary to remove the forest and 

 clear the land. They soon learned to look upon the forest as an enemy of 

 progress and welcomed every agency that could be employed to increase the 

 area of tillable soil. 



The early developments of the lumber industry did not tend to increase 

 very materially men's valuation of the forest in and of itself. The supply 

 of timber was so great and the demand so small that only the choicest species 

 and the most perfect specimens were marketable at all, and what remained 

 was left to whatever fate might come upon it. Later, with the increased 

 demand for all kinds of material, the various species became marketable, 

 timber land became more valuable and lumbermen cut more closely. 

 Throughout all these years of settlement and development of the lumber 

 industry no thought was taken for a future crop and little precaution 

 taken to preserve what was left. As a natural consequence of the great 

 abundance of material, its cheapness and the idea that the supply was 

 inexhaustible, people came to regard the possession of timber as a property 

 in a different light from property of other kinds. Their ideas became 

 perverted and they treated with leniency infringement of the rights of 

 others when timber was concerned, which would have been treated with 

 severity if other property had been involved. Even at the present time 

 it is often more difficult to get justice where timber is concerned than it is 

 where other property is at stake. Under such a system of affairs little 

 protection was given to timber property in any way, and carelessness in 

 regard to fire from time to time caused vast areas of cut over lands and virgin 

 forests to be devastated. 



