XX1i oe FOREWORD 
undertaken we would find among our woodlands and waste lands 
limited areas adapted to agriculture. But the fact that so much 
fertile land in Maine, once cleared for farms, has been abandoned 
in the last twenty-five years would seem to point to the conclusion 
that in our State, if we should classify our lands and reserve for 
agriculture all the suitable areas, these areas, whether large or 
small, would not be in demand for a long time to come. 
But allowing that farming is due in the future to develop con- 
siderably and to take up a much larger area than it now occupies, 
we know that we will yet have a large territory for which we can 
find no better purpose than to continue to grow trees, and many 
acres of waste land to which a timber crop is more suited than any 
other kind of crop. 
The problem then before us is to reforest by planting such por- 
tions of these lands as are not making satisfactory progress toward 
reforesting themselves. The magnitude of the task is thoroughly 
appreciated, and it is not to be expected that any great progress 
would be made in a year or even in ten years; but the pressing 
need is to make a substantial start in planting and to keep adding 
to our planted areas year after year an ever increasing acreage of 
young forest trees. 
Both for any program of restocking that the State may choose 
to undertake for itself, or for co-operation with private owners in 
reforesting their own lands, it is necessary to produce in large 
quantities young trees for planting. This leads me to recommend 
that the next Legislature make provision for establishing one or 
more State forest nurseries in addition to the one we now have. 
Our State forest nursery at Orono was instituted primarily to sup- 
plement the course of instruction in forestry at the State College. 
In addition to-serving splendidly in training our young foresters 
in nursery practices, it also has furnished at a very reasonable 
cost a considerable amount of planting stock for distribution to 
private owners throughout the State. 
The fact that for the last few seasons the demand from private 
owners for young soft wood trees to plant has been very much 
greater than any possible output of this nursery goes to show that 
in Maine we are already awakening to the need of reforestation, 
and that.our land owners are willing to begin to plant trees if they 
can secure the planting stock. | 
In order to meet this increasing demand for planting stock the 
State should establish'a new forest nursery .so that we may have 
an. adequate .supply of -young -trees:for, distribution: at: east: An: 
