33 



as these are at present overgrown with laurel, sassafras, scrub 

 oaks, briers, or other forms of more or less worthless vegetation. 

 Farmers practice heedless abuse upon their woodlots almost uni-. 

 versally. The cutting of poles and trees for all manner of domes- 

 tic purposes is generally indiscriminate; fires are permitted to 

 burn through small areas at frequent intervals in many places; 

 and cattle and other domestic animals are permitted to browse 

 the leaves and tender twigs of valuable seedling trees which are 

 the only promise of a future supply of timber. 



The present conditions almost everywhere forces upon us the 

 truth that the time for preventable waste should be at an end; 

 and that the time for efforts toward reconstruction, both in large 

 and small forest areas and by all classes of owners and by every 

 citizen of the State, is unquestionably here. The eighty-three 

 mammoth hand saw mills and the hundreds of smaller mills now, 

 in operation are making rapid progress in the reduction of the 

 larger forests. The virgin timber is being manufactured in a 

 single county at the rate nearly a million feet a day. The un- 

 cut forest will soon be a thing of the past unless strenuous meas- 

 ures are taken to lessen the present enormous consumption of 

 about 1 1-2 billion feet of our lumber each year, or to preserve a 

 remnant by Federal or State purchase or otherwise of the mag- 

 nificent forests that still remain. The cut-over forests are being 

 re-entered and every nook and corner is being ransacked for tim- 

 ber trees. Soon the rural people of the State must depend more 

 upon their own resources in respect to timber and the woodlot 

 must be made to yield the product which has heretofore been 

 drawn from the larger adjacent forests. 



In view of the experiences of other states and of other counties 

 and our knowledge of the rapidly waning supply of timber, it 

 would seem no longer an act of intelligence, even, to assume an 

 attitude of indifference toward this subject, nor an act of good 

 business economy to delay in providing against a threatened 

 period of want. 



Forest Conservation and Protection. 



By J. A. Viquesney, State Forest, Game and Fish "Warden. 



One of the greatest questions that has agitated the whole 

 country — in the past decade, is that of the conservation of the 



