143083 2-1567 REPORT. To His Excellency the Governor and the Honorable Council: The gratifying and stimulating increase of general interest in the subject of forest preservation in New Hampshire, which this board has had occasion to note each year, has continued since the date of the last report, and the indications point to still wider co-operation among the various parties in interest. The present period in the forestry movement in the United States is one of primary education and agitation, with advance toward practical application of the underlying principles to be noted in a few localities, both by public and by private means. In New Hampshire, however, the movement is still in the educational stage, though with some enterprises to be noted later actually on foot to make actual tests of the value of a rational forest policy to the public and to the individual. This commission, being wholly without authority to enforce the application of any of the principles which it deems necessary for the preservation and perpetuation of the forest cover in our state, has naturally turned its attention toward the creation of that underlying public sentiment which is a prerequisite to the enactment of all laws dealing with individual prerogative, and has devoted itself chiefly to enlarging the sum of public knowledge of forestry and its benefits. Through numerous contributions to newspapers and other periodicals, and by means of lectures and addresses dealing with the subject both generally and in a specific manner, the board has brought the subject of forestry to the attention of audiences in every county in the state. The greater part of this work has naturally fallen upon the secretary of the board, who has held himself in readiness to respond to all calls from interested organizations. The numerous subordinate and Pomona 3 granges of the order of Patrons of Husbandry have evinced a lively interest in the subject, and parts of many of their programs have been devoted to a consideration of forestry topics. The farmers' institutes, held in each county by the State Board of Agriculture, have also devoted considerable time to the subject. Perhaps the most active agency in the dissemination of forestry intelligence in New Hampshire at present is the State Federation of Women's Clubs, which maintains a standing committee in forestry, and is pledged to advance the interests of forest preservation so far as it may be able. This interest has extended to the clubs in all parts of the state, and some of the most intelligent and sympathetic audiences have been gathered under their auspices to discuss the fundamental principles of forestry. LUMBERMEN'S INTEREST. Under prevailing conditions, however, the lumbermen and owners of forest property are the only ones to whom the appeal for forest preservation can be made with any idea of securing a practical response. The state owns no timber land, and there is no legislation to restrain private owners from doing what they will with forest areas. At the beginning of the present board's term of office, they found among the lumbermen of the state a widespread and erroneous impression existing as to the purposes and methods of forestry. This obviously arose from too literal an application of the term "forest preservation," which does not mean that the forests should be left alone in their natural condition; that their timber should be left to decay and disintegrate, and that the productive capacity of nature's forces should go to waste; but that the reproductive and recuperative powers of the forest should be given direction by man to the end that the forest growth should perpetuate and reproduce itself in species of the most useful character, so that the forest would be made to produce not only an inexhaustible supply of wood material, but that of the most desirable commercial species. In other words, the object of forest preservation is not sentimental, but economic. Even the most cursory examination of the forest resources of New Hampshire demonstrates that the spruce forests are the most valuable and desirable to preserve and perpetuate. Not only is that species of tree the one for which the most active demand exists, and in the utilization of which the greatest number of ingenious and useful products may be secured; but the spruce forests of New Hampshire are located, without exception, in those portions of the state where, for scenic and sentimental reasons as well as the economic, it is most desirable to secure their perpetuation. An immediate and pressing reason, therefore, has existed from the first for securing a rational management of the spruce forests of the White Mountain region. COMPARISONS INSTITUTED. At In co-operation with the division of forestry in the Department of Agriculture at Washington, a series of tests were instituted with a view to determining by actual measurements whether a system of lumbering under a restriction limiting the cutting to the larger trees would be as profitable as the method of indiscriminate cutting then in vogue. The results of their tests were summarized and published in the commission's second report, demonstrating the profitableness of the restricted system, not only for the future but at once. that time few, if any, of the lumbermen then operating in New Hampshire were conducting their business with any view to an intelligent reproduction of the timber crop. Now, very nearly one half of all the spruce logs harvested in the state are taken out under wise regulations, looking toward the perpetuation of the species; and it is evident that the necessities of the business will soon compel all operators to conform to some system of restricting cutting, unless they wish to bar themselves from continuing in the lumber industry. In short, the prediction of this commission in one of its earliest reports has been so strikingly emphasized that its language is here recalled: "With the lumbermen of the state the board has cultivated friendly relations. Many of them already perceive that their |