Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-01-24

the past that our forests once destroyed
will render Maine in all coming time like
some of the arid and treeless countries of the
East, a iand"in which will be found no green
thing. AS said before, the remarks of Mr..
Pike were most splendid and beautiful ora
torical effort, but with many falacies, in my
estimation, as can well be crowded into a
twenty minutes speech. OF course, l do not
advocate the wanton and useless destruction
Of our noble forest trees. l say with Mr..
Pike, "Woodman, spare that tree !" when he
is engaged in cutting tree just for the pleas
ure of seeing it fall; just as l would say to
the hunter "spare that noble moose or deer !"
when his slaughteringi is of no use to any one;
or to the sportsman "sparc that beautiful
bird! - when his only object is to indulge in
his despicabe propensity to kill something.
But | regard our forests, good, beautiful and
lovely as they are, as harvest which the
Creator has prepared for us to be gathered in
as it ripens, and we need it. And the same
benefcent Creator who has given us the first
harvest, will in due time replace the first,
with second. OF course no one would ad
vocate the denuding of Maine of all our for
est trees in a single year, or in ten years, nor
can it be done. A portion of this timber crop
is ready for the harvest this year, more Of it
will be ready next year, and there will be no
year in all coming time in Maine, if proper
care be taken to raise this crop, which of
course must be done as in other products of
our land, when there will not be an abundant
harvest of all kinds of our forests trees,
waving in the breeze, and ready for the lum-
berman's axe to supply all our wants of the
kind. l have q multitude of facts in proof of
this theory, and no doubt every person can
recur to those of similar kind within his
knowledge. l am told that in the county of
York, which was the first in this State visited
by these destructive lumbermen, and more
destructive fires, and which has been the
scene of numbering operations to the present
time, there is more lumber now than there
was fifty years ago, and more in value than
there ever was. In 1884 l sold several l60
acre lots, in town in Franklin county, on
tax sale, TO pay 81, 40 tax on such lot. This
land was formerly covered with heavy
growth of pine, but then, destitute of every
| thing except stumps, old logs, and very small
| pines, poplars and white birches. Twenty
| five years after l sold them, l was told by one
| of the officers of that town, that those lots
| could not lie bought for a thousand dollars
| each, that they were covered with heavy
| growth of pine. forty, fifty, and sixty feet
! HIGH ard u1ueb nf II twant. inches in diana
| ter. The trees now growing in the streets
| and public and private grounds of this beauti-
| f1I CRY of Augusta, are commercially worth
more to-day. for wood and timber, than the
| original growth of timber lcas and for ali
| the purposes of shade, and the condensing
! the moisture of the atmosphere, SO as to pro-
| duce rain, according to the theory of some,
are quite as valuable as would be the origi-
| nal forest, even if it had been possible to
preserve It.
On the 10th of June 1851, then boy, was
narrowing in oats on some new land in Frank
lin county. That year has been regarded as
the coolest ever known in Maine, and that
day the coolest of the summer. Ice formed
nearly or quite an inch thick, and snow few
as furiously as in January. Thirty-fve years
afterwards, was on the same ground, and
| found thick forest, in which they were hew-
| ing timber Is inches square for bridge.
| Twenty years ago the lot upon which is the
| humble home of the writer of this, was a field
| of grass, the original growth having been
then recently destroyed by the axe and fire.
Now it is splendid grove of spruce, hacme-
tao, poplar, birch and other trees, amounting
| to hundreds, many of them forty feet in height
and foot or more in diameter. These trees
are to me and my family never ending
source of pleasure, and ultimately will be to
| somebody of profit They are
From storms n shelter,
And from heat shade"
| and without care, or cost, or attention, except
| to admire and love them, they grow whilst we
| sleep, paying us dividend of twenty five
! per cent upon the money invested, in the
best of all incomes, happiness. Yet had the
| original forest over whose destruction Mr..
| Pike utters such heart rending lamentations
never been harvested, that happy hsme would
| not be there, nor those beautiful trees have
| an existence, which will remain to grow and
| bless others after the hand which writes this
shall rest forever. S.