Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1882-05-10
Forestry.

Animportant "congress has recently been
held in Cincinnati Its object was to con-
slider ways and means to preserve the " for
est primeval of the country, and also to en-
courage by tree planting the restoration Of
waste land and shadeless tracts OF country
TO the benefcent and identifying reign OF
shielding trunks, spreading branches and
verdant foliage. The remorseless manner
in which the forests on government lands
are extinguished by timber thieves, and on
private properties by the ruthless hand OF
speculation, is hardly apprehended by the
people at large. 1t is claimed that If the
work of denuding the land goes on for
twenty-five years at its present rate the coun-
try will be entirely stripped Of forests. Con-
sequences injuriously affecting the climate
and the material interests of the country are
reasonably predicted if the work OF forest
destruction is not arrested and brought I'M
der the control of state or national gov
eminent.
This subject is one to which Vermont
should direct attention. In the early settle
ment of the state the native forests were |
cleared away and burned, that land for til |
lage might be had. Later on millions OF
cords Of wood were reduced to ashes and
converted into potash,-about the only COM
modify which yielded the farmers the little
ready cash they had in those days. Still
later came the railroads, which, increasing
nv hair
equipment, have annually increased their
enormous draughts upon the wooded land
for many miles on each side OF their
lines till the track of great railway is
marked by naked and barren hill tops, over
which the wintry blasts sweep without in
terruption, and which lie parched and for
bidding under the burning suns of summer.
The increase of population in the country
at large and the growing demand for lumber
has given so great an impetus to the opera
lions of lumbermen that their inroads upon
the timber lands of the state long ago
stripped the valleys and the more accessible
localities of their splendid growth OF forest
monarchs. Magnificent pines fit for masts
ductive hillsides gashed by the unsightly
gulches that the descending floods have
made on their unprotected slopes. Bass,
spruce and ash have disappeared before the
lumberman's axe till the remote and less &C.
cessible localities at the base and up the &C.
clivities of the mountains are invaded.
There the work of destruction is going on
at a rate which promises in time not many
generations distant, to raise the query with
tourists, Why was so wretched misno-
mer as the Green Mountains applied to the
rocky and arid hills Of Vermont" The
sources of the streams are dried up by the
removal of the sheltering forests. The
courses Of the rivers, years ago broad and
deep, are year by year narrowing down till
in some of them the realization may soon be
had of the highway Longfellow describes
in his Hyperion, which, beginning wide
and smooth, dwindles away till it termi-
yates in squirrel track, and finally runs
up a tree. The hill tops, stripped of their
forests, no longer yield to the slopes and
valleys below the fertilizing elements which |
used to descend from decaying vegetation
with the showers or the melting SHOWS of
spring There are thousands of acres Of
steep and rocky hills in the state which are
practically valueless for pasturage, but
which, if the forests that once clothed them
had been judiciously husbanded, would be
as valuable as gold mines to-day.
1t would be difficult to enact, or if enacted
to enforce, in this country laws which pro
tect European forests from extinction. The
right to do with his own that which seemeth
good in his sight is prerogative dear to
the heart of the American sovereign, even
if the exercise of that right is injurious to
the public welfare or the welfare of future
generations. A European government would
interpose its arbitrary authority and power
to stay this destruction of the forests. 1t
would require every man to practice good
husbandry in the use of wood lands. The
vigilant eyes of government officers would
see that private greed did not enrich itself
by laying waste whole tracts of land They
would require what the prudent and far
seeing farmers Of the state are doing, clear
tured timber, but leaving the younger trees
to grow and increase in the room thus made
for them. Forests of sugar naples have
been slaughtered and converted into cord
wood which if now in existence would be
fruitful source of annual income. The pos
sibilities for profit which exist in sugar
making are beginning to be understood and
may tend to arrest the penny-wise and
pound-foolish practice which has reduced to
ashes so many stately naples, the finest class
of Vermont forest trees.
There is also an esthetic view Of this sub
ject which has also its financial aspect.
Switzerland is made the summer pleasure
ground of Europe, not only by the preserva-
ton of its natural forests but by decorating
its highways and towns by systematic tree
planting. Vermont is becoming more and
more the summer camping ground of the hot
and crowded cities. But if her citizens go ON
denuding the slopes and ravines that environ
Mount Mansfield Cancels Hump and kin
dred peaks or ranges, they are in fair way
TO kill the goose that lays its golden eggs
among her hills and valleys during the
heated days of summer. Tree-planting in
the towns and villages and on the waste
lands will assist to inveigle more of those
tabled birds into the state, and the silly crea-
lures which are alleged to have saved Rome
may yet by their golden eggs if not by their
cackling save Vermont in its unequal con-
test for empire.
Politics and the Judgeship.