The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1903-04-02

the season, but in its next verdure is a
dead and leafiess stem.
The Governor is fain to see the
custom of recent years( arbor day.
rapidly and wisely growing in favor
with our people. d" His Excellency is
highly imaginative. Shade trees
may add to the wealth of the farm
err and lift farm values. but long
lines of CHASTITY stumps by the roadside
often testify to the fact that some
farmers have more faith in sunlight
as a crop litter. For a few forkfuls
more of hay, or for an additional
or measure or so of grain, the thrifty
ag~icultnrist will often see" the
modern vandal, the lineman of the
trolley, the telephone, the telegraph,
the electric light. and go him one
better in 'wanton telling, cutting and
slashing more destructive in his
ravages than the gypsy moth or elm
beetle, " If there is ledgy place by
the roadside over which nature has
woven in the course of generations a
mantle of scrubby trees and bushes,
changing unsightliness into forms of
picturesque beauty, in the shadow Of
| which in a summer day the travel
Ter stops to rest, passing that way
tomorrow, paltry pile of gnarled and
crooked faggots by the roadside, the
debris of chips and brush, tell how the
owner has been adding to his wealth
and lifting farm values in way
that puts to the blush the modern
vandal" of electrical enterprise.
And in respect of the modern
vandal" in question is, in
deed, bad enough why are the pulp
and lumber barbarians, the chiefest
sinners of their tribe, allowed to 90
unscathed? Is it because, among the
enterprises in which the Arbor Day
i proclamation rhapsodist is engaged in
Vermont, are said to be certain pulp
/ and lumber companies?
The original purpose of Arbor Day was
esthetic only in some small and inciden-
tai way. The end was highly PRACTICAL.
Its object was to awaken an interest III
! the matter of reforesting the barren
ridges, the worn out pastures and large
areas of waste and unproductive lands
constituting, it is estimated, about one.
third of the area of the State-a prac-
tically valueless asset. The Execu.
tive's Arbor Day proclamation is be-
lated and insufficient appeal to the
people in cause which, nj the very
beginning of his administration,
should have enlisted his liveliest in.
terest, and engaged all the resources
derived from his wide experience il
affairs. Much was expected in this
direction-but expectation was vain.
The people had some platitudes Oh
government, an appeal for licensing
the sale of liquor-the measure cham.
pioned by his opponents in the can
vass-some commonplaces about gooo
roads, but nothing much about the
weightier matters of practical states
manship, such ms the Importance the
ways and means, of restoring to val
ne and usefulness some two million
acres-more or less of the denudeC
and protitless area of the State.
Even the efforts of Nature herselt
kind and benefcient in all her pur
poses, to repair the ravages of man, b,
man are often defeated. If it is van
dalism for lineman to lop off |
branch from wayside tree, or to fel
one in an emergency, what shall b.
said of the acts of farmers who yearly
for few pennies each, cut dow
young spruces and by carloads senc
them to the cities for Christmas trees
That is way of "adding to tn
wealth of the farmer by lifting farm
values" that is entitled to the eXclu
syo benefit of special Arbor Da.
proclamation
How dismally farcical. indeed. ha
Arbor Day become