Windham County reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1901-1906, 1905-03-31
Who died in South SALISBURY March
is, aged ll5.
Courtesy of Bennington Banner)

and south good roads are made by
bonding and assessment because thelt
need is recognized and their solution
insisted ON by farmers. They are the
highways along which crops reaeh
their markets and markets
are essential to prices. GOOD
roads are nearly as necessary as
railroads. 1t is my opinion, after
driving extensively in Ohio, Indiana
Minnesota, North Dakota, South Da-
kota. Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Miss
ouri Oklahoma and New England,
that roads and road making In Yer
mont compare favorably, considering
climatic conditions and the character
of the soil There Is opportunity now
ever, for giving permanent character
to country roads and state highways
and I do not hesitate to advise ear"
nestly and specifically that Farmers
ought to take sincere ana steady IN
terest in the question. Not the least
advantage to accrue from good roads
from permanent roads all over the
state, will be their increasing use ~
tourists and city visitors. VINO are
bound to increase vastly in NUMBER
in such case; and this will needs nave
strong influence in lettering prices
for everything, even to the extent OF
Increasing the values of farms. 1t is
not question of to-day. The found
alton for a future prosperity should
be laid
The Preservation Of Our Forests.
Another need of great importance to
the future of agricultural interests N
Vermont and elsewhere is the care
and preservation of our forests, SUP
iect as hackneyel as the forests thelh-
selves. How this shall be accom-
plished is a question, perhaps, Tor
state government itself, as the pre-
vailine notion seems to be to let the
future take care of itself and TO keep
saving wood, even in the front yard
of the state. The idea seems TO ne' i
e.. the law, to work no interference
with private individuals In their use
or abuse of what they own ana with
their right to make all they can out
of what they own, without regard 10
the ultimate effects upon the property
values belonging to other men or upon
the future conditions of the state. Yet
how true it is and how often proved
that -Wooding states hurts nara
many a district, village or town, nrst,
nv shearing them of their natural
beauty. next, by surely leading to
false and temporary increase in popu-
lation and values, only to reduce same
abnormally when, the lumber business
| is done, and finally, by rendering their
taxation bills uncertain and subject
ultimately and irrevocably to unbear-
able increase To denude a state, IKE
| Vermont, is the act of spendthrift,
who, coming into his fathers fortune,
prudently saved over half century,
runs it through in a decade ana mas
neither means nor character left on
which to found a new prosperity
1t has also been noted that the vast
| destruction of tree life reduces the
power of the hills and plains to absorb
/ and hold water, which results IN lack
of water or very low water part OF
| the time, and, at other times in dash
ling. turbulent, angry torrents and
/ freshets, which rip up and carry off
many a good acre of profitable mead
! ow. Continuous farming is better
1
nothing afterwards. Prudent lumber
ling is as profitable and as reasonable
\ as any other kind of work. 1t Is
4 need, perhaps one of the chief needs,
of New England farming. particularly
where the day is not yet lost to con-
slider the wise husbandry and euitiVa-
/ ton of timber, grove and wood lot,
to study the preservation of meadows
/ from floods by planting willows or
other devices and to support cordially
all legislative measures which aim and
give some hope of tending to increase,
renew, preserve and maintain the for
ests in this state. This does not mean
no cutting and no numbering, but
merely no absolute, wholesale. wan
ton. irrational and uneconomical de-
struction of tree life in the state.
The last agricultural report, if
rightly recalled, gives an estimate of
some one and a half million feet of
lumber left in Vermont. 1t is a pure
guess, probably short of the fact, but,
if only approximately correct, the
margin is meagre enough. 1t would
seem as possible for a state to regu-
late and supervise this matter, at
least. TO influence it for betterment, as
to create, regulate and supervise a
corporation. Its future and It's Wen
being are certainly bound up in great
degree in the care of its tree life' the
maintenance of permanent highways.
the development of local markets and
in doing all those things which VIII
definitely favor the continuous and
general use of its soil. Abandonments
should give place to occupancy. at
tennis at preservation to destruction
land. wherever possible. the applica-
ton of scientific farming to tme-worn
and easy methods of unprohtable
work.