The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1909-11-04
L OF FORESTRY.
The Financial Importance Of the SUBJ
ject to the People OF this Country.

spoke on Forestry" in B~rattleboro,
and the Reformer prints the follow
ing synopsis of his speech:
l am delighted to have the chance
to come back to Brattleboro, of which
l have the most pleasant memories.
When l was here before 1t was as a
college student on vacation. That
was over 20 years ago. At that time
If anyone had come to speak on the
subject of forestry you would not
have known what the word mean and
| doubt If anyone would have come to
listen. Mr.. Pinchot, then in college,
was the first American who ever
sought an education in forestry. To
get it he had to go to Europe, for no
one here could teach it. Now for
estry is recognized as a subject of
important general interest-of prac-
teal interest to every owner of wood
land and of vital interest to the ma
ton at large. Many of you are own
ers of woodland. You want your land
to produce for you all that it will
to put money in your pockets. You
cannot afford to neglect your timber.
| have known men to burn over land
covered with the growth of years,
thinking it of no value because it had
not reached merchantable size. Such
a course is as foolish as it would
be to let a child burn up a five dollar
bill because it did not know it was
worth anything. You have a State
forester here in Vermont and 1t Is
his business to help the people of
Vermont find out how to make their
woodlands most profitable to them
This is the business of the expert for
ester, as 1t Is the business of the ex-
pert in various lines Of agriculture to
tell you how to make most profitable
your dairy, your orchard, or what
ever else. l believe there is a great
opening for the Grange to benefit its
members by seeking the advice of the
State forester, as to how the enlight-
eminent of members of the Grange in
this matter might be made a part of
the regular program.
But the nation at large has more
at stake in this matter of forestry
than probably any one of you as an
individual. The prosperity of great
parts of this country is closely and
essentially tied up with the question
of forestry. You as American citi-
zens are share holders in a property
of enormous value, a value FAR great
err than any private corporation in
the land. Are you interested to know
something about this property? Let
us go together and take a look at
some of it. -
To teach it we must journey West
west across the rich farming regions
east Of the Mississippi, across the pra-
irie States also with their farms and
orchards and groves that make us
feel les at home, because the peo-
pie here are living the same sort Of
life that we do in our own New Eng
land. And then we run out upon the
plains-great stretches of unfenced
unsettled land where once the buffalo
roamed at will in countless myriads
and where now the stockman herds
his cattle, horses and sheep. This is
the real West, the West which differs
rom the East most of all and essen
tally in it's lack of water. Here on
he plains turf is replaced by bunch
grass because there is so little mois-
ture in the ground, and the farms
leave off because the edge of the de-
sert has been reached.
Yet this desert needs only water
to make it most fertile, a veritable
garden, and the water comes from
the mountains. Heading among the
high peaks, fed from the melting
SHOWS and hidden waters, which the
soil stores, gather the rivers which
0OWh orc VI upOH thS
%sagebrush desert by irrigating ditch
es, and %thereupon change 1t as by
magic stroke from worthless land to
the most valuable of our farm lands.
But much of the water which would
otherwise time, available runs away In
freshet time, and so escapes without
yielding to man it's tribute Of SER
vice, but on the contrary acts per-
haps as an agency of wide destruc-
ton. To hold back these flood wa
tiers that they may be fed out gradu-
ally in the season of low waters, the
reclamation service of the govern
ment is building great reservoirs
with dams of solid masonry. But the
forest is a natural reservoir, storing
water without the need of any ar
tiicial works of man. Yet 1t does
demand mans care. without care
these forests will be swept from the
mountains by ill-advised methods OF
use and by fire, and the floods will
pour from the stripped water sheds
in swift torrents of destruction, to be