Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1911-09-09
WOODSTOCK NEWS
Destructive Agriculture and
Vermont Forests.

Mr.. Walter e. Perkins sends us
the following very suggestive notes.
As Mr., Perkins has said in another
place, many of the hilltop lands of
our State. which were cultivated for
few years by early settlers and now
are reforesting themselves, were
never designed by providence for
any other purpose than to grow good
trees. They did their duty in this
line for centuries before Vermonters
came here and are quite ready to
do it again, as the rapid timber
growth on abandoned farms
plainly shows.
Mr.. Perkins writes
If necessity is the mother of in
vention, it is reasonable to assume
that abundance is the mother of
prodigality.
1t is since the beginning of the
twentieth century that the matter Of
conservation has received serious
consideration. So far as Vermont is
concerned, the earliest warning
which / find is contained in the
King George patents of lands, which
reserve gold and silver mines, and
pine trees two feet in diameter, such
as may be suitable for masts for the
navy Of His Majesty.
The proprietors of Pomfret to
encourage the immigration of set
tiers offered premium in this way ::
if those who had purchased rights
would enter upon their rights and
make pitch upon three acres Of
land, they could choose the location
of their pitch" Many Of the origi-
nal lots were selected by this
method. To make pitch was TO cut
down and burn all growing timber.
In making pitches. many selected
lots on the highest hills in the west
ern part of the town. In short time
they forsook that part of the town
and left it in possession of the grass
4 hoppers. Thus in brief period these
A people, with the aid of the axe and
frebrand, overturned a piece of work
upon which Nature had labored for
three million years to bring to the
highest state of perfection, In the
language of Matt b. Jones ia an ad-
dress delivered at the last meeting
of the Vermont Historical Society,
Those brush-grown hills were
never intended for agriculture"
Destructive agriculture converted
Palestine, a rich garden, into des-
ert. This kind Of agriculture would
do the same for Vermont. Construc-
N tive agriculture is what is needed.
While pine trees did not predomi-
uate in Windsor county. every town
was we'll supplied. My barn, built
in 1885, was covered with pine
boards. These boards are still doing
service and are nearly two feet in
width. AT about the same date the
town at an annual meeting, instructed
its officers, to secure pine stuff for
Meeting house and have it season
( ing."
a have this manuscript note made
by Charles Marsh, (l82l-l873) of
Woodstock, the last owner Of the
Marsh estate, prior TO its transfer to
Frederick Billings in 1859: I'm
February, 1866, / cut a hemlock
tree near the PoQue, in which !
counted three hundred and thirty
nine concentric rings." The tree
mentioned by Mr.. Marsh was -four
ishing long before the Europeans
established colonies in this country
and at the time Samuel de Cham
plain discovered Vermont it was
much larger than the Chaplin tree, a
section of which was recently placed
on exhibition by our state forester.
Austin F. Hawes.
The historian. DR.. Samuel viii.
liams, is authority for the statement
that Vermont oak and pine trees
sometimes attain the age of ons
thousand years.