If Fenerty loved the forests so much why invent something that would destroy it? Fenerty was a saw mill worker (see Biography), and a young lad with a teeming sense for discovery. He was around 17 years old when he first started experimenting. His experimenting spawn over a six year period (when in 1844 he published his discovery). During that time he studied, wrote, and worked at his father's saw mill. Mixed with political and social dilemmas of his time (a shortage of rags to make paper), undoubtedly Fenerty's efforts and imagination where influenced by the cry of his small community. Later on, in his letter to the Acadian Recorder, Fenerty said, "This opinion, Sirs, I think the experiment will justify, and leaving it to be prosecuted further by the scientific, or the curious." Most likely Fenerty didn't have the resources or support of others to further develop it, but it was also a questionable effort that soon lost his attention, and the attention of others. It could be that he just simply didn't see the morale in tearing down trees, and left it for other's to deal with (though, that might be wishful thinking). Clearly Fenerty loved the poetry and adventure more than science and innovation.