UNIVERS

YORK STATE COLLEGE OF FORESTRY.
CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

B. E. FERNow, Livrector.
BULLETIN 5. FEBRUARY, 1902.

Adirondack Forest Problems

BY

Bib. FaRAO Ww,
Director New York State College of Forestry.

Reprinted from Report of New York State Fisheries,
Game and Forest Commission, 1898.

ITHACA, N. Y.
1902.

y
‘A
a
Ue Phy RAV:
ae) Uf hoes Salaed
Me ; uy

eu

a

Ve
Ph y
Ee

peed Atta
RT AY AS

fs
seni
Ny ane }, . a

(a
wer RY

UAT RILURY. &
i

RT PAS 6
Toy 4

eal ims it.

pent ar

ni
i
OPER.
| ie '
Me taay? ae
‘“ af)
As ae fh
i inl.” u ) i
EN hy Waly

ee am
Wis

4

eA

y TAM i

Cer

ADIRONDACK FORESTRY PROBLEMS.

The State of New York is the first and only State in the Union to
have entered upon a definite policy of forest conservation, acknowl-
edging the necessity and duty of the State to assume the protection
of its most important watershed and of the forest cover thereon, and
recognizing that in State ownership alone lies the assurance of its con-

inued conservation.

Such a policy, now firmly established, presents a number of

oo which are partly of an administrative, partly of a technical
nature. Some of these are still partly unsolved, ane the solution of
4» others has not even been begun.

/
a Ownership.

= The main and fundamental one, the problem of ownership, has
i*- been practically settled by various acts ef the Legislature, namely : in
_- 1883, when the State determined to retain the forest lands which it
© then owned ; in 1885, when it placed them in the care and custody of
“Aa Forest Commission ; in 1890, when the first act authorizing the pur-
.2 chase of additional lands was signed by a democratic governor, with
the memorandum affixed that the act was good but inadequate; and

> finally in 1897, when the Legislature and a republican governor
© created The Forest Preserve Board, giving it authority to acquire for
the State, by purchase or otherwise, control of the entire region
~ within an outline comprising three million acres more or less, or as

“y much thereof as might appear desirable.

© The acquisition of lands has proceeded cautiously and slowly. Un-
» fortunately, the State did not embrace the opportunity, when it
existed, of acquiring these lands at a low price, and although pur-
chases have hitherto been made in most instances at a reasonable
enough figure, the delay has had three undesirable consequences,
Quamely: first, to raise prices ; secondly, to allow a further decrease of
* virgin forest lands and deterioration of the same by wasteful logging ;
gand thirdly, to allow large tracts to be bought up by private indi-
viduals and clubs for game preserves. While at first sight the passing
of lands into conservative private ownership does not appear objec-
tionable, inasmuch as the object of the State, namely—a conservative
treatment of the forest cover—may as arule be expected from such
owners, there is no absolute assurance of the continuance of such con-

2

servative treatment. Besides, not only would public ownership of
the whole give more satisfaction to the people at large, but in the
administration of its property the State could only be benefited by a
consolidation of the same and the elimination of interspersed proper-
ties. Consolidation and uniformity of administration is perhaps more
desirable in forest properties than in other properties. Take alone
protection against fires: a careless neighbor’s neglect in preventing
the many causes of conflagration puts to naught the effort of the more
careful. Again, accessibility and means of transportation are of first
importance, while foreign possessory rights might often hinder the
development of most desirable means of transportation.

Even now the State would not make a mistake, financially or
otherwise, if it were to settle the ownership question at once, and
acquire without further delay the balance of what it intends finally
to own.

Administrative Problems.

The next problem is that of the administration of the property. At
first a forest commission of three unpaid commissioners was charged
with this duty of the ‘‘care, custody, control and superintendence of
the forest preserve,’’ and the law declared that ‘‘it shall be the duty
of the Commission to maintain and protect the forests now on the
forest preserve, and to promote as far as practicable the further
growth of forests thereon’’; also, to ‘‘have charge of the public
interests of the State with regard to forests and tree planting, and
especially with reference to forest fires in every part of the State.’’

In 1893 the number of the Commissioners was increased to five,
with additional powers as to acquisition and lease of lands, and
especially the specific power, with certain restrictions, ‘‘to sell the
standing spruce, tamarack and poplar timber, the fallen timber and
the timber injured by blight or fire.’’ Another change was made
in 1895, when an amalgamation of fisheries and game interests with
the forestry interests was provided and the (five) Commissioners of
Fisheries, Game and Forests were installed. The realization that the
forest interests are decidedly more important than the other two
interests has lately led to the change of name by which “‘ forests’’ are
first mentioned in the title of the Commission.

Whether by the consolidation any benefit has come to the forest
policy is doubtful, although it would have been advantageous if the
consolidation had been more in substance than in name. It would,
for instance, have been advantageous to combine the functions of
protecting fish and game and protecting the forest property in the
same officers ; especially within the forest preserve such arrangement
would be only logical.

4

It has been suggested that the change from a five-headed commis-
sion to a single-headed one would insure greater efficiency. Theo-
retically, such a single-headed administration may be commendable
provided a man of unusual capacity, broad-mindedness and experi-
ence is put in the place, just as the wise and moderate tyrant or king
is said to represent the most beneficent government. With our demo-
cratic principles of government, however, it would appear that where-
ever public policy, not single will, is to be administered, a judicious
council representing varied interests would be more apt to give satis-
faction, provided that it relies for executive work on expert advice
and assistance and on single responsibility of its executive officers.
In the end the question of the personnel of the commission, rather
than the number, is the important one, and still more important, the
organization under the Commission and the objects to be attained
through that organization.

The first object of the administration, naturally, must be protection
of the property ; and that means, with forest property, mainly against
the dangers from fire. This is the first and foremost administrative
problem. The only way to furnish that protection is by proper
organization of the fire service, and by reducing the causes of forest
fires.

Forest Fire Problems.

Forest fires in the Adirondacks are of very varying character,
according to the condition of the ground on which the fire occurs.
In the openings, in the slashes, in the sandy flats which used to be
occupied by pines and which were burned over repeatedly after the
lumberman had made the dédris, on the rocky shores of lakes which
the hunter’s camp fire has wasted again and again, the fires run
fiercely, fanned by the winds that have access here, burning up the
young growth which is trying to establish itself. Asarule, when a
fire breaks out in these wastes, it burns at least the entire area that
had been burned over before, and also gradually eats into the hitherto
untouched surrounding growth. In most cases, when such a fire has
once gained headway it will run its course, all human efforts notwith-
standing, until a rain, or a watercourse, or a swamp stops its spread ;
or until it has reached the green timber, where it may be checked.
These are the dangerous fires and the most difficult to cope with.

On the other hand, the fires on the covered hardwood slopes are
progressing slowly ; they smoulder persistently in the soil, however,
wasting the stored accumulation of vegetable mould, and causing the
fall of trees without necessarily burning more than their roots. It is
possible, with due vigilance and without great effort, to subdue these
fires or keep them in check.

It is evident that different methods must be pursued in these dif-
ferent cases. The present law provides a system of firewardens whose
duty it is to put out fires. This duty they may be able to perform in
the last described cases; but it is almost if not entirely impracticable
or impossible in the first class of cases. There are, besides, mechan-
ical limitations to performing the duties of a firewarden over too large
a territory ; hence the appointment of a sufficient number of deputies,
properly chosen, properly located and properly instructed, to act at
least during the dangerous season, is necessary. Nor is it sufficient
to have these firewardens employed only to put out fires, to go to
fires when they have assumed dimensions. They should patrol their
beats regularly through the dangerous season, prevent the starting of
fires by their vigilance, and extinguish the small fires in their incipi-
ency. The cost of such service, if efficient, will be large and an argu-
ment against it. As long as a fully organized forestry service is
absent, in which the fireguards perform other necessary duties and
useful work besides their patrolling, the objection is valid.

Again, the personnel of the organization is of first moment; and
even when proper persons have been chosen, only a constant inspec-
tion and oversight will keep the organization alive, its members on
the alert.

A great deal could also be done by systematically subdividing the
forest area, especially the dangerous siashes and openings, and grad-
ually reducing the dédris on the waste lands. If the State proposes
to hold this property it might as well begin to improve it, to make it
grow useful timber instead of weeds, and in doing so remove or
reduce the danger of deteriorating these waste lands more. When
such clearing and planting operations are actively begun it will be
possible, and a financially sound policy, to employ also the necessary
force for the protection of the young plantations. Moreover, greater
care in the use of fire will be inculcated, when the true value of these
waste lands, and the fact that an expenditure for their improvement
has been made, forces itself upon the attention of the careless. As
long as these areas are treated as worthless wastes it is natural that
they are carelessly treated as such.

There is one serious drawback in existing arrangements which
could readily be improved. It is the manner of paying for the service
of fire fighting. At present, bills are audited and paid by the towns ;
the tedious delay of such payment is discouraging to the men who
have to wait for the hard-earned money for many months. Authority
to make the necessary outlay on the part of the Commission, for
which the Board may then seek reimbursement through the town, is
the ready remedy.

Technical Problems.

While these problems in the mechanics of administration are
readily understood—and their solution is not difficult—the problems
of technical management of the property are more difficult to solve.
What is to be done with the forest owned and protected by the State?
What policy is to be followed in its treatment, and what methods are
to be applied?

The first legislation, instituting the Forest Commission, had in view
the application of forestry methods to the management of the
property ; but the Commission failed to devise such technical man-
agement, and the people, as is well known, by constitutional amend-
ment restricted the activities of the Commission by forbidding the
cutting of trees on State lands, and thereby ruling out a large share
of forestry work.

Knowing the history of this amendment we can assert that it was
intended, not to establish a policy of non-use, and to exclude forever
the application of such forestry work as requires the use of the ax,
but rather to delay it until conditions should be more favorable for
the employment of technical forestry management. If nothing else
were to warrant this conclusion, the establishment of the New York
State College of Forestry, with its experimental forest area within the
limits of the proposed State Forest Preserve, must stand as an earnest
that, ultimately, technical forest management is expected and in-
tended, and not merely leaving Nature to take care of the forest cover.

There is, to be sure, no haste necessary to engage in such technical
work ; but even now the Commission is in position to do considerable
preliminary work and prepare for the future.

There can be no question as to the first step in attacking the
problem of technical management. As the physician bases his treat-
ment ona diagnosis, so the administrator of a property must first
become acquainted with its conditions. The first step, therefore,
towards a technical management of the State’s forest property must
be a forest survey; 2. é., a technical description of the conditions of
each parcel in such a manner that its character, conditions, and loca-
tion can readily be referred to.

The Commission should know not only the acreage of the burnt
lands and the virgin and the culled forest it controis, not only the
location of each parcel of these, but the condition of each with regard
to its possible treatment. Such a description can be satisfactorily
made only by a practically educated forester, who, like the physician,
diagnoses with a view to devising the remedy.

It is only when the condition of the whole or major part of the
property is known that a harmonious, well-considered plan for its

7

technical management can be devised and followed. It is then that
the silvicultural as well as the administrative problems involved
become apparent.

It was mainly for the solution of silvicultural problems that the
New York State College of Forestry was endowed with an area of
thirty thousand acres in the Adirondacks, the tract having been so
located as to exhibit the greatest variety of problems that might be
met in the entire Preserve.

The silvicultural problems can be classified into at least four groups,
with any number of subdivisions, according to the character of the
prevailing forest conditions. They will have to deal with the treat-
ment of (1) virgin lands, (2) culled* lands, (3) slashes or burns, and
(4) swamps.

Since the virgin lands in the possession of the State represent a
proportionately small area, a few hundred thousand acres, they may,
like the swamps, be left without detriment to future consideration.
It is, therefore, to the culled lands and the slashes, of which the
major part of the State property consists, that first attention should
be directed.

Making Wastes Useful.

The slashes and old burns and openings of various kinds exhibit
quite a variety of conditions, and admit, therefore, the possibility of
a variety of treatment. But they are all alike in this, that in their
present condition they present the greatest danger from forest fires,
and that in most cases they fail to grow useful material. They are
not only dead capital, but a menace to the standing timber. Not only
do they furnish the best chances for the starting of fires, but, once a
fire is started, the winds sweeping over the open, drive the fire with
such fury that human efforts to stop its progress are in vain. Usually
the fire burns over the entire opening and destroys whatever effort
Nature has made to recover the ground since the last fire.

In some places repeated fires have almost cleared the area of the
old débris, and it is possible to begin at once, without preparation,
the planting of valuable species. In other cases there is need of
clearing the ground more or less thoroughly of dédris in order to
reduce fire danger and make the planting practicable. The degree to
which the clearing must be done varies, and so does the cost.

The College has started the solution of the question of how much
clearing is needful and how cheaply this preparatory work may be
done, as well as how cheaply a growth of valuable tree species may be
re-established.

*Tumbered lands from which the spruce or some other species have been
taken.

8

Sometimes Nature has covered the burn with a growth of aspen or
birch, and, if left alone, gradually the more valuable conifers—pine,
spruce, and cedar—would establish themselves by natural process.
But even here the helping hand of man may hasten the process of
useful occupancy of the soil by using as much of the volunteer crop
for nurse purposes as may be desirable. Lanes are opened through
the aspen growth at varying distances apart, and pines and spruces
are set out in the lanes where they will be benefitted by the light
shade of the neighboring strips of aspen and white birch.

The species which have been chosen for this planting are entirely
taken from the family of conifers. The conifers are the most useful
of the trees of the temperate zone; they are required in largest
quantity—the consumption in the United States standing as three to
one, when compared with the hardwoods—and they promise to con-
tinue to hold their position in the market.

White pine is the king of the woods, and, with the development of
the pulp industry, spruce is next to the throne; hence these two
species should be specially encouraged. Moreover, the hardwoods
have, in the struggle for the occupancy of the soil, various advantages
which the conifers lack. They will propagate without much assist-
ance, while the conifers, with their greater permanent and economic
value, deserve, and with their natural deficiencies in propagating,
require the protection and encouragement which may be artificially
given to them.

Besides the native white pine, which is in every respect the most
desirable species to plant, growing rapidly into useful material, the
Norway spruce has been favored. This was first done with hesitation,
and mainly because plant material of the native spruce was not
readily attainable, while the European species could be had in large
quantities and most cheaply. In addition, the European spruce grows
more rapidly and produces better material.

After observing older and younger plants and seedlings of this
species in their new home for two seasons, expectations have been far
surpassed by the behavior of the plants. Of the six or seven species
planted, the Norway spruce has shown that it is more perfectly at
home than any other, and promises to grow as vigorously here as it
has done elsewhere in the United States. The seeds germinate most
readily—very different from white pine, which germinates slowly.
The seedlings in the nursery stand the drought—the unusual one of
the summer of 1899--as well as the frosts of the region, making in
their second year shoots of five to seven inches ; three-year-old plants
set out in the slashes appear among the weeds as born to the manor.

There will be croakers who predict failure in later life, but there is
no warrant for such predictions. Whatever experiences there may

9

have been had in this country, which might lead to such doubts, have
not been had with trees planted under forest conditions, and certainly
not in this region. I have no hesitation in recommending for quick
results the use of this cheap and promising plant material, in com-
bination with the white pine, with which it makes a most desirable
mixed stand, the white pine growing somewhat more rapidly and
needing the improving companionship of such shadier neighbor.

In addition, there has been used in larger numbers one of our
native western conifers, the Douglas spruce (Pseudotsuga taxifolia)
from Colorado, which appears also most promising from its behavior
during the first season, although not as rapid as the Norway spruce.
It is, unquestionably, the best material and the most adaptive species
which the western mountain regions afford.

In somewhat smaller quantities, for trial, the Colorado white fir
(Abies concolor), the European and Siberian larch, and the Scotch
pine have been used ; the latter, cheapest material of all, set out ona
sandy knoll, has made a most promising start in spite of the dry
season.

Altogether some two hundred thousand plants have been set out
on burned slashes, and the opportunity for judging what is most satis-
factory will soon be at hand. The Axton nursery contains half a
million seedlings, and a second nursery at Wawbeek will produce
double that quantity, ready for use in the woods in two or three year’s
time.

One of the essential requirements in this reclamation of waste lands
is adequate protection against fire. As I have pointed out, the
greatest fire danger lies in these very areas; hence, special precau-
tions to reduce the danger become necessary wherever the expend-
iture for planting has been made. Greater vigilance and special fire-
guards will be required, and in addition, mechanical means can be
employed to reduce the danger. Among these are to take in hand,
as far as possible, the entire burnt area at one time, clearing and
burning the débrvis, so that the cleared and planted area be bounded
by standing timber or by water or marshy land ; subdividing the area
by ditches ; or, better still, by lanes sown to grass, which can be kept
in proper condition and serve as bases of defense in case of fire, so
that the same may be confined in area. Old snags, especially dead
pines, must be downed, as they are apt to be set on fire by lightning.

The question, I suppose, is asked: ‘‘ Does it pay to reforest these
wastes?’’ The answer is, that if the State really proposes to hold,
protect, and improve this forest area as a whole, it does pay unques-
tionably, even were we to look at it merely as a work of internal im-
provement. And if, as the indications are, the cost of restocking
these, at present, worse than worthless areas can be kept below ten

Io

dollars per acre on the average it can be figured out even as a profit-
able financial proposition. This work of reclaiming wastes is, by the
way, oue agaiust which no constitutional bar exists, and which, there-
fore, could be taken in hand by the Forest Commission without any
change of present functions, if sufficient appropriations are made.

How to Manage the Culled Lands.

The other problem, that of handling the culled lands, is one pre-
senting much greater difficulties. While the reclaiming of the waste
lands is merely one of financial capacity and of expenditures which
can be more or less accurately determined, the rational treatment of
the forested lands requires not only much more skill, but their improve-
ment, if it is to be kept within practically advisable expenditures, is
dependent on market conditions, over which even the State may not
exercise control. To understand the problem we must state the con-
ditions.

The Adirondack forest is one composed of a variety of species, in
which the hardwoods, birch, maple, and beech preponderate, and in
which the conifers, pine, spruce, and hemlock, form a variable, more
or less prominent part. The culling has been of the latter, so-called
softwoods, especially pine and spruce, because they were most in
demand and most easily handled and transported by water. Asa
consequence, after the culling process, the hardwoods, preponderating
before, became still stronger, and only the tolerance of shade, which
is a characteristic of the spruce, has maintained it in younger indi-
viduals, besides the decrepit old ones which the logger has left ;
while the white pine, which cannot reproduce itself under the shade
of the hardwoods, is almost extirpated, except in occasional openings.

The hardwoods, while furnishing a full and pleasing canopy of
foliage which may mislead the uninstructed into the belief that he is
looking upon a virgin woods, exhibit in the old specimens the
decrepitude of age, dead branches and rotten heart, and many of the
younger, thrifty-looking trees, upon closer investigation, also show
the signs of decay asa result of the running fires which have swept
over nearly every culled tract of the wild woods. This, then, is the
condition : a forest of old decrepit hardwoods, deteriorating from year
to year, with a tainted progeny strugghing beneath, and a small
though promising number of young spruces impeded in their develop-
ment by the former, with occasional older trees that can be used as
seed trees.

Can there be any question as to the changes which it is desirable to
effect, if we apply the reasoning of rational political and financial
economy? Remove the dead capital of old, hardwood timber, and

II

replace it by a young, thrifty crop, growing into value, in which the
more desirable conifers preponderate !

The silviculturist will have to decide how best to secure this young
crop, which may be done by favoring the volunteer crop of conifers,
by giving a chance for seeds from left-over seed trees to find a seed-
bed and favorable light conditions for development, or by planting or
sowing artificially.

But before he can apply his skill, the manager must have found a
way of disposing of the hardwood crop. And here lies the pivotal
point of the problem, as with most of the forestry problems that are
to be worked out on financial basis in the United States; namely, in
the market question.

If the silviculturist is to show his skill in producing a new crop, the
old must be disposed of ; not only must a market first be found for
the sound merchantable sawlogs, but for the much more bulky and
less valuable portion of poor cord-wood which, in the Adirondack
timber, may readily be set down as exceeding in bulk two or three
times the raw material. Where this cannot be done, the culled lands
may still eke out an income by further culling of pulp material, etc. ;
but it is evident that this can only be at the expense and to the detri-
ment of the value of the property, for it means removing the most
valuable species, and reducing its chance for reproduction. In such
cases nothing is left but waiting for economic conditions to change,
until the old hardwood crop is salable.

One of the absolutely unavoidable conditions for marketing hard-
wood material is accessibility to railroad transportation, either for the
raw material or the manufactured. Therefore, before the State may
enter upon a policy which has in view the rational use of its property
from a forestry point of view, it must change the provision which
prevents railroad building over State lands. I do not advocate the
indiscriminate opening of the State lands to railroad construction, but
merely state that rail transportation is a necessity for successful
technical management of these lands.

The State College of Forestry has been successful in securing a
market for the hardwood material on its tract of thirty thousand acres,
by inducing manufacturers of staves and of wood alcohol to combine
in establishing plants. By such combination the fullest and least
wasteful use of hardwood materials at present known is secured, since
all sound material to a diameter of eight inches and a length of thirty-
two inches can be used for stave-wood, while the retort and fuel wood
used in the manufacture of alcohol takes the material down to three
inches, thus securing the fullest possible utilization of all the material
in the trees which have been felled.

In the attempts to introduce more conservative methods of

I2

lumbering, it has been usual to restrict the cut to trees above a given
diameter. By such restriction, possibly, a less wasteful use of the
existing supplies may be attained, but the main object of the
forester’s art, namely, securing a valuable aftergrowth, is not at all,
or most uncertainly, attained. The College has, therefore, not
allowed itself to be bound down by any such mere commercial con-
siderations. In its contract with the manufacturer it has reserved the
right to cut or to leave uncut whatever trees it is desirable to leave or
to cut, the College being the arbiter as to what, in a proper forest
management, is to determine this choice. Old and large trees, there-
fore, may be left, be it for seed trees or for other reasons, and small
or young trees may be cut, if by their removal an advantage is
secured from the forester’s point of view. Silvicultural considerations
—t. é., the condition in which the forest is left with a view of securing
a new, more valuable crop—alone decide this question, except so far
as financial or business considerations must modify the ideals of the
silviculturist.

Since, finally, this reproduction of the wood crop, like all produc-
tion, is an economic problem, the silviculturist, while he has the task
of securing the new crop, must also count the cost and secure the
result by the least expensive means and methods.

Briefly, then, the problem is: How to cut and dispose of the old
hardwood crop most profitably, at the same time saving the young
spruce which is on the ground, and leaving enough seed trees of the
various kinds forming the forest to secure a desirable new crop of a
mixture in which the conifers have the preponderance.

In some places this may be more cheaply and more effectively
secured by cutting the old crop without considering the existing
young growth, and replant by hand. This method would be called
into requisition where the forest has been culled too severely, or
where, for other reasons, the conifers are absent and their reproduc-
tion is desired.

In the contract under which the College is working, due to business
considerations of the market, the amount annually to be cut is neces-
sarily determined by the requirements of the manufacturer: 7. @., a
certain, stated amount of material must annually be delivered. To
the European forester and to those who attempt to propagate Euro-
pean methods of forest management in this country under a system
of so-called ‘‘ working plans,’’ this basis for determining the cut, the
absence of yield calculations, and of propositions for a sustained-yield
management, will appear strange.

It is customary in Germany, and wherever German methods are
blindly followed, to determine the capital stock of wood standing in
a forest, to calculate how much this stock annually increases by

13

growth, and then to determine from these data how much may be
annually cut without impairing the wood capital ; in other words, to
harvest annually only that which does or ought to grow annually, at
the same time reducing or increasing the cut, if the capital is deficient
or excessive. This is called ‘‘sustained-yield management.”’

To apply this principle—perfectly proper for the settled conditions
in the artificially reproduced German woods—to our decrepit Adiron-
dack woods would mean lack of judgment as to the conditions under
which it is to be applied. Measurements and calculations upon the
basis of which the cutting is to proceed, while they have the appear-
ance of a highly scientific foundation, are for our virgin woods really
most insecure. Even the Germans, after a hundred years of attempt
to determine, with a measurable degree of accuracy, the contents and
the rate of growth of a selection forest—z. e., a forest in which old
and young trees of all ages and various species are mixed—have come
to the conclusion that it is impracticable, and that a guess is almost
as safe as the elaborate calculations.

The fine measurements, then, in our wild woods, which are made to
establish so-called ‘‘ yield tables’’ while no doubt of scientific interest
would be most unsafe to base financial calculations, investments and
practical management.

Moreover, the measurers have overlooked that in our woods which
are run over again and again by fires, there is about as much decre-
tion as there is accretion, and this decretion by decay in the heart
withdraws itself from measurement.

But it takes no fine calculations, only common observation, to
ascertain that our old timber is past its prime, and has been financially
ripe for harvest, z. €., growing no interest, for many years. Hence
the proper policy is that stated at the outset: to replace as quickly as
economic conditions warrant, the old crop by a new. How fast or
how slowly this may be done depends upon the conditions in each
case, and cannot rationally be determined by such a general rule as
the sustained-yield management imposes.

Hspecially for the State, with its extensive holdings and without
the necessity of securing a continuous and even annual revenue from
these woods, there is no need to adhere to this principle, and to waste
money and energy in finding out what the future growth will be. Let
the next generation count the chickens for which we have secured
the opportunity of development, favoring the better breeds. No fine
measuring, calculating, and predicting of future incomes is necessary
to assure us that the replacement of a decrepit old stand of timber by
a vigorous new crop of better kinds is the true financial policy for the
State. As slowly or as fast as market conditions and other esthetic
as well as economic considerations warrant, the old, unprofitable

14

investment of Nature should be changed into a new, live investment
of art and skill, by practicing silviculture pure and simple.

Other Than Business Considerations.

There is no doubt that the majority of the people who were inter-
ested in the preservation of the Adirondack woods under State owner-
ship never looked at the proposition as one involving business con-
siderations ; they did not conceive the woods in the hands of the
State as objects of profitable exploitation, as a thing with which to
do anything else but leave it alone. Some saw in the wilderness only
a pleasure ground, a health-giving resort, a park to be set aside for
the use of those who need and could afford the relaxation of a life in
the woods. Others had conceived that the climatic effect and the
influence of the forest cover on water supplies imposed the duty on
the State to look to the preservation of the forest cover.

To the first proposition—namely, that the State set aside a pleasure
park—that portion of the people who cannot afford to take advantage
of it naturally objected; as to the latter proposition, that the water
supply of the State required forest conservation, doubts regarding this
relation and the need of State protection are by no means unfrequent
or untenable.

But both these classes of advocates of State ownership of the woods
have overlooked the fact that their objects are attainable without
sacrificing the other functions which a forest is to fulfill, namely, the
furnishing of wood supplies. It is not necessary to withdraw this
large area of land from economic use; it is not necessary to make it
an expeuse, a burden on the taxpayer. On the contrary, the protec-
tive function and the luxury function can be subserved as well as the
economic function, by a proper system of forest management, which
takes into consideration the esthetic as well as the business aspects of
the property.

Forest preservation is attained in the same way as the preservation
of mankind, by reproduction; by removing the old and giving a
chance to the young crop. ‘This involves the cutting of trees, to be
sure; but if this is done with regard to securing a new growth of
better composition, it is the rational method of forest preservation.

The forest policy of the State will only be completely and rationally
rounded out when the State forests are managed for revenue as well
as for the other benefits that may be derived from them under skillful
foresters, such as the State College of Forestry is intended to educate.

15

nn

0112