ANNUAL MEETING OF THE NEW YORK 

 STATE FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 



THIS active and growing organiza- 

 tion in the Empire State held 

 its first annual meeting on Jan- 

 uary 22, 1914, at Albany in the 

 new Educational Building. The at- 

 tending foresters were welcomed by 

 Dr. John H. Finley, President of the 

 University of the State of New York, 

 and Commissioner of Education. Dr. 

 Hugh P. Baker, a member of the 

 American Forestry Association and now 

 head of the State Forestry School at 

 Syracuse University, New York, was 

 the organizer, and is the Secretary of 

 the Association, which is already doing 

 a great work for New York State in the 

 promotion of the State's forestry in- 

 terests. There was much interesting 

 discussion relative to the extension and 

 care of the State's forest reserves and 

 particularly of the proposed amendment 

 of the existing provision in the State's 

 Constitution forbidding all cutting on 

 the State reserves. 



Dr. Henry S. Drinker, President of 

 the American Forestry Association, 

 was present by invitation, and made an 

 address in which he touched as follows 

 on the above question: 



"Foresters and the friends of forestry 

 in your sister States are noting with 



great interest the discussion in New 

 York looking to a revision of the policy 

 adopted in the past of denying to New 

 York the benefit in the management of 

 the State's woodlands of the principles 

 of forest culture, cutting, and reproduc- 

 tion that have been generally approved 

 in Europe and America as conducive to 

 the economic and profitable manage- 

 ment of forest lands. 



"Local conditions may have made it 

 necessary or advisable to deny to your 

 State forest lands the exercise of the 

 principles of forestry, in the interest of 

 retaining your forests for a time in a 

 wholly wild condition as a refuge for 

 game and a wilderness home for the 

 man who would for a time fly from civi- 

 lization, but surely with forests aggre- 

 gating over 1,600,000 acres in New York 

 State, by far the largest State Forest 

 Reserve of any State, the time must 

 soon come when the State constitutional 

 prohibition against all cutting shall be 

 amended, and the great Forest Re- 

 serves shall be handled as the National 

 Forests are so admirably handled, with 

 a view to the best care and conserva- 

 tion of your woodlands for the benefit 

 of the people at large of the State and of 

 the State's industrial interests." 



MASSACHUSETTS WANTS STATE FORESTS 



MASSACHUSETTS, which has 

 only a few hundred scattered 

 acres of state forest land now 

 wants its legislatiire to pass 

 a law creating a state forest commission 

 to acquire land suited for forestry and 

 create state forests. About one million 

 acres, one fifth the area of the state is 

 now wild and w^aste land, worth very 

 little. Private owners cannot afford to 

 reclaim this land, many of the towns are 

 too poor to do so and the state is the 

 only agency that can deal with the 

 problem. 



If the proposed measiire becomics a 

 law, the land will be well protected 

 against forest fires; employment may 

 be given prison labor; the forests coiild 

 be used for public recreation and coiild 

 become bird and game sanctuaries; as 

 well as serve the very practical ptu-pose 

 of protecting water from impurities and 

 conserving water power. 



An earnest effort, in which the 

 Massachusetts Forestry Association is 

 aiding, is being made to have this pro- 

 posed law passed. 



155 



