I'ISHKRIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 331 



Should the right of eminent domain -be exercised to the financial detriment of this 

 particular class, these great producers of national wealth ? Is it true that these 

 captains of industry can readily change their manner of business to conform to foreign 

 methods ? 



Now the lumbermen meet all these questions good-naturedly. They profess a 

 willingness to adopt the improved methods suggested whenever it is demonstrated 

 that it can be done without loss. They demand first that some experiment be made. 

 No one of them feels able to run any risk in such a matter, and it would be unfair to 

 ask it. Let the experiment be made, and let it be made by the State. 



In other cciunlries a great part of the forests which have proved such models of 

 management and pr()ducti\ity, are owned and operated by the Government. There 

 these public woodlands have become a source of large and permanent revenues to the 

 governments which own and operate them. The time will come when the State of 

 New York will derive likewise a large and permanent revenue from its forests; and 

 there is reason to believe that the day is not far distant when the forests owned by 

 iiidi\iduals will be managed more in conformity with methods which ensure not only 

 preservation but permanent income. But the State can never harvest tlie product of 

 its forests with profit and success until it has passed the experimental stage, and our 

 private forest owners will never undertake improved methods until there has been 

 some object-lesson in the shape of an experiment station. The State of New \ ork 

 maintains experiment stations in furtherance of its agricultural interests. Why not, 

 also, for the advancement of its forest interests ? 



It is hekl b\- many whose experience and study of the subject entitles them to be 

 heard, that, while it may be possible in this country to introduce foreign methods of 

 forestry which will furnish a permanent and satisfactory revenue over and above the 

 cost of maintenance, little or no margin of profit would appear if the interest on the 

 principal were computed also. If this is so. it becomes all the more imperative that 

 the State should assume the duty and cost of demonstrating the possibility of better 

 methods. 



Owing to the restrictions of the new State Constitution, no such experiment can 

 be conducted on the Forest Preserve. The Constitution provides that the timber 

 thereon shall not be sold, removed or destroyed ; and eighteen years must elapse 

 before this can be changed. 



It would seem, however, that in the extensive purchases of forest land made by 

 the State some desirable tract could be bought through a special act of the Legisla- 

 ture, which should form no part of the Preserve, and be devoted to experimental 

 work. True, the restrictions in the Constitution apply not only to the Forest Preserve 

 as now constituted by law, but to all lands which hereafter may be acquired. But, to 



