58 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



cover by cutting clean. It was financially unprofitable, so that money to 

 replant ran short. For the same reason, the slash was left on the ground, 

 a promptly accepted invitation to forest fires. Finally, the Cornell experi- 

 ment did not conform to the first principle of true forestry in the Adirondacks 

 which is to secure natural reproduction from seed trees left standing after 

 cutting only trees carefully selected and marked. 



SOME PERTINENT ADVICE 



Good forestry on State lands in the North woods demands cutting so 

 moderate as not to destroy forest conditions, or seriously disturb the forest 

 cover. Practical forestry in the Adirondack Park should begin slowly and at 

 first should cut not more than 1% of the Park each year. The first con- 

 sideration in all cuttings should be to improve the forest. Clean cutting 

 should be forbidden by the Constitution. So should cuttings so heavy as to 

 impair or interrupt the forest condition or require the planting of trees after 

 logging. All logging in green timber should be directed to encourage young 

 growth, and all sound spruce trees below fourteen inches or hardwood below 

 eighteen inches in diameter should be left standing. j 



Before the Constitutional question whether practical forestry shall be \ 



permitted in the Adirondack Park is submitted to the people for action, the I 



Conservation Commission should be called upon to lay before the Legislature ', 



and the people a full description of the methods of practical forestry which I 



it is proposed to apply, and the results these methods are intended to secure. I 



In a virgin forest, as the young trees grow up, the old trees die and fall ] 



to the ground, thus supplying fuel for forest fires. In a properly handled ] 



forest, mature trees are cut down and the slash disposed of, so that an | 



Adirondack forest carefully and properly logged presents no greater invita- j 



tion to fire than one not logged at all. I 



The timber in a virgin forest does not increase in quantity, because the \ 



growth of the young timber is offset by the death and decay of the old. But ' 



in a well handled forest the amount and value of the standing timber steadily ' 



increases. The result of practical forestry in the Adirondack Park will not ] 



be to decrease the future supply of timber, but to husband and increase it. It ) 

 is not only to the interest, but it is the duty, of the State to put its forests 



in the best possible condition to be useful to the people. That cannot be 'j 

 done without the wise use of the axe. .j| 



The wide use and more efficient protection of the Adirondacks demand j 



a change in the Constitution. Without attempting to use exact legal language, ' 



I suggest that Section 7 of Article 7 might well be amended to read somewhat | 



as follows : * 



''The lands of the State, now owned or hereafter acquired, constituting the 

 Adirondack and Catskill Parks as fixed by law, shall be kept as forest lands. 

 They shall not be sold or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, public 

 or private, and no timber shall be cut on said lands except in accordance 

 with the principles of conservative forestry, nor shall the permanent forest 



