54 AMERICAN FORESTRY ' 



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PROOF OF PRACTICAL FORESTRY 



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The results of work done on the Webb and Whitney tracts under my! 

 general supervision and under the direction of Mr. Henry S. Graves, now! 

 Chief of the United States Forest Service, have proved beyond contradiction 

 that forestry is practical from every point of view in soft-wood logging in 

 the Adirondacks. On both these tracts, whose total area is over 100,000 acres, 

 each tree to be cut was marked, and as a rule sound spruce trees below ten i 

 inches in diameter were left standing. Dead trees enough were left to provide I 

 for a second crop, the forest cover was conserved by moderate cutting, simple 

 rules were enforced to prevent waste of timber and injury to young growth i 

 in the logging, and the tops of felled trees were lopped as a safeguard against ■ 

 fire. ' 



The forest was improved and the work paid. The proportion of spruce ! 

 trees in the woods is already increased, and the older cuttings are even now ' 

 ready to produce a cut of spruce as valuable as the first crop. The beauty ; 

 of the forest is unimpaired, and there is little sign, except the abundant young \ 

 spruces, an occasional moss-covered stump, or the trace of an old logging road, 

 that the forest was ever lumbered at all. 



But in face of these notable exceptions, and of a quarter of a century of , 

 explanation and agitation, conservative lumbering in the Adirondacks has < 

 made little or no progress. The usual destructive treatment of private timber '' 

 lands today makes it perfectly clear that the general adoption of forestry ' 

 in the Adirondacks can be brought about by law, and in no other way. This i 

 is true in spite of the fact that in ver^' few places in the United States is j 

 the financial and physical opportunity for practical forestry so good as it is J 

 here. Yet nowhere has needless destruction gone further. 1 



It is time to stop playing with the situation. Ostensible efforts at private ] 

 reforestation, in which tens of acres are replanted for hundreds or thousands i 

 that are destroyed, merely serve to distract attention from the main issue. 

 What is needed on privately owned tiniberlands is the proper handling of the j 

 forest, and not inadequate rei)lan1ing after its destruction. The present 

 method, if allowed to continue, will inevitably result in the devastation of 

 substantially all the Adirondack timber lands held for lumbering purposes, 

 as well as in the burning of large areas of State lands by fires starting inj i 

 the slash thus caused. And in the end the State itself will be forced to take 

 over these denuded lands and replant them at great expense. 1 



More is done to help the lumbermen by the State of New York than any 

 other State in the Union. The maintenance of the mountain lookout station i 

 and the cost of fire patrol is paid for entirely from the State funds. In | 

 several Western States the lumbermen voluntarily bear these expenses thera- ' 

 selves. When a logging crew is requisitioned by a New York forest officer i 

 to fight fire on the land of a lumberman, that lumberman is reimbursed for the ] 

 the time spent by his own men in protecting his own property. State taxes i 

 on forest land in the Adirondacks are negligible, while other taxes are j 

 generally based on so low a valuation that they do not hinder forestry. Yet i 

 in spite of all this, these mountain forests, in which every citizen of the i 



