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Peoceedikgs of Seventeenth Noemal Institute 207 



THE ECONOMIC SIDE OF NEW YORK STATE WOODLANDS 



Dean Hugh P. Bakee 



When Director van Alstyne asked me to speak to you upon 

 The Economic Side of New York State Woodlands," in your 

 seventeenth annual gathering, I appreciated the opportunity of 

 meeting you here in the State College of Agriculture in a discus- 

 sion of this kind. Getting together on such questions as this is 

 the basis of cooperation, and cooperation looms large before us 

 in this country today. In a second letter received from Director 

 van Alstyne he referred to the fact that my talk would be limited 

 to twenty minutes. It was rather a staggering suggestion, because 

 anything I might say on this question in twenty or thirty minutes 

 is in reality merely an introduction to a discussion of the econ- 

 omic problems involved in the handling of New York State wood- 

 lands. But I am greatly pleased that you men and women who 

 are meeting the farmers of the state should be interested in the 

 faiTH woodlot, and, through the woodlot, in the larger questions of 

 New York woodlots and forests. 



To some of you, at least, I have expressed before this the atti- 

 tude of the College of Forestry toward forests and forestry in 

 New York. The institution which I represent stands for a 

 definite purpose, a definite thing in forestry in the state, just as 

 this great College of Agriculture stands for definite lines of work 

 in agriculture. Economists tell us that the source of all wealth 

 is the soil, and any state that will prosper must consider very 

 fully the complete utilization of its soil. I mean not only the 

 soil which may be under the plow at the present time, but all of 

 the soils. The soils of New York which are being farmed at the 

 present time yield, according to statistics put out by the U. S. 

 Bureau of Census, about two hundred million dollars annually. 

 This is not enough from tlie soils of this state. The educational 

 work of your organization and that of the College of Agriculture, 

 the Geneva Experiment Station, and other agencies, has brought 

 about great increases in the annual returns from farm lands ; but 

 we can no longer delay consideration of all lands, all soils, in 



