Proceedings of Seventeenth Normal Institute 211 



during the summer of 1912. Investigations were made in Onon- 

 daga, Greene and St. Lawrence counties. These investigations 

 were more or less experimental to determine the best method of car- 

 rying on a stock-taking of soil and forest conditions. In the fall 

 of 1913 a single township was selected in Oswego County; every 

 farm was visited and the lands carefully plotted. This was done 

 to determine the cost of studies, and was followed in the summer 

 of 1914 with more accurate studies of the same nature in the 

 counties referred to above, and in Madison and Cattaraugus 

 counties. In the summer of 1915, five men were started in a 

 thorough study of four hill counties in the southern part of the 

 state. Four of these men were advanced' forestry students who 

 worked on bicycles, visiting every farm, mapping in the woodlot 

 areas on enlarged geological survey quadrangle sheets, talking to 

 the farmers of the treatment of their woodlots, and also as to the 

 disposal of timber from them. Questions were asked also as to 

 local supplies; that is, what kind of lumber the farmers were 

 using and where it was obtained. It was an amazing thing to find 

 in some townships nearly a half of the township covered with 

 woodlot, and yet the farmers were paying a high price for lumber 

 from the Pacific Coast and from the southern states. The man 

 in charge of this study worked with an automobile, supervising 

 the work of the men on bicycles, and as his part of the study 

 visited retail lumber yards and manufacturing plants to find out 

 what they were using and whether it would be possible for them 

 to use the products of the woodlots. The map of Broome county 

 which I have here with me is in itself a study of the economic 

 side of ]S[ew York woodlands. 



A preliminary report is soon to be published by the college on 

 the hill counties studied last season. Out of these studies there 

 has come the conclusion that the only solution of our woodlot 

 problems, from an economic standpoint, is the development of a 

 market for the products of the woodlot. A study of market con- 

 ditions in these hill counties forces the conclusion that this can 

 only come through the cooperative efforts of woodlot owners. 

 Already the college has underway two or three different schemes 

 for bringing about the cooperative marketing of woodlots. 



Asa part of the plan for a study of woodlots, and their relation 



