72 FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 



With all the forces now at work hewing clown our forests, were 

 it not for the humidity of our climate which is favorable to tree 

 growth, we should soon suffer the penalty visited upon other portions 

 of the earth which have been denuded of forests, — once fertile areas 

 becoming deserts unfit for the habitation of man. 



Dr. Felix L. Oswald states: "Since the beginning of the six- 

 teenth century the population of the four Mediterranean peninsulas 

 has decreased more than 55,900,000, the loss of a larger population 

 than that of the United States in 1880, and the value of their 

 agricultural products by at least sixty per cent. He attributes 

 this remarkable decline to the destruction of their forests which iu 

 this region were more essential as a protective influence from 

 excessive summer heats than in other portions of Europe." Some 

 of the most fruitful portions of Asia. Asia Minor and Northern 

 Africa have undergone the same experience. 



It is a well known fact that the flow of water in rivers which 

 drain large areas of forest land is more constant during the dry 

 months of the year than it would be if the forest was swept away. 



The State of New York at one time owned some five million acres 

 of wood lands covering nearly the entire area of the Adirondack 

 and Catskill mountains, where the principal rivers of the State, 

 especially the Hudson, take their sourcts. The state sold the most 

 of these forest lands for any price they would bring. Now that the 

 lands have been stripped of their forest cover exposing the thin soil 

 on the mountain sides to the washing rains, it is found that the 

 Hudson is in danger of becoming unnavigable at Albany from the 

 debris and earth carried down the river. The State has recently 

 changed its policy. In 1885. the lands then unsold, about 800,000 

 acres, were made a "State Forest Preserve," and instead of selling, 

 the State is now buying land to add to this Preserve. It will require 

 a large expenditure of money and a long period to correct the mis- 

 chief already done. 



The government, in order to facilitate navigation, has already 

 spent more than ten million dollars on the sand-bar formed at the 

 mouth of the river. 



The source of rivers that iu their descent to the sea furnish the 

 power for large manufacturing establishments giving employment 

 to many operatives, and which may be navigable for a greater or 

 less distance inland, should always be under State control. 



The alienating of the public forest lands comprising nearly one- 

 half the area of this State was a stupid blunder as we look at it now. 



