OVERALL COVER CONDITIONS, TRENDS AND NEEDS IN NEW YORK STATE 597 



of usually small lumbering operations, has tended to diversify the cover and maintain pro- 

 ductive edges to a much greater extent than in the Adirondacks. These, coupled with the 

 progressive abandonment of the poorer or less well situated farms, has resulted in the estab- 

 lishment of much fine grouse cover. Conifers are generally less abundant than in the Adiron- 

 dacks, however, and good winter shelter, particularly in the more extensively forested parts, 

 is often lacking. 



In this region, as in the Adirondacks, the maintenance of a good grouse crop over the years 

 is intimately tied up with the adoption of good forest and soil conservation practices and 

 the continued encouragement of small lumbering and farming operations. \^Tiere grazing is 

 heavy, cattle should be fenced out of the woodlands. Fencerows should be encouraged and 

 stream banks, gulleys and steep slopes allowed to revegetate naturally without interference 

 by grazing. The planting of small blocks of conifers in old fields and pastures is another 

 activity worthy of considerable encouragement. 



The Rest of State Region 



Except for the Lake Plains, the Lower Hudson Valley and Long Island, the rest of the 

 State is characterized by well-farmed valleys lying between poor uplands. Here one finds the 

 largest areas of good grouse coverts in the State, for nuii'h of the land, once cleared, has 

 been worked to exhaustion and abandoned. Overgrown fields, old pastures, long forgotten or 

 perhaps still moderately pastured, seeding in to apple, hawthorne, pine and cherry, are the 

 rule. Many woodlots, too often and intensively lumbered over for their own good, provide 

 an abundance of summer and fall feeding grounds, though the preference for softwoods has 

 resulted in the elimination of much desirable winter shelter. 



Between lowland and upland, such a wide diversity of conditions exist that this region may 

 well be subdivided into fanned lands and largely abandoned uplands. On the former, condi- 

 tions are not unlike those described for the Catskill region. In general the farmer, with cattle 

 and axe. is maintaining a fair amount of ovei^rown land, hedgerows and pastures. Wood- 

 lots are lumbered upon occasion to pro\ idc for the normal needs of the farm, .'^niall timber 

 sales are common. 



Here the grouse hunter has a definite, tliough often unrealized, stake in any program 

 which directly or indirectly helps to maintain farming activities on such lands. Over the years, 

 the price of milk and wool unquestionably will exert a stronger influence on grouse than 

 will the limit of the hunting season, for cow and sheep are still the most effective instruments 

 for slowing down the natural reversion of j)astures to forest. In like manner, to encourage 

 the wide adoption of better farming and forest standards and practices, calculated to improve 

 soil and forest conditions, is to help provide a practical, though indirect means of main- 

 taining present coverts for the future. 



On the abandoned uplands, the situation is quite different. Cover diversification, so impor- 

 tant to grouse, is here a fact. Open fields are being rapidly swallowed up by woods as brush 

 lots become second growth forests in a surprisingly short period of years. Large tracts are 

 being reforested with conifers, either privatelv or bv the State. 



The problem, here, is how l>est to maintain the diversity of forest and overgrown cover since 

 but little of the land is pastured and lumbering is sporadic for necessity, born of poverty, 

 thoroughly denuded the woodlands of merchantable timber before abandonment. 



To sharpen up the picture, let's be more specific as to what will have to be done under each 



