The Hardwood Distillation Industry in New York 19 



!N'ew York State. Only the larger forms of sawmill waste, 

 such as slabs, edgings, trimmings, and similar material can 

 be utilized to commercial advantage. The sawdust, shavings 

 and similar material usually cut up by the slasher cannot be 

 utilized profitably except as fuel, but experiments are now 

 being undertaken which may pennit of the utilization of 

 sawdust and shavings for distillation within a short time or 

 as soon as some promising experiments can be perfected on 

 a commercial basis. 



Management of timber lands. 



iSeveral of the wood distillation companies in ISTew York 

 own tracts as large as 50,000 acres each or lease tracts nearly 

 as large. These are managed on a permanent basis and care- 

 fully protected from the annual ravages of fire during the 

 dangerous dry seasons. These companies are practicing one 

 of the best forms of forestry because they utilize the products 

 of the forest most completely, the maximum growth of the 

 forest is stimulated, and forest fires, the gTeatest enemy of 

 the forest, in so far as practicable, are eliminated. The 

 rougher and more mountainous portions of Delaware county 

 are admirably suited to forest culture on account of the steeip, 

 rocky hillsides which contain many springs and seepage 

 flows, thus permitting the most rapid growth of timber and 

 stimulating the sprouting capacity in all of the larger trees. 

 The cutting is usually done in the winter time. The follow- 

 ing spring the stumps sprout up thriftily and vigorously to 

 a height of from five to ten feet the first year. After a 

 period of from twenty to thirty years the stand is cut over 

 and the same process is repeated. In one section four differ- 

 ent age classes of timber were noted where average yields of 

 one cord per acre per year had been obtained after the orig- 

 inal forests were cut over. These tracts are in much better 

 condition than they would be under ordinary conditions of 

 lumbering because the forest is renewed both from sprout 



