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THE HISTORY OF FOREST DEVELOPMENT ON AN 
UNDRAINED SAND PLAIN IN THE ADIRONDACKS 
; - y jy > 
By Wittiam L. Bray, Ph.D, NEW YORK 
: } BOTANICAL 
ntroduction GARDEM 
In a previous bulletin, (2) the writer has discussed in a 
general way the development of the vegetation of New York 
State. The bulletin attempted to show, and the use of the word 
development was meant to imply, that the history of the oceupa- 
tion of the land by plant life is in more or less obvious reality 
the historv of the establishment of plant societies, or, more 
exactly, plant associations in the course of which one associa- 
tion succeeds another until a more or less stable type of vegeta- 
tion or plant society is established which is spoken of as the 
elimax association. So far as New York State is concerned, 
conditions of rainfall and humidity are such as to insure the 
presence of a forest as the final type of vegetation, as con- 
trasted, for example, with grassland of the “ short grass” type 
which inevitably forms the stable vegetation cover under the 
sort of rainfall and humidity conditions which prevail in the 
Great Plains region of western North America. 
In the bulletin above cited it was pointed out that even if 
the lands of New York State were wholly occupied by the final 
stable or climax forest, this would not be uniform as to its 
associated species. In the milder region of the lower Hudson 
with its less severe winters, and especially its long frostless 
season, such species as Liriodendron, sweet gum, chestnut and 
many species of oaks and hickories form the dominant ele- 
ments of the forest, while in the Adirondacks generally none 
of these species figures in forming the forest cover, but instead, 
the well-known associates, hard maple, yellow birch, beech, 
white pine, hemlock, red spruce, and sometimes balsam, form 
the controlling or characteristic elements of the climax forest, 
[5] 
