Development of the Vegetation of New York State 159 
When you consider the plateau ground work of the State 
with its mountain elevations and extensive dissection by 
stream action and especially the degree to which glacial 
action went in laying down boulders, gravel and sand, the 
conclusion is drawn that, to begin with, the larger portion of 
the State was of a character to compel a xerophytic sequence 
of vegetation. Under present conditions —1i. e., through the 
activities of human agency —a great deal of the Adiron- 
dacks, Catskills, Hudson Highlands, Alleghany plateau, es- 
pecially highlands of southern New York, and the sand areas 
of the Saranac, Mohawk, Hudson and Ontario basins, have 
been thrust back into the earlier stages of vegetation history. 
This has been brought about largely through the destruction 
of the humus blanket or organic cover built up by vegetation. 
It is certainly interesting to observe that despite the preva- 
lence of xerophytic habitats, the action of vegetation had, by 
the beginning of the era of cultural interference, brought 
almost the whole of this territory into a condition of moder- 
ately constant water supply and of heavy, large growth vege- 
tation if not of climax forest. 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF MESOPHYTIC 
VEGETATION.! 
You may have gained the impression by this time that we 
have gotten the situation in our State drawn out of propor- 
tion by dealing with hydrophytic and xerophytic successions 
of vegetation as if they constituted the predominant features 
of New York. You will say, and quite properly, that the 
agricultural and forestal industries of the State constitute 
its great activities and they are founded on the fact that we 
1The words hydrophytic, xerophytic and mesophytiec are commonly 
employed in botanical texts to designate the status of a plant or of 
vegetation with respect to the water supply of the substratum. In 
this caption we might better say “the development of vegetation upon 
a stubstratum having constant, moderate supply of moisture, meaning 
by this a typical field-soil moisture as contrasted with the hydrostatic 
or drip water of water soaked soils. 
