Development of the Vegetation of New York State 179 
1. The Hill Lands of the Alleghany Plateau. 
In this case the value and effectiveness of the forest cover 
have been reduced to the non-interest paying stage by de- 
structive lumbering and in many cases where hill lands are 
or were farmed by equally “ destructive” farming. By 
this I mean that the methods pursued were of a kind to de- 
preciate the crop yielding power of the land. In the first 
place, if it is a question of leaving cut-over lands to return 
to forest conditions, the sequence of vegetation — grasses and 
annuals, briars and shrubs, sprout growth and forest tree 
“ weeds ” (i. e., undesirable trees )— involves a long stage of 
development during which no returns may be harvested and 
therefore the present generation can make only the meager 
profit of forage pasturing and perhaps of fuel, depending 
upon how closely the land was lumbered. In the second 
place, farming operations, of course, broke up and mostly 
destroyed the blanket of organic soil built up by the preced- 
ing forest growth. With the removal of this humus form- 
ing and energy giving cover, the structure of the soil was 
changed until it has become deficient in aeration and drain- 
age and no doubt in healthy soil organisms — nitrifying bac- 
teria notably — and so is in fact or in effect a sour soil. The 
vegetation stages reflect this, notably in the formation of ex- 
tensive moss mats (of Polytrichum chiefly) fern thickets 
(sometimes pure stands of hay-scented fern (Dennstaedttia 
punctilobula) and acres of sweet fern (Comptonia perigrina) 
(Figs. 47 and 48). This would suggest a reversion to a 
xerophytic or heath-like stage (though the particular fern- 
growth cited would also indicate hillside seepage). 
2. The Highlands of the Hudson, ete. 
On the whole my impression as to the status not only of 
the “ Highlands ” proper but of hill-lands along the Hudson 
generally — Westchester hills, ete.—is that the protective 
effects of forest cover — the organic soil blanket — have been 
so far degraded that the vegetation shows an undesirably 
strong tendency toward xerophytism. The frequence of 
