Development of the Vegetation of New York State 181 
heath shrubs (e. g. Vaccinium vacillans), New Jersey tea 
(Ceanothus americana), braken fern (Pteridium aquili- 
num), ete., in forest stands or woodlands seems to indicate 
this, as do the barren ridges of red cedar, broom beard-grass 
and white birch and even the general dominance of rock- 
chestnut oak and of sprout chestnut growth, e. g., on Inter- 
state Palisades Park lands. It seems pertinent in this con- 
nection to remark that the dominance of oak is so frequently 
associated with edaphic conditions which promote aridity, 
that our conclusions as to the climatic relations of the oak- 
chestnut-hickory type must be somewhat modified by this 
consideration. 
3. Lumbered and Burned-over Lands of the Adtrondacks. 
In this great natural forest region which is also our 
chief recreation ground, the effects of the “era of eiviliza- 
tion” are seen in their most unfortunate aspects. The ef- 
fect of our policy of harvesting the timber crop has been to 
throw the land back to an arid condition where the construc- 
tive work of forest growth has all to be gone over again. 
Nearly all this unfortunate acreage of cut and burned-over 
land is simply a forest weed patch so far as desirable timber 
is concerned. We have already considered briefly the gen- 
eral course of vegetation following lumbering and fire, par- 
ticularly on sandy soils. But there is worse than the arid 
sand. Every observant traveler through the Adirondacks 
has noted —no doubt with poignant regret —the more or 
less continuous horizon of bare rock. This we have at- 
tempted to show, stands as the extreme of aridity. Also we 
know the slow, if inevitable, process by which vegetation 
again covers most even of this difficult terrain. A good deal 
of the organic stuff — forest duff — is left after fire, but in 
a condition such that it becomes dust dry during drought 
periods. Thus practically all such lands are in this condi- 
tion; namely, that the soil water supply too readily falls to a 
point where the amount which the root system can absorb is 
too small compared with the amount which the foliage gives 
