PREFACE 
From the very beginning of its work the New York State 
College of Forestry has looked upon the development of 
forestry in New York as an essential phase of the land policy 
of the State. Three hundred years of agricultural history 
in New York has brought our people to see agriculture as’ 
including not alone the growing of crops from the soil and 
the production of animals for food and draft purposes but, 
in many instances, the manufacture of the crude products 
from the farm, such as in the dairy industry and then finally 
the marketing of the crops produced on the farm. Such a 
broad, comprehensive definition of agriculture has been 
necessary in the formulation of policies for the right hand- 
ling of the agricultural soils of the State. So, too, in those 
definite policies for the use of all our soils, which unfortun- 
ately are not yet satisfactorily formulated, there must be an 
equally broad application of forestry to the non-agricultural 
soils. 
Forestry means not alone the growing of a crop of trees 
from the soil for the production of wood, but it includes as 
well the conservation of water by the forest and the perpetua- 
tion of the animal life of the forest where that is beneficial. 
Therefore, in all of its plans for investigative work in 
forestry in the State, the College has considered not only the 
value of the non-agricultural soils for the production of 
forests but the life of the forests and the forest waters and 
the use of the forests and the forest waters in the most reason- 
able and effective way. In considering the question of forestry 
in this broad, constructive way, the College is not original 
but is merely using the same vision for the future which has 
been used during the past century in such European coun- 
tries as Germany and France, who have made their forests 
so important a part of their industrial and commercial 
development. 
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