By Hon. JAMES S. WHIPPLE 



Former Forest, Fish and Game Commissioner, and President New York State 



Forestry Association 



IN all the States the practice of real 

 forestry work is very young. 

 Thought of conserving the forests 

 in America is very old ; as old as the 

 time of the first settlement. In fact, 

 those who settled here first knew some- 

 thing about real forestry work. Relat- 

 ing to this subject, there were laws 

 passed in the Colony of Connecticut as 

 early as 1640. In New Netherlands 

 rules were made as early as 1650. The 

 early history of the Colonies furnish 

 some very interesting things on the sub- 

 ject of conserving forest trees. 



But real forestry work commenced 

 in a crude way to be sure, first in the 

 State of New York. It has come on 

 very slowly, and has not yet assumed 

 very great proportions here or in any 

 other State. Thought on this subject 

 was first enacted into law in 1869, when 

 a statute was enacted providing for tree 

 planting along highways. In 1872, a 

 statute was passed providing for a com- 

 mission to recommend or establish State 

 parks in certain counties. Nothing was 

 really done until 1883, when a law was 

 passed prohibiting further sale of land 

 in certain Adirondack counties. The 

 first appropriation was made in 1884. 

 It was for $5,000. A Forestry Com- 

 mission was established in 1885. Many 

 societies have been organized, notably 

 the Society for the Protection of the 

 Adirondacks. 



Yet through all the years from the 

 first settlements in this country there 

 was no real effort put forth to interest 

 the whole people in this important sub- 

 ject until about 19x35. In this State 

 from that time on for the next seven 

 years in the State department, through 

 the commissioner in charge, undertook 



the work of generally awakening the 

 people to the importance of the sub- 

 ject and to the necessity of tree plant- 

 ing, conserving and properly managing 

 forest covered land. During that seven 

 years and after this State had com- 

 menced the work as above noted, the 

 President of the United States called 

 the Governors of the States together 

 at the White House in Washington in 

 conference to consider the better con- 

 serving and using of our natural re- 

 sources throughout the United States 

 which started a forward movement all 

 along the line. 



The Society for the protection of the 

 Adirondacks has done much good work 

 in preventing offenses against State 

 forests, and has exerted a strong in- 

 fluence for better laws, relating to 

 forests, but the activities of that fine 

 body of men have not reached far 

 enough. At all times there has been 

 great need of a broader knowledge in 

 relation to forests and their benefits, 

 other than their use for wood alone. 

 Then too, attention has been largely 

 directed to the forests owned by the 

 State. f While those forests are im- 

 portant, no less important are the hun- 

 dreds of thousands of acres of wood- 

 lands throughout the State and the tens 

 of thousands of barren acres that should 

 be growing trees. It is also of vast im- 

 portance that the people in every town, 

 village and city in the State should 

 understand the necessity of planting up 

 the barren acres acres unproductive 

 for other things with trees. It is 

 equally important that farm lots should 

 be cared for in the same way and that 

 more shade trees should be planted and 

 those we have cared for. For these 



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