CHARLES LATHROP PACK DEMONSTRATION FOREST 111 



THE PACK DEMONSTRATION FOREST 



Recognizing the vital need of adopting methods of scientific 

 forestry in conserving and rebuilding the diminishing forest resources 

 of the United States, Charles Lathrop Pack of Lakewood, New 

 Jersey, president of the American Tree Association and the American 

 Nature Association, has presented 1000 acres of forest land to the 

 New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University to be 

 forever dedicated to demonstration and research, and the forest uses 

 of the college. 



This area of Adirondack forest land is situated at Barber Point, 

 Cranberry Lake. Adjoining the lake the State of New York already 

 owns 20,000 acres, and on the other side of the Pack forest are 10,000 

 acres controlled by a large hunting club. On the inlet of the Lake are 

 1800 acres used as an experimental area by the State Ranger School. 



Writing of the Pack forest, Dean Franklin Moon of the New 

 York State College of Forestry points out that it " is located on 

 the south shore of Cranberry Lake and is composed largely of 

 second-growth hardwoods appearing after a fire which swept over 

 this region about fifteen years ago. Among the smaller growth, 

 however, there are islands of original hardwoods beech, birch and 

 maple majestic in size and of great beauty. The opportunity for 

 studying the life history, the methods of regeneration, the growth rate 

 and the like, of the species is unrivaled, and as a laboratory foi 

 initiating embryo foresters in the use of field methods, it cannot 

 be excelled anywhere in the United States." 



The tract now given to the College has been the Sophomore 

 Summer Camp of the budding foresters for eight years. With 

 the surrounding area, particularly the home of the Ranger School 

 with its nine-year old forest nursery, the Pack forest serves as an 

 essential link in the chain. This is especially true in view of the 

 fact that is was impossible to practise real forestry on this area 

 while it was a part of the Adirondack Forest Preserve on which 

 timber cannot be cut under the State Constitution. With its changed 

 status, however, this area, according to Dean Moon, makes " the 

 Cranberry Lake region in a fair way to becoming a great laboratory 

 on which can be worked out some of the most urgent problems that 



