A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 757 



adverse claimants and prevent its spoliation, it could not do much to 

 develop constructive plans for its future use. 



One thing, however, was obvious that some way to block up the 

 scattered and broken holdings of the State must be found, if they 

 were to be effectively administered. A small first step in this direc- 

 tion was taken in 1887, by amendment of the provision of the 1885 law 

 under which none of the land of the forest preserve could be sold. 

 The amendment permitted sale to the highest bidder "of separate 

 small parcels or tracts wholly detached from the main portions of 

 the forest preserve and bounded on every side by lands not owned by 

 the State", the proceeds to be invested in the purchase of forest 

 land "adjoining great blocks of the forest preserve now owned by 

 the State"; or the isolated small tracts might be exchanged for land 

 adjoining the main holdings. The following year (1888) the com- 

 mission asked the legislature to make an appropriation annually for 

 land purchases, at a price not to exceed $1.50 per acre. This opened 

 up in earnest the question, What were to be the objectives of State 

 administration? 



That the most important purpose was to conserve and regulate the 

 water supply was universally accepted. That the forests of the 

 Adirondack Plateau exercised other beneficial influences which made 

 their preservation essential for the general welfare was also fully 

 accepted. That their recreational and health values were further 

 reasons for preserving them also went without dispute. Beyond 

 these ends the law of 1885 had not definitely looked. In essence, 

 that law had simply said that the State should dispose of no more 

 forest land, and that the destruction of the forests on the State lands 

 should be stopped. This, the Forest Commission said in its 1888 

 report, "has been termed ' forestry', but that is a too wide and some- 

 times a misleading term." The "forest preservation" contemplated 

 by the act 



could then have implied little more than an attempt to secure the forests from 

 the ax of the lumberman, and from the torch of the careless or willful incendiary. 



In this, however, the legislature had drawn back from the course 

 recommended by the Forestry Commission of 1884. For that com- 

 mission had had in view also the perpetuation of the industries de- 

 pendent upon the forests for wood, and the permanent production 

 of forest products through the practice of forestry. 



"The Adirondack region", the report of the 1884 commission had 

 said 



if the experience of other countries in forest management teaches anything, 

 could be made to maintain and increase, under a wise and comprehensive'policy, 

 the annual output of lumber without serious injury to the forests as reservoirs 

 of moisture or as health resorts for the people; and it is clearly in the interest of 

 the owners of forest property as well as for the people of this State to encourage 

 the adoption of any system of management which will insure such results. 



Accordingly, their recommended bill included express provision for 

 the disposal by the commission "of such timber, standing or cut, as 

 shall have grown to an age which renders it advantageous for the 

 general preservation of the forests that the said timber should be 

 removed" in accordance with such conditions as the commission 

 might fix. 



It is true that the law of 1885 afforded some basis for construing 

 it as designed to permit, or at least as not entirely prohibiting, forest 



