INSECTS AFKKCTING PARK AND WOODLAND TREES 



255 



the same time. lessen the chances of destructive fires folhjwinL,^ kiml)ei'inf^ 

 operations. This work may be continued farther and under certain con- 

 ditions it ma\' Jje practical, in case serious damas^i' is threatened l^y som-- 

 borers, to girdle trap trees and destroy them before tlie insects attracted 

 thereto and breeding within can escape and cause extensive injury over 

 large areas. This method has a limited application and in the case of 

 voracious leaf feeders the prospects are even less hopeful, except in parked 

 woodlands where wholesale treatment with arsenical poisons or some other 

 cheap method may prove advisable. It must be confessed that remedial or 

 control measures in forest entomology are still in their infancy, but it is 

 most sincerely hoped, in view of the great value of our lumber interests 

 and their increasing importance, that adequate means will be devised in 

 the near future, so that the more serious insect outbreaks can be pre- 

 vented or controHed. 



The importance of adequately protecting our forest areas, comprising 

 about 26'c of the entire acreage of the State, can not be overestimated. 

 This is particularly true when it is remembered that forest products are 

 rapidly becoming more valuable with the increased difificulty of securing an 

 adequate supply. This alone justifies a most careful husbanding of these 

 immense natural resources. Statistics show that the maximum output, 

 544,234,207 feet, compiled by the Forest Preserve Board, was attained in 

 1898. It is doubtful if this record will again be equaled. A farther idea 

 of the importance of this interest to New York may be gained by reference 

 to work already done by the State. Through its Forest, Fish and Game 

 Commission, a general supervision is exercised over the forests, and a com- 

 prehensive plan for the creation of extensive forest preserves is being 

 carried out. These latter, situated in the Catskills and Adirondacks, now 

 amoimt to nearly a million and a half acres and will prove of inestimable 

 value to future generations. This immense area is carefully protected from 

 the depredations of lumbermen, and recent years have witnessed an earnest 

 endeavor to reforest some of the barren sections through the establishment 

 of fores-t nurseries in the Catskills and Adirondacks and the setting out of 

 the product therefrom. The recent establishment of a state college of 



