Photo by Hugh P. Baker. 



After the lumberman has come and gone and fire has swept over annually 

 for a few years, the soil formed by centuries of forest cover disappears. 

 It may take centuries to bring the soil back again and make the land as 

 able to produce the forests as when the virgin forest was cleared off. 



Courtesy of Conservation Commission. 



A bit of valuable forest land in New York that should never have been 

 denuded. Why should this land lie idle for almost a century waiting for 

 nature to crown it with forests? While it is idle it is not only unpro- 

 ductive but because of erosion is a menace to agricultural lands below 

 and to streams and rivers. 



