EDITORIAL 



209 



lakes should be for all time the summer playground of 

 the middle west. 



Each of these states, to be sure, is proceeding in its 

 own way along forestry lines, but their eflForts are inade- 

 (luate. They lack stability and the vision of a long-time, 

 definite program. In some cases they are governed by 

 political expediency. The basic problems of land utiliza- 

 tion are much the same in all three states and the Tri- 



State Development Congress provides the machinery for 

 uniting and directing efforts and for crystallizing public 

 sentiment on the thing most needed, the formulation and 

 adoption of a definite land policy based on broad, public 

 interests. That policy must give forestry its proper place 

 in the development of the small farm unit as well as in 

 large-scale reforestation of lands suitable only for tim- 

 ber production. 



NEW YORK'S DEPLETED FOREST WEALTH 



R \X/ ^ ^""^ ^^'"'' ^ '^'"'^ "^ seven years in the life of the 

 " nation, or of the individual states which comprise 

 it, as no time at all. But seven years are seven years, 

 and the extent to which forest depletion in that brief 

 span deepens its channels in the economic bed rock of a 

 great state, once the leader of all states in lumber pro- 

 duction, is clearly revealed in a recent publication en- 

 titled "Wood-Using Industries of New York." 



The study upon which the report is based was made 

 in 1919 by the New York State College of Forestry in 

 , j co-operation with the United States Forest Service. The 

 report is in the nature of a re-inventory of New York's 

 wood-using situation, the original inventory having been 

 made in 1912. 



One of the most startling things brought out by this 

 report is that in the short space of seven years from 

 1912 to 1919 the amount of lumber which the forests 

 of New York supplied to the wood-working industries 

 of the state decreased 65 per cent. During the same 

 period, the total number of firms engaged in wood- 

 using industries in New York decreased 35 per cent. 

 While a variety of conditions is undoubtedly responsible 

 for this decrease of 35 per cent, it would be interesting 

 to know to just what extent the waning wood productive 

 power of New York's forests has been responsible for 

 this writing out of business, in less than a decade, of 

 more than a third of the wood-using industries of the 

 state. 



Some idea of the weakened power of the state with 

 respect to lumber production may be gained from the 

 statement that in the twelve years between 1907 and 1919 

 the New York lumber cut decreased 59 per cent of its 

 former volume. Trailing forest depletion still further 

 backward, we are told that in 1869 the per capita pro- 

 duction of lumber by the stajte of New York was 300 

 feet, and that in 1918 it had shrunk to 30 feet. 



New York, at one time, produced 20 per cent of the 

 total lumber cut of the nation. It exported lumber to 

 neighboring states in the east and to more distant states 

 in the middle west. But as the years have sped by, 

 seven by seven, witness to what economic dependency 

 forest depletion has brought this great state : 



"In igig, New York manufacturers paid approximately $11,- 

 000.000 for lumber grown in New York, while the lumber im- 

 ported cost $66,000,000. 



"Sixty-six millions of dollars were sent out from the state 

 for material for which fully two-thirds could be grown to equal 

 or better advantage in New York. 

 "Some of the innported lumber came 3,000 miles by rail. Every 



mile of hauling added to the cost of finished products. 



"Every foot of lumber, every cord of pulpwood, imported cost 

 more because of this wasteful expenditure of coal and labor in 

 hauling. 



"Men could no longer afford to build or buy wooden houses, 

 the cheapest form of dwelling. 



"Newspapers had to restrict operation because o^f the scarcity 

 of^^newsprint in a state once famous for its spruce. 



"Directly or indirectly, every commodity of life cost more 

 because of the depleted supply of forest products. 



"Every citizen paid and is still paying and for a long time 

 will contmue to pay an unnecessarily large part of his income 

 for shelter and food and clothing, furniture, fuel, amusements, 

 and transportation necessaries and luxuries alike because of 

 the depletion of New York's forests which have placed her in 

 an economically dependent situation. She can no longer com- 

 mand one of the fundamental necessities of human existence and 

 happiness. 



The demand for wood by New York's industries, the 

 report states, is from three to five times as much as is 

 now being grown in the state. It is these wood-using 

 industries, representing millions of dollars of invested 

 capital and thousands of home-owning wage earners, 

 which are most directly concerned. 



The State of New York is rich in lands suitable for 

 timber production. It contains within its boundaries 

 upwards of 14,000,000 acres, or nearly half the lands of 

 the state, which are suitable for forests and which even- 

 tually should be devoted to growing forests. At the 

 present time 62 per cent of this land is virtually denuded. 

 It contains material suitable neither for lumber nor 

 pulp. The best it can supply is fuel and acid wood. 

 But under management, these lands, the report points 

 out, are capable of producing enough timber annually to 

 more than meet the needs of the state's secondary wood- 

 using industries. 



In the face of these conditions, now admittedly bad and 

 growing worse year by year, what is needed ? "Above all," 

 the report states, "there is need of the driving power of a 

 united public opinion, determined that New York shall 

 not sufifer for the lack of forests for all her future 

 needs." And the report makes it clear that the people of 

 the state of New York have it within their hands to 

 serve their own needs and to protect their own wood- 

 using industries and wage earners by demanding a com- 

 prehensive forest program based upon a thoroughgoing 

 study of the state's forest lands. 



Such a program, it is indicated, would necessarily call 

 for an expansion of the state's forest activities in ac- 

 quiring public forests, reforestation, forest protection, 

 the promotion of better handling of wood lots, better 

 methods of logging, milling and utilization, revision of 



