FORESTRY AND RECREATION 



25 



affected by the lack ot an adequate supply of food as 

 they are by the poor selection and poor preparation of 

 the foods they use. We have, therefore, given particular 

 pains to the development of a food service in the camps, 

 which would yield a maximum of nourishment with a 

 minimum of waste and exertion. The food problems in 

 most of the camps, which are spread over a large area 

 in the Harriman Park, are somewhat alike. The large 

 food manufacturing facilities at Bear Mountain Inn have 

 been harnessed to meet the needs of the camps, by cook- 

 ing in a wholesome manner, on the basis of a standard 

 dietary, and transporting the food in heat-retaining re- 

 ceptacles to the various camps, some of them seventeen 

 miles from the point of manufacture. Over 150,000 

 meals were served in this way last summer, and it is 

 with increasing satisfaction and success that this system 

 is being developed for the 



following, 

 reasons : 

 (a) The 



among other, 



Commission 

 can purchase in 

 large quantities, 

 thus securing spe- 

 c i a 1 concessions, 

 taking advantage 

 of discounts. 



(b) A standard dietary 

 can be followed 

 with intelligent 

 help. 



(c) There is uniformi- 

 ty of weight and 

 measure, avoiding 

 waste. 



(d) There is uniformi- 

 ty of quality as 

 against the hap- 

 hazard quality in 

 cooking in indi- 

 vidual camps for 

 small numbers. 



(e) During 1919, the 

 C o m m i s s ioners 

 supplied 21 meals 

 a week of balanced 

 rations, yielding a 

 minimum of 2,500 

 calories per day 

 per child, at the 

 rate of $4.00 per 

 week. 



A POINT OF HISTORIC INTEREST 



This is the old Queensboro Furnace dating from the days of the 

 Revolution. 



We are particularly interested in this phase of the 

 scientific development of recreational facilities, because it 

 makes possible camp operations at a minimum cost, while 

 yielding the maximum good. I earnestly hope that in the 

 thousands of school camps throughout the country, in 

 the hundreds of labor camps at industrial centers, in the 

 summer camps of forestry schools, it will be possible to 

 follow a standard dietary, which redounds immeasurably 

 to the health and efficiency of campers. In the industrial 

 world, manufacturers are coming to realize the close 

 relationship between efficiency and food, and there is a 

 great demand, through the impetus of the war particu- 

 larly, to supply wholesome food to workers in the interest 

 of health, efficiency and production. 



I have a great faith in the possibilities of the new con- 

 ception of forestry. The era of discouragement, which 

 is patent to all great movements, will pass, in my opinion, 

 with the education in forestry which will come through 

 contact with the people's forest preserves and public 

 parks. It is in this that I believe the Palisades Park 

 Commission, in bringing hundreds of thousands of peo- 

 ple to the Park, who, in close contact with nature, come 

 to love and reverence the living thing in the forest, is 

 adding to the sum total of the conservation movement. 

 While, in the Palisades Park, we are particularly inter- 

 ested in the recreational aspect, we feel, nevertheless, that 

 the maximum utilization on a broad social plane of the 

 recreational facilities in the Park depends chiefly upon 

 the application of sound principles of forestry. Hap- 

 hazard forestry, the denuding of our forests without 



providing for what we take 

 away, must give way to the 

 scientific program. We 

 have not yet touched, in my 

 opinion, the great relation- 

 ship between the food sup- 

 ply of the country and the 

 forests with their food 

 products. It is for that 

 reason, for example, that 

 the Palisades Park Com- 

 mission, during the last 

 summer, welcomed an op- 

 portunity to co-operate 

 with the New York State 

 College of Forestry in a 

 scientific survey of the fish 

 in the lakes of the Palisades 

 Park, and the possibility of 

 their development for food 

 and game purposes. 



There is another side to 

 the problem with which we 

 grapple in the Palisades 

 Park; more human and 

 more interesting. It is 

 what the little child, sun- 

 starved in the tenement 

 slums of the large cities, 

 gets from his brief outing 

 in the lap of nature. It is here where scientific conserva- 

 tion of our natural resources touches that deeper, more 

 vital problem of the conservation of the human resources, 

 and I want to speak briefly about it. There are hundreds 

 of thousands of children in the large cities of the state, 

 and for that matter in the whole country, who, owing to 

 the economic condition of their parents, or some other 

 cause, are hemmed in in windowless bed-rooms, and 

 city streets, during the most impressionable period of 

 their lives. Their later outlook of life is in no small 

 measure determined by their contacts and impressions 

 as they gather them up in the city streets and in the 

 crowded slum districts, where perverted views play with 

 the development of character. The Palisades Park 



