NEW YORK'S FORESTRY PROGRAM 



51 



join hands in working out a program that will bring 

 into correlation the various public and private efforts 

 for the protection and right handling of forests. The 

 function of the Federal Government, in addition to hand- 

 ling the National Forests, would be to stimulate, guide, 

 and coordinate State action and conduct necessary in- 

 vestigations regarding the best methods of forestry, to 

 assist the states in classification of land, and to harmon- 

 ize action as between the different States. The States 

 would also have a function in handling public property 

 owned by them, and they would have a further direct 

 responsibility in connection with the protection and per- 

 petuation of private forest lands. 



In the matter of private forestry the Government 

 would work primarily through State agencies. To ini- 

 tiate the proposed policy there should be a Federal law 



n'thorizing the Government to cooperate with the States 

 in bringing about the protection and right handling of 

 forest lands within their borders, and providing means 

 for such cooperation. 



The net result of the steps already taken to inaugurate 

 and organize the new movement for forestry has been 

 to attract renewed and widespread attention to the fact 

 that a real forest problem must be reckoned with, and 

 is of national concern ; to establish a conviction in the 

 minds of many who have first-hand knowledge of the 

 facts that definite action to protect the public interests 

 involved and safeguard a resource essential for economic 

 and industrial stability is now required; and to secure 

 what is believed to be a feasible program, of a character 

 to command general acceptance as it becomes fully un- 

 derstood. 



NEW YORK'S FORESTRY PROGRAM 



A:OMPREHENSIVE program of forestry develop- 

 ment for New York State has been outlined by 

 Conservation Commissioner George D. Pratt and 

 presented to the Governor and members of the State 

 Legislature for consideration. 



Commisoner Pratt says: 



"Investigations made during the war by this Com- 

 mission, in co-operation with the United States Forest 

 Service, for the purpose of locating available supplies of 

 timber to meet the urgent demands of the Army, de- 

 veloped a situation so serious in New York State that it 

 threatens the absolute existence of some of the most 

 important industries within our borders those that de- 

 pend for their continuance upon unfailing supplies of 

 forest products. The menace of a wood shortage, which 

 these investigations disclosed, is imminent, and the need 

 for immediate administrative steps to replenish our sup- 

 ply is great. The measures which I suggest for relief 

 constitute a unified plan to meet the paramount necessity 

 for a proper protection and development of the forest 

 lands of the State, and have already in their funda- 

 mental features been thoroughly developed and tested by 

 the work of the Conservation Commission in the two 

 greatest forest regions of the State. They accordingly 

 involve an extension to the State at large of the system 

 of forest protection and development now practiced in 

 the Adirondacks and Catskills, with trained foresters 

 in each section, and a further intensification of forestry 

 methods in every section, including the Adirondacks and 

 Catskills. 



"The shortage of nearly all kinds of wood material, 

 with which we are faced, affects other states as well as 

 New York, and has arrested the attention of foresters 

 throughout the country, so much so, in fact, that Colonel 

 Henry S. Graves, Chief of the United States Forest 

 Service, has instituted a national movement for more 

 rational use of this waning resource, and for effective 

 steps to insure the growing of successive timber crops 

 hereafter. In no state, however, is the situation more 

 critical than in New York. This is due to the fact that 



New York is the greatest user of wood of any state, 

 the total annual consumption amounting to over 1,750,- 

 000,000 board feet of lumber, in addition to 1,000,000 

 cords of pulp wood, over 130,000 cords for wood alcohol 

 and other products of distillation, and enormous quanti- 

 ties of other material for railroad ties, cooperage, poles, 

 and fuel wood. It has been estimated that the annual 

 lumber bill of the state is over sixty million dollars, 

 about two-thirds of which goes outside of the state. In 

 spite of the fact that approximately two-thirds of the 

 annual lumber needs are met by importation, it is never- 

 theless true that we are actually cutting within the 

 state from three to five times more timber than is grown 

 here each year. Statistics of forest products for 1918, 

 which is the last year for which they have been compiled, 

 show that in that year we cut 762,289,934 board feet, in 

 addition to 18,651,346 miscellaneous pieces, like posts, 

 poles, laths, shingles, etc. 



"Our forests are thus rapidly vanishing, and it re- 

 quires little more than arithmetical computation to deter- 

 mine the time when timber production in New York 

 State will be a negligible industry, with the inevitable 

 result that the vital manufacturing establishments which 

 depend upon available supplies of wood will migrate to 

 other fields. I submit that the remedy for this situation 

 is one of the most fundamentally important problems 

 with which we have to deal in New York State today. 



"With a proper administration of the land best adapted 

 for timber production, New York State should eventually 

 be able to supply a large part, if not all, of its timber 

 needs. The present forest area of the state is about 

 12,000,000 acres. This is approximately 40 per cent of 

 the entire area of the state. In addition there is a large 

 acreage which now lies abandoned, but which is well 

 adapted to and can be used for forestry purposes. A 

 future permanent supply of standing timber as a raw 

 material for our industries is a problem of conservation 

 of present resources and of right administration of this 

 vast area. It is a problem of practical economic imp- 

 ance which we can under no circumstances afford to 



