24-0 



" It is immaterial whether it be called a park or a forest preserve, and its use- 

 as a pleasure or sanitary resort need not interfere with its management for fores- 

 try purposes. The friends of the forestry movement, therefore, view with pleasure 

 the agitation in favour of the Adirondack park, and welcome the promoters of 

 that enterprise as needed allies in the work of acquiring the necessary land. 



" Section three of the Act provides for the purchase of land on which 

 there is a growth of merchantable soft wood. Such lands are, for the most part v 

 owned by lumbermen who will not in fact, could not, part with such lands without 

 abandoning their business. The State cannot acquire any tracts of this character 

 except by the exercise of the right of eminent domain, an arbitrary measure which 

 should not be resorted to until all other methods have failed. Moreover, there is no 

 reason to believe that a bill authorizing the condemnation of the property of the 

 lumbermen in noithern New York could be passed. But the lumbermen have, 

 so far as we can learn, expressed a willingness to turn over their lands to the 

 State at a low price, provided they could have the privilege of removing the 

 small proportion of trees comprising the merchantable soft wood. Now, the 

 lumbermen will certainly remove such timber from their lands, sooner or later, 

 and the forest commission see no possible way of preventing it. The only ques- 

 tion is : Shall we secure these lands now, subject to the removal of the soft wood, 

 or wait until it is removed and then attempt to buy the land ? 



" After several years' observation and experience in this very matter, we 

 believe the delay will only result in the State paying higher prices for these same 

 lands, the soft wood having been removed in the meantime just the same. Six 

 years ago prominent lumbermen called at the office of the forest commission and 

 offered to organize a syndicate that would furnish the State half a million acres 

 of Adirondack forest land for the nominal sum of one dollar (not one dollar per 

 acre), provided that they could have the privilege of removing the soft wood and 

 be relieved of the taxes. We are now willing to pay $750,000 for the same land 

 which was offered to us then for one dollar, and pay it subject to the same con- 

 ditions. Further delay in this matter will only result in the State paying higher 

 prices and under more stringent conditions. It is the old story of the Sybilline 

 books. There seems to be some misapprehension as to the result of the clause 

 permitting the removal of the soft wood. The trees which would be removed 

 under the sanction of section three of the proposed act would not exceed, on an 

 average, eight trees to the acre. Their removal would not affect the general 

 appearance of the forest, would not diminish the area of foliage, or lessen its value 

 as a protection to the watershed of our rivers. The hard wood trees and young 

 evergreens would still remain. There would be many lots on which scarcely a 

 tree would have been removed under this clause ; although there might be, here 

 and there, a few lots on which, by reason of the spruce growing in thick masses 

 or so called " clumps " there would be a perceptible thinning. But even in the lat- 

 ter case the young trees would in a few years attain a growth which would cover 

 all traces of previous operations, and under a properly conducted forestry manage- 

 ment, furnish future revenues to the State. 



' This commission does not consider it necessary to argue in favour of a policy 

 which has already received the sanction of the best thought of the country. In 

 1873 a commission, headed by the late Governor Horatio Seymour, made a report 

 strongly urging the reservation of the Adirondack wilderness. 



" On January 22, 1890, Governor David B. Hill forwarded to the legislature a 

 special report urging the establishment of an Adirondack park and the purchase 

 of lands necessary to such purpose, his message outlining substantially the pro- 

 visions adopted in the foregoing Act. In that message he urged that the limits, 

 within which lands are to be obtained by the State for this purpose, should be 



