1901 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



99 



timber may be considered as truly an agri- 

 cultural crop as wheat or corn. With the 

 Division of Forestry investigating the best 

 methods of tree culture and offering its 

 advice and assistance to landowners inter- 

 ested in tree planting, there is reason to 

 believe that in the near future much head- 

 way will be made in bringing about a rea- 

 sonable forest growth on lands now almost 

 treeless. 



The work outlined by the Division, 

 looking to the improvement of Nebraska 

 forests, should attract general attention, 

 considering that throughout this region 

 forest products are in constant demand, 

 commanding high prices and presenting a 

 profitable field for the investment of capi- 

 tal. Improved forest conditions in Ne- 

 braska would mean cheaper fuel, a bene- 

 ficial influence on local climate and a 

 consequent increase in the value of land. 



Lieut. -Gov. Lieut. -Governor T. L. 



Woodruff on Woodruff was not long 



Adirondack ago requested to attend the 



Forests. meeting of the Brown's 



Tract Guides' Association 

 of the Adirondacks, and to address the 

 members. In consequence of his inability 

 to be present, the Lieutenant-Governor 

 sent the association a letter, in the course 

 of which he said : 



"As you know, I have been for four 

 years engaged as president of the Forest 

 Preserve Board in the work of purchasing 

 for the State lands in the Adirondacks and 

 Catskills. For $1,950,000 this board has 

 acquired 400,000 acres of land in the 

 Adirondacks alone, and recovered about 

 90,000 acres which had been lost to the 

 State by previous improper cancellations 

 of the State's title. The lands thus pur- 

 chased and acquired by the re-instatement 

 of the State's title, through the operation 

 of the forest preserve board, are worth 

 twice what they have cost the State. In 

 1883, when a law was enacted prohibiting 

 the further sale of land owned by the 

 State in the Adirondacks, the State pos- 

 sessed 700,000 acres. During the follow- 

 ing 13 years these holdings were increased 

 to 825,000 acres, until in 1896 a 75,000- 



acre tract was purchased from W. Seward 

 Webb, as the settlement in a suit brought 

 by him against the State for damages inci- 

 dent to the damming: of the Beaver river 

 for reservoir purposes. Therefore, the 

 State owned 900,000 acres in the North 

 Woods when we took up this work under 

 the provisions of the forest preserve board 

 act in the spring of 1898. Since then this 

 acreage has been increased just 50 per 

 cent., and to-day the State is in undisputed 

 possession of about one-half of the Adiron- 

 dack Park, the park embracing practically 

 all the forest lands in the Adirondack 

 region. 



"In my opinion, it is unfortunate that, 

 owing to the constitutional prohibition of 

 the cutting of timber on State land, the 

 matured trees throughout this well-tim- 

 bered forest territory cannot be marketed, 

 instead of going to waste and retarding as 

 they do, the younger growth. The soft 

 merchantable timber, or evergreens, on 

 the State lands, which will soon die of old 

 age, could to-day be sold for a sum suffi- 

 cient to furnish the State with means to 

 acquire the title to all the lands owned in 

 the Adirondacks by corporations and indi- 

 viduals for lumbering purposes, provided 

 they were granted a proper and reasonable 

 reservation as to the large timber on their 

 property at the time of its purchase. Not 

 only would this course result in the acqui- 

 sition of the land not at present owned by 

 the State, but it would furnish employ- 

 ment to a vast number of our people and 

 supply to the 98 pulp and paper mills in 

 this State raw material, which is decreas- 

 ing in quantity at a rate which threatens 

 the impairment of this great industry, in 

 which the State of New York leads all the 

 other States of the Union. And what is 

 of greater importance to your association, 

 this plan would prevent the further cutting 

 of hard wood, which has now assumed 

 large proportions in certain localities, for 

 the manufacture of wood alcohol and 

 cooperage stock, and which is subjecting 

 large areas of the Adirondacks to the dan- 

 ger of being stripped as clean as a desert. 

 Thus would the next generation find a 

 forest preserved to them by us as grand 

 and beautiful as the one which the genera- 



