American Forestry 



VOL. XVIII 



NOVEMBER, 1912 



No. 11 



FORESTRY AND FOREST RESOURCES IN NEW YORK* 



BY STATE FORESTER F. A. GAYI.ORD 



IN New York State, forests cover 

 about 7,500,000 acres. With the 

 farm wood lots the forested area 

 is brought up to 12,000,000 acres. In 

 all the 13,000,000 acres it can safely be 

 said that there are not 1,000 acres that 

 are producing more than half the wood 

 material which they could under proper 

 management. There are 300,000 acres 

 of virgin forests, where growth is offset 

 by decay. There are 400,000 acres of 

 barren land producing nothing. There 

 are about 5,000,000 acres cut and 

 burned over which are partially re- 

 stocking, the remaining area being in a 

 more satisfactory condition as far as ir- 

 regular natural production is concerned. 

 Here in New York, where we are 

 very far away from the great present 

 sources of timber, we are only too ready 

 to believe that these areas will supply us 

 indefinitely. This is far from being the 

 truth. To bring this out more clearly, 

 let us take an example from the eastern 

 States. 



With the exception of comparatively 

 small areas in the Lake States, the white 

 pine of the East has been entirely cut. 

 This is well brought home to us by the 

 fact that in 1850 Albany was the most 

 important timber market in the United 

 States, while today she has practically 

 no influence whatever on the lumber 

 trade of the country. In that year New 

 York ranked first in timber production, 

 today she ranks nineteenth, and she no- 

 where near begins to cut the timber that 

 she uses. As another example of the 

 rise and decline of a State in timber 

 production, in 1880 Michigan supplied 

 25 per cent of the timber of the United 

 States. In 1907 she supplied 4.05 per 



cent. If this is true of New York and 

 Michigan, why will it not be true of 

 other States, especially if we bear in 

 mind that now we have a national popu- 

 lation of 95,000,000 people and fifty 

 years hence this will have grown to 

 200,000,000. 



At present we have in New York 

 State about 6,000,000 acres of forested 

 lands, which has saw timber on it ; 300,- 



000 of this is virgin and the rest has 

 been cut over more or less severely, so 

 that the average stand is about 4,000 

 board feet per acre, giving a total stand 

 of saw timber of about 25,000,000,000 

 board feet. Aside from this amount 

 there are about 30,000,000 cords of 

 wood occurring on the remaining forest 

 area, and as waste from logging opera- 

 tions. 



The forests of our State in their pres- 

 ent condition are not producing more 

 than 25 board feet per acre per year. 

 This, for 12,000,000 acres, gives 300,- 

 iM)0,000 board feet per year. The lum- 

 ber statistics of the State show that we 

 are cutting over 1,000,000,000 board 

 feet annually. This figure does not take 

 into consideration the immense amount 

 of cord wood needed to supply the de- 

 mands of the population of 10,000,000 

 people. Taking this into consideration, 

 we are cutting our woodlands at lea ^ 

 five times as fast as they grow, and at 

 the same time we are importing vast 

 quantities from other States. We get 

 much construction timber from the 

 South, carriage woods from the Missis- 

 sippi valley and the South, shingles 

 from the \Yest, pulp from Canada, etc. 



1 low long will this state of affairs con- 

 tinue, as there is hardly a State in the 



