IMPORTANCE OF FOEEST CULTURE. 15 



venting others from springing up ; besides furnishing 

 the materials for originating and maintaining destructive 

 forest fires. These dead trees are the headquarters for 

 breeding beetles, bags and other insects which prey upon 

 the sound trees and destroy them long before they have 

 reached their maturity. 



Under all circumstances steps should at once be taken 

 to establish on a proper place in the Adirondacks a 

 nursery for raising the principal common forest trees, to 

 be used upon the denuded State lands. This institution 

 could later on be enlarged and also serve both the pur- 

 jioses of an experimental station for forest trees and a 

 forest school for training and educating good foresters. 

 The best crude material for this class of men our Forest 

 Commissioners will undoubtedly find among the inhabit- 

 ants of the Adirondacks, and if they will give those men 

 an opportunity to become conversant with the practical 

 instructions approved by systematic forestry, they will no 

 longer ridicule the possibility of finding scientific foresters 

 among the denizens of the North Woods. (See Second 

 Annual Eeportof the Forest Commission, Albany, 1887.) 



CHAPTER II. 



IMPORTANCE OF FOREST CULTURE. 



T3ERE are over six million acres of wood-lands in the 

 twenty-six million acres of land in our State. The great 

 interests involved in such a vast area should in them- 

 selves lead to a close study of everything pertaining to 

 the nature of forests, and their influence upon the w^elfare 

 of our commonwealth. Moreover, the State being an 



