233 FOREST PLANTING. 



were 500 convicts kept busy every day, each of them 

 being worth 50 cents a day to the State. The State made 

 garments and overcoats at prices from f3.50 to $6.00, 

 which could not be produced from any tailor in New 

 York City under |13 or $15." Now would the public 

 interests of the State of New York Bot much better be 

 promoted if these prisoners were kept busy in replant- 

 ing and improving the denuded woodlands in the 

 Adirondacks ; even if they were then worth much less 

 than fifty cents a day to the State, than to compete with 

 the cheap tailoring in our cities ? 



CHAPTER IX. 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 



State Forest Nursery — Forest School — Forest Experi- 

 ment Station — Asylum for the Game. 



The preceding chapter brings us to the end of the 

 discussions outlined in the preface, in which, when 

 written some time ago, the application of scientific for- 

 estry to our State forests was considered more as a pos- 

 sibility for the future than in the expectation that the 

 principles which it advocated were so soon to be real- 

 ized. But as a great and significant change in public 

 sentiment, leaning toward the author's views has taken 

 place since that time, a few further remarks may not be 

 out of place. 



The Forestry Act of 1885 provided in fact solely for 

 the protection of the State forests against fire and thefts, 

 but made no attempt to have them managed efficiently. 

 The Adirondack Park Association, however, as stated on 



