EEPORT ON THE FORESTRY EXHIBIT. 



By ROMEYN B. HOUGH, Lowville, Supbrintendbnt. 



The !N"ew York State Exhibit occupied in the Forestry Building a 

 space of about 1,566 square feet, mainly on the eastern side and near 

 the southern end of the building. The exhibit was collected and 

 arranged so as to be of the highest educational value, and to be fully 

 illustrative of the forest resources of the State. It was unique in 

 several particulars of scientific importance. It consisted of (1) a series 

 of photographs about ten by sixteen inches in size, of typical isolated 

 trees in leaf ; (2) a series of photographs of the same trees after the 

 leaves Iiad fallen ; (3) natural size photographs of typical barks of 

 trees ; (i) sections of the woods showing transverse, radial and tangen- 

 tial views of the grain, so thin as to be translucent and hence revealing 

 characteristic structures ; (5) preserved specimens of the leaves, flowers 

 and fruits, artificial reproductions being substituted for perishable 

 fruits. 



The photographs and specimens, so far as they pertain to a given 

 species, were mounted together in a double frame between glass, and 

 fully labeled with technical, English, G-erman, French and Spanish 

 names. The frames were, themselves, an exhibit of New York woods, 

 highly finished, as they were designed and made especially for this 

 purpose. They were mounted on pivoted posts which turned easily 

 and thereby facilitated a study of the exhibit by displaying the thin 

 wood sections in either transmitted or reflected light. The greater 

 part of the space assigned to the State for its forestry exhibit was occu- 

 pied by these posts, each displaying four species. Besides these, how- 

 ever, the exhibit contained a series of log specimens, each about three 

 and o'ne-half feet long, and displaying the bark and transverse, radial 

 and tangential views of the grain. The cut surfaces represented the 

 woods both unfinished and highly finished, the latter suggesting an 

 ornamental value of many of our timbers not appreciated by the pub- 

 lic generally. The labels with these timbers gave information as to tlieir 

 respective distribution and relative abundance throughout the State 

 and the uses to which they are generally applied. 



Arranged as transparencies in the windows was a series of transverse 

 sections of the woods of the State one-four-hundredth of an inch in 

 thickness, the products of a machine and process devised by the super- 

 intendent of the exhibit for the scientific study and display of woods. 

 The exhibit also included several manufactured articles of wood, in 

 pursuance of the general design of making it as complete a showing 

 as possible of the various native and naturalized trees of the State. 

 One hundred and six species were represented, and, from a dendro- 

 logical standpoint this was, perhaps, as complete an exhibit as was ever 

 made of the forestry of any region whatever. The walls of the space 

 were covered with balsam boughs, making the atmosphere redolent with. 



