2 2 THIRTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



the pleasure of addressing about ioo separate audiences upon the subject 

 of the preservation of the forest, fish and game of the State, and the neces- 

 sity for reforestation. At each place and on each occasion I have urged 

 upon the people to plant trees upon the denuded hillsides, especially in 

 places where the land is of little value for agricultural purposes. At the 

 same time I have pointed out the fact that in a very short time, at the rate 

 timber is being taken from the forest lands of the State, we shall have little 

 if any sawing timber left. This fact is very patent when we consider that 

 there is only about 41,000,000,000 feet of sawing timber left on public and 

 private lands, farm lots and all in the State, and that the cut this year has 

 been 1,500,000,000 feet. Deducting from the total amount of timber 

 land the 1,500,000 acres owned by the State, one readily observes 

 that in 22 or 23 years we will have no timber to cut, assuming that 

 the rate of cutting continues as it has for the last year or two, and 

 under the constantly increasing demand for lumber there is no doubt 

 about its continuing, and therefore, no doubt about it that there 

 will be a scarcity of lumber and a very high price for the same in a few 

 years to come. Once storage reservoirs were not needed in the State 

 because Nature's reservoir was ample to retard, hold and conserve the 

 water, paying it out into the streams gradually and keeping a substantially 

 even flow throughout the year. As the timber disappears from the land 

 the water runs off more readily. Floods occur whenever there is a heavy 

 rainfall, and when the water recedes the rivers and creek beds are substan- 

 tially dry. To lose our timber and thereby the continual flow of water 

 in the great streams of the State will result in great commercial loss to the 

 State, and, in places, much injury to agricultural lands. Therefore it 

 seems very important that the State should increase its work in tree plant- 

 ing, and that all persons owning land not especially desirable for agricul- 

 tural purposes, should be encouraged to plant trees thereon. The vaiue 

 of all kinds of lumber is daily increasing, and soon it will be so great that 

 the lumbering of hardwoods in the Adirondacks will be feasible — the price 

 so much exceeding freight rates and the cost of manufacture that the 

 profits will warrant the cutting. If the people of the State allow that to 

 occur, and the hardwoods are taken off, the protection of the sources of 

 the rivers which rise in that section of the State will be destroyed and it 



