192 FIFTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



Co-operation with Owners of Woodland 



The Forest, Fish and Game Commission of this State, unlike the com- 

 missions and foresters of most other States, has a large State property to 

 protect, a work which consumes a great deal of time and energy. It is a 

 line of work, too, which sets the Commission in a way hostile to the interests 

 of private parties. In other States, on the other hand, the main work 

 of the State officers has been educational and of the nature of co-operation 

 with private owners — amassing facts of importance with regard to forest 

 growth, and putting them, by means of bulletins, lectures and demon- 

 strations, at the service of private land owners to the end that the property 

 of those owners may be administered nearer to true forestry principles. 

 The work in those States has developed in a thoroughly friendly and co- 

 operative spirit. A great mass of valuable data, relating to the forest, 

 of various regions, and the science of forestry as applied to their growths, 

 has by that means been obtained and the work as a whole has been exceed- 

 ingly profitable. New York, has indeed, been a leader in this line of work 

 in one special direction. Starting extensive nurseries in 1903 for the pur- 

 pose of raising stock to set out on State land, in 1908 provision was made 

 by law for furnishing forest trees at cost to private owners who had land 

 which they desired to stock. The interest aroused in this direction has 

 been very gratifying. In the spring of 1909 about one million young 

 forest trees were distributed to private owners from the State nurseries 

 and large quantities were imported for use as well. This Tine of work is 

 very profitable from every point of view and the State nurseries, it is believed, 

 should be extended so as to take care of the full demand. The planting 

 of young softwood trees is more necessary in New York than in some other 

 eastern States, because the natural reproduction of the forests in New 

 York is more largely of a decidious nature. There is, too, no means of 

 interesting people in their own forest property and in the forestry move- 

 ment at large so effective as to have them plant and watch the develop- 

 ment of young forest trees. 



Mr. Pettis contributes an extensive article to this report on the broad 

 subject of nurseries and reforestation. It is also worthy of note that within 

 the year the United States Forest Service has published a bulletin prepared 



