FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 359 



The Commission should know not only the acreage of the burnt lands and the 

 virgin and the culled forest it controls, not only the location of each parcel of these, 

 but the condition of each with regard to its possible treatment. Such a description 

 can be satisfactorily made only by a practically educated forester, who, like the phy- 

 sician, diagnoses with a view to devising the remedy. 



It is only when the condition of the whole or major part of the property is 

 known that a harmonious, well-considered plan for its technical management can be 

 devised and followed. It is then that the silvicultural as well as the administrative 

 problems involved become apparent. 



It was mainly for the solution of silvicultural problems that the New York State 

 College of Forestry was endowed with an area of thirty thousand acres in the Adiron- 

 dacks, the tract having been so located as to exhibit the greatest variety of problems 

 that might be met in the entire Reserve. 



The silvicultural problems can be classified into at least four groups, with any 

 number of subdivisions, according to the character of the prevailing forest conditions. 

 They will have to deal with the treatment of (1) virgin lands, (2) culled* lands, 

 (3) slashes or burns, and (4) swamps. 



Since the virgin lands in the possession of the State represent a proportionately 

 small area, a few hundred thousand acres, they may, like the swamps, be left without 

 detriment to future consideration. It is, therefore, to the culled lands and the slashes, 

 of which the major part of the State property consists, that first attention should 

 be directed. 



Aa^ing Wastes Usefal. 



The slashes and old burns and openings of various kinds exhibit quite a variety of 

 conditions, and admit, therefore, the possibility of a variety of treatment. But they 

 are all alike in this, that in their present condition they present the greatest danger 

 from forest fires, and that in most cases they fail to grow useful material. They are 

 not only dead capital, but a menace to the standing timber. Not only do they 

 furnish the best chances for the starting of fires, but, once a fire is started, the winds 

 sweeping over the open drive the fire with such fury that human efforts to stop its 

 progress are in vain. Usually the fire burns over the entire opening and destroys 

 whatever effort Nature has made to recover the ground since the last fire. 



In some places repeated fires have almost cleared the area of the old debris, and it 

 is possible to begin at once, without preparation, the planting of valuable species. 



* Lumbered lands from which the spruce or some other species have been take 



