FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 363 



Can there be any question as to the changes which it is desirable to effect, if we 

 apply the reasoning of rational political and financial economy ? Remove the dead 

 capital of old, hardwood timber, and replace it by a young, thrifty crop, growing into 

 value, in which the more desirable conifers preponderate ! 



The silviculturist will have to decide how best to secure this young crop, 

 which may be done by favoring the volunteer crop of conifers, by giving a chance for 

 seeds from left-over seed trees to find a seed-bed and favorable light conditions for 

 development, or by planting or sowing artificially. 



But before he can apply his skill, the manager must have found a way of disposing 

 of the hardwood crop. And here lies the pivotal point of the problem, as with most 

 of the forestry problems that are to be worked out on financial basis in the United 

 States ; namely, in the market question. 



If the silviculturist is to show his skill in producing a new crop, the old must be 

 disposed of; not only must a market first be found for the sound merchantable saw- 

 logs, but for the much more bulky and less valuable portion of poor cord-wood which, 

 in the Adirondack timber, may readily be set down as exceeding in bulk two to three 

 times the raw material. Where this cannot be done, the culled lands may still eke 

 out an income by furthe-r culling of pulp material, etc.; but it is evident that this can 

 ©nly be at the expense and to the detriment of the value of the property, for it means 

 removing the most valuable species, and reducing its chance for reproduction. In 

 such cases nothing is left but waiting for economic conditions to change, until the old 

 hardwood crop is salable. 



One of the absolutely unavoidable conditions for marketing hardwood material 

 is accessibility to railroad transportation, either for the raw material or the manu- 

 factured. Therefore, before the State may enter upon a policy which has in view 

 the rational use of its property from a forestry point of view, it must change the 

 provision which prevents railroad building over State lands. I do not advocate 

 the indiscriminate opening of the State lands to railroad construction, but merely 

 state that rail transportation is a necessity for successful technical management of 

 these lands. 



The State College of Forestry has been successful in securing a market for the 

 hardwood material on its tract of thirty thousand acres, by inducing manufacturers of 

 staves and of wood alcohol to combine in establishing plants. By such combination 

 the fullest and least wasteful use of hardwood materials at present known is secured, 

 since all sound material to a diameter of eight inches and a length of thirty-two inches 

 can be used for stave-wood, while the retort and fuel wood used in the manufacture of 

 alcohol takes the material down to three inches, thus securing the fullest possible 

 utilization of all the material in the tree. 



