270 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



In the item of lumbered lands is included, also, some tracts which were cut over 

 several years ago, before the pulpwood industry with its cutting of small spruces 

 became such a prominent feature in forest operations. On such lands there remains 

 to-day a considerable amount of merchantable spruce, both sawing timber and pulp- 

 wood, resulting from the growth of the smaller trees which were left by the lumbermen 

 when they operated there years ago, but not enough to warrant their classification with 

 the lands of the first class. 



The term Waste Lands, taken from the Comptroller's printed instructions to 

 assessors, includes lands that are not denuded, but which are covered with a scanty, 

 scrubby growth of trees that prevent their classification in the second item. 



It may seem strange that there are 75,819 acres of Improved Land within the 

 boundary of the Adirondack Park. But there is a population of 15,832 people living 

 there, not including summer residents or the transient occupants of the logging camps. 

 Within the Park are situated the villages of Indian Lake, Sageville, Wells, Old Forge, 

 Long Lake, Saranac Lake, Tupper Lake, Lake Placid and several small hamlets. The 

 highways running through the Park, in Franklin, Hamilton and Essex counties are 

 bordered with mountain farms that in the aggregate include many thousand acres of 

 cleared land and pasturage. 



The total area of the Forest Preserve, or lands owned by the State, is, at present, 

 1,215,821 acres, of which the Adirondack Preserve contains 1,159,309 acres, and the 

 Catskill Preserve, 56,512 acres. 



There seems to be a general misunderstanding as to the proper use of the terms 

 Forest Preserve and Adirondack Park. The terms are not synonymous, but represent 

 areas widely different in size, location and ownership. Many of our forestry friends 

 forget that the Forest Preserve, as defined by law, includes only the lands owned by 

 the State in sixteen specified counties, including the four Catskill counties, while the 

 Adirondack Park includes all the 4and, both public and private, within certain Adiron- 

 dack towns — an area three times that of the Forest Preserve; and, that there are many 

 small, scattered tracts in the Adirondack Preserve which are situated outside of, and a 

 long way distant from, the Adirondack Park. 



I have noticed repeatedly, that persons in writing about Adirondack matters speak 

 of the State as buying land in the Forest Preserve, meaning the Adirondack Park, and 

 forgetting that the State already owns the Forest Preserve ; and, that such ownership, 

 and that only, makes the land a part of the Preserve. A remarkable instance of this 

 misuse of the term Forest Preserve occurred in the amendment to the forestry clause 

 of the new State Constitution, submitted to the people in 1896, an error which would 

 have rendered that section of the amendment inoperative even if the people had 

 voted affirmatively., 



