302 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



of our woodlands, and enable the State to obtain an annual, permanent revenue 

 without depending on some one species as at present. With the annual cutting 

 limited to the annual increment there would be no diminution in forest area. But if 

 the State does not own the land, each species will be cut merely because there is a sale 

 for it, and denudation will surely ensue. It may be that the owners of private forests 

 may adopt a more conservative system of cutting than that which has prevailed. Some 

 are already restricting their spruce cutting to twelve inches on the stump, the same 

 diameter specified in the State forestry law of 1893*, which the Forest Commission 

 adopted when at one time the sale of spruce stumpage on State land was contemplated, 

 although no sales were ever made under that Act. But with our present market con- 

 ditions and price of labor, and inability to sell fuel, or convert the waste tops and 

 branches into money, it is doubtful whether any forest tract managed on the European 

 system would yield a permanent revenue of four per cent, on the principal. 



At the present time, the spruce, as shown in the foregoing statistics, forms over 

 three-fourths of the timber cut in the forests of Northern New York. Nearly one-half 

 of it is used in making woodpulp. This proportion will increase, and it may be that 

 within a few years the entire cut of spruce will be utilized by the pulp mills ; for, 

 already, there is more profit in selling it to the pulp mills than in sawing it into lumber. 



The kind of spruce which forms the larger part of the product, both for lumber and 

 pulpwood, is the red spruce (Picea rubens, Sarg.). Most of the large trees belong 

 to this species. Until late years the botanists recognized only two kinds, the black 

 and the white spruce, the red being classified as a variation of the black. But now the 

 existence of three separate species is admitted. Prof. Peck, the State Botanist, claims 

 that there is still a fourth species, a dwarf spruce, which is distinct and easily 

 recognized. The black spruce of the Adirondacks grows mostly on low, wet grounds, 

 and seldom attains the height and size of the red. It is cut for lumber and pulpwood 

 as well as the other, there being little difference in its appearance aside from a 

 yellowish tint in the wood. The white spruce is a small tree, which in our State is 

 seldom found outside of Essex county. 



In my monograph on the Adirondack Spruce, published by the Forest Commission 

 in 1894, I included the black and red spruce under one species, making no mention of 

 the latter, except in a quotation from Prof. Britton relative to it, and the fact that it 

 had been generally regarded as a variation instead of a distinct species. Owing to the 

 recent classification of the spruces and recognition of the red spruce as a separate 

 species, it would have been better if the title of the book had been, "The Adirondack 

 Red Spruce"; for the statistics and measurements contained in the volume relate 

 almost entirely to that species as classified at present. 



* Chapter 332, Laws of 1893, Article VIII, Section 121. 



