HYDROLOGY OF NEW YORK 



873 



B. M. The cut of spruce, therefore, amounted to only about 23 

 per cent of the whole. 



It seems to the writer that many people in New York have taken 

 unsound ground on this question of the relation of the State to 

 great manufacturing enterprises. Paper has been justly stated 

 to be the index of a people's civilization, but if popular clamor 

 were considered, one might suppose it was an index of exactly 

 the opposite. The manufacturers are not to blame for a continual 

 increased use of this product, and so long as paper can be pro- 

 duced from wood pulp at considerably less cost than from other 

 raw material, it is idle to expect that anything else will be used. 



THE PROPER FUTURE COMMERCIAL POLICY OF NEW YORK 



In the foregoing pages we have seen that by virtue of its position, 

 New York is naturally so situated as to be the principal manufac- 

 turing area of the United States, but that because of developing 

 on narrow lines it has realized only a portion of the manufac- 

 turing naturally its due. After the Revolutionary war, the 

 United States was an agricultural region purely — aside from 

 agricultural products, substantially everything used was manu- 

 factured abroad. 



About ninety years ago Erie canal was inaugurated for the 

 purpose largely of carrying agricultural productions — grain, 

 lumber, etc, — to market. It was not realized that the natural 

 destiny of the State of New Y'ork was for manufacturing rather 

 than for internal commerce. The result of this was that the natural 

 flow of streams throughout the central part of the State was 

 mostly appropriated for the use of the Erie canal, and restrictive 

 laws enacted which have discouraged the development of manu- 

 facturing. Hence the New England States, where an opposite 

 policy prevailed, have developed far mere manufacturing per unit 

 area than New York, although farther away from the centers of 

 trade and commerce. 



Now that we realize the great mistake made, the first thing to 

 be done is to remove restrictions as to the use of water of every 

 sort and kind. We need to enact a constitutional amendment 

 substantially on the lines laid down by Mr Herschel in 1891, and 

 also we need such further legislation as will permit of develop- 



