ALBANY. TUESDAY, JAN. 27, 1874. 



The Effect of their Destruction upon 

 Climate and Vegetation. 



A Plea in Behalf of Trees, 



The following able aad iateresting' paper on 

 the preservation of forests and the planting of 

 timber was read at the recent annual meeting 

 of the State Agricultural Society. Its im- 

 portance deserves circulation and careful 

 study. 



ON THE PKESERVATION OF FORESTS AKD THE 

 PLANTING OF TIMBER. 



y 



•-v,.BY FEANKMN B. HOUGH. 



When the region now included in the State 

 of New York first became known to Euro- 

 peans it was covered with a heavy growth of 

 forests. The only exceptions were parts oocu- 

 pied by rocks, marsh or river intervale, the 

 beaver meadows here and there along the 

 streams, and now and then a little patch of 

 open ground where the native Indians tilled 

 the soil in their rude and simple way, by the 

 side of some favorite lake or stream, which 

 afforded the best opportunities for subsistence 

 by hunting and fishing. 



This forest opposed the first resistance to 

 the labors of civilized man, and must be 

 cleared off before the first field could be sown 

 or the first fruit tree pli*. ted. 



Although forest products ULiordgd from the 

 beginning an important class of commodities 

 needed in the old world, and an abundance of 

 conveniences of greatest use in the new, still 

 the apparently inexhaustible supply seems to 

 have licensed an unlimited waste. The cash 

 receipts for potash would go far towards 

 j meeting the first payments for land, and so 

 I the work of destruction, begun Avith neces- 

 sity, went on as if there were no hereafter, 

 I and wanton waste had made sad havoc with 



'our timber long befo're it came to be realized 

 that even its conversion into lumber for ex- 

 portation, and use in the cities, was more 

 economical than burning it to ashes on the 

 ground. 



Through the first two hundred years no 

 other fuel was thought of any where in our 

 country, and even now, except along our 

 thoroughfares of canal and railroad traffic, 

 wood is still the principal or only fuel. The 

 construction of these lines of communication, 

 while it has favored the introduction of 

 mineral coal, and thus reduced the demand 

 for fire wood, has at the same time opened 

 channels for transportation, and stimulated 

 the demand for lumber and other forest pro- 

 ducts is a still greater degree ; so that if there 

 is now less waste, there is a greater and rapidly 

 increasing consumption. If the asheries, once 

 so numerous, have mostly disappeared, the 

 scm mills and tanneries have in like ratio mul- 

 tiplied, and the havoc to our forests has gone 

 on until even these have in many places ex- 

 hausted the supplies around them. The soil, 

 indeed, has been opened to cultivation; yet 

 over extensive areas scarcely a tree has been 

 left to shelter it from the sun and the winds. 

 I invite your attention to some of the conse- 

 quences which may be expected to follow this 

 improvident waste, and will venture to pro- 

 pose some conservative measures tending to 

 compensate for this coulinued exhaustion of 

 supply. 



Were it not for the fact that a part of our tim- 

 ber and lumber has been for many years deriv- 

 ed from Canada and the Northwestern States, 

 the want of these essential articles would ere 

 this have been severely felt, and at present 

 rates, these extra-limited sources must in a few 

 years become exhausted, and we may realize, 

 when too late, the folly of not providing a 

 seasonable and sufficient remedy. 



We will first notice the demand for wood 

 by railroads. According to the last report of 

 the State Engineer and Surveyor, we have in 

 this State about 6,000 miles of roads finished 

 upon main lines, and 3,000 upon branches, 

 making for these, and for sidings and 

 double tracks, about 11,000 miles to keep 

 supplied with ties, to say nothing of the 

 rapid ini. o;. from year to year. This single 

 item demanded ^0,675,000 pieces, which on 

 the average must be renewed once in six 

 years, requiring an annual supply of 4,445,- 

 830 pieces, or about two and a quarter mil- 

 lion of trees. The cost of fuel on railroads 

 was about seven and a half million of dol- 



