BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN 
LEAFLETS 
Series X Brooklyn, N.Y., October 4, 1922. No. 8 
THE FORESTS AND SOME BIG TREES 
OF LONG ISLAND 
At a court of assize in New York on April 7, 1672, it was 
ordered that “ four days every year the inhabitants of Long Island 
from sixteen to sixry years of age shall be obliged to go into the 
woods to cut the small brush and underwood, and any person 
failing, to pay a fine of fifty shillings.” From that day to this, 
and particularly since the advent of the railway in 1844, there have 
been periodical disturbances of the forests of the island, usually 
followed by disastrous fires. This early cutting of the young 
woods was practically universal in all Long Island towns, many 
of which passed still more stringent laws to see that it was 
accomplished. Too late, they nearly all, as historical records 
amply prove, reversed the policy. 
The forests of the island, then, have been subject to so much 
attention by zealous, if rather ruthless, ancestors of ours, that 
only by studying relics which escaped their ministrations can we 
get any idea of the true forest possibilities of the Island. Such a 
study has been made at Gardiner’s Island, where there is perhaps 
the finest growth of timber to be found within hundreds of miles 
of New York. On a given acre there are sixteen trees nine feet 
or more — usually much more — in circumference ; and many times 
that number between six and nine feet in circumference. This 
shows what freedom from fire and cutting will do; since it was in 
1G39 that the first Lion Gardiner reached the island. It has been 
in that family ever since, and furnishes an unique example of 
intelligent and continuous ownership. 
For the rest of Long Island there are dreary miles of third or 
fourth growth timber to reward the seeker after forest data. The 
writer has travelled hundreds of miles over the Island gathering 
information which might lead to a possible utilization of its 
timber possibilities. This has involved a study of the trees 
themselves, the climate, particularly the evaporating power of 
the air, the soil, and most important of all, the rate of growth 
of the different native trees on different sites. 
But no information gathered by a single individual could 
possibly assemble all the needed data, so that in March of this 
year it was decided to offer prizes for records of big, native trees. 
From over three hundred records sent in, a mass of information 
