Dec. 9, 1911.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
839 
scienceless vandalism is supplied by the Brook¬ 
lyn Cooperage Company, a subsidiary organiza¬ 
tion of the sugar trust. The logging done by 
this company is more destructive than any other 
with which I am acquainted in the Eastern States, 
and the damage by fires for which its careless¬ 
ness is said to be responsible will cost the people 
of New York large sums of money and long 
years of time to repair. When requested by the 
Conservation Commission to take simple and 
necessary precautions against fire, it peremptorily 
refused to do so. The Brooklyn Cooperage 
Company controls by ownership and lease 123,- 
000 acres in the Adirondacks. Unless this or¬ 
ganization is restrained by the strong hand of 
the State, every acre of that land will be de¬ 
spoiled of its forest growth and swept clean by 
fire. 
In my judgment, to destroy in this fashion 
forests whose destruction hurts the State is as 
much a mark of bad citizenship as for a man 
in town to set fire to his own house. There is 
no more moral right in the one case than in the 
other, and the time is rapidly approaching when 
there will be no more legal right either. 
I recommend the passage of a law which will 
require the lumbermen inside the Adirondack 
preserve to carry out such a degree of practical 
forestry on their timber lands as will reduce 
the damage from fire to the lowest practicable 
point, and insure the perpetuation of the forest. 
In each case the plan of work should be ap¬ 
proved and its execution should be supervised 
by the Conservation Commission through the 
superintendent of State forests, who is now and 
always should be a trained forester. The State 
should prepare practical cutting plans for lum¬ 
bermen at their request, and otherwise assist 
with information and advice, and for this pur¬ 
pose a considerable increase should be made in 
the number of trained foresters now available. 
To compel private owners to cease cutting 
altogether on certain mountain lands which 
should be kept untouched for the protection of 
the slopes and of the water supply, would be 
an unfair burden upon them. The private lands 
of the Adirondacks should, therefore, be divided 
into so-called protection forests on the steep 
high slopes, which should never be cut at all, 
and the commercially valuable timber on the 
lower slopes and rolling lands, upon which cut¬ 
tings should be regulated by the State. As 
rapidly as possible the State should acquire the 
protection forests and look after them. 
Section 7 of Article 7 of the New York Con¬ 
stitution is as follows: 
“The lands of the State, now owned or here¬ 
after acquired, constituting the forest preserve 
as now fixed by law, shall be forever kept as 
wild forest lands. They shall not be leased, sold 
or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, 
public or private, nor shall the timber be sold, 
removed or destroyed.” 
In practical effect this section does more to 
limit and restrict the use of the Adirondack 
Park by the citizens of New York than all the 
other causes combined. Under it citizens of the 
State are prevented from constructing cheap 
wooden camps along the borders of lakes and 
streams controlled by the State, leaving the 
wealthy owners of elaborate so-called “camps” 
undisturbed by the proximity of poorer neigh¬ 
bors. The purchase of camp sites on private 
lands, even if any were still available, is beyond 
the reach of persons of average means. Such 
camp sites, I am informed, have sold for as 
much as $100 per foot of water front. 
The State should lease small camp sites on 
terms which will encourage the enjoyment of 
the park by as many people as possible, keeping 
open, however, not less than one-quarter of 
every lake and stream for the general public. 
The use of the State lands by every man, woman 
and child who can manage to get there should 
be assisted and made easy in every practicable 
way. The lessees of camp sites would consti¬ 
tute in effect a large volunteer fire department 
constantly on guard, to whose personal interest 
it would be to prevent or put out every fire. 
Section 7 likewise prohibits the construction 
on State land of roads and trails needed to make 
the people’s property accessible to the people. It 
is well known that roads and trails form an 
admirable protection against fire. Because of 
their absence the Adirondack Park is needlessly 
exposed to the risk of conflagration. 
In another way also this section increases the 
danger of fire on State lands. Substantially all 
of the recent State purchases consist of logged 
or burned land, containing great quantities of 
dead and down brush and timber. The removal 
of these fire traps is now forbidden by Section 
7 and the danger from fire correspondingly in¬ 
creased. In some cases while great quantities 
of timber are decaying on the ground, green 
trees are necessarily cut at increased expense 
to supply the indispensable fuel. Already those 
who live in villages surrounded by forests owned 
by the State must pay excessive prices for fire 
wood brought in from private lands. 
Under this section the development of water 
power by storage on State land is forbidden be¬ 
cause it cannot be done without killing some 
trees. Thus one of the principal resources of 
the State is kept unused, without any corres¬ 
ponding benefit to the people. 
Section 7 forces the State to hold lands out¬ 
side of the blue line boundary of the Adiron¬ 
dack Park, which in many cases are far more 
valuable for cultivation than as forest. It ought 
to be possible to exchange those small isolated 
areas of State land, now merely a burden and 
expense, for land inside the blue line which the 
State really needs for park purposes. Some ex¬ 
tension of the blue line is required in order that 
it may inclose all Adirondack forest lands whose 
protection is urgently needed for the general 
welfare. 
When Section 7 of Article 7 was included in 
the constitution, there was good reason for 
doing so. At that time the recent history of the 
Adirondack Park contained a malodorous series 
of transactions in which at every turn the State 
got the worst of it. Not without cause the peo¬ 
ple of the State came to believe that the only 
way to save the Adirondacks from mis-use was 
to forbid them to be used at all. 
The situation to-day is entirely changed. In 
my judgment, the people of New York may now 
safely trust themselves to administer their own 
forest property with honesty, sagacity and skill. 
The State of New York now has a forest de¬ 
partment governed by safe standards of public 
service, and actually accomplishing results of 
real public value. The supply of trained forest¬ 
ers in the United States is fortunately sufficient 
to enable the State of New York to build up the 
necessary force under the direction of the super¬ 
intendent of forests. Public sentiment is now 
generally aroused and informed as to the value 
of the people’s property in the Adirondacks, so 
that a repetition of the old mismanagement has 
become impossible. To continue to lock up the 
Adirondack Park against use will do no good 
and much harm. 
It is not as well known as it should be that 
Adirondack land may be lumbered and the pro¬ 
duct put to use, not only without injuring the 
forest, but to the improvement of its condition 
and value. The public mind has been some¬ 
what confused by the unfortunate experiment 
on the Cornell lands at Axton. The practice 
there was directly opposite to that on the Webb 
and Whitney tracts above referred to. At Axton 
the logging destroyed the forest cover by cutting 
clean. It was financially unprofitable, so that 
money to replant ran short. For the same rea¬ 
son the slash was left on the ground, a promptly 
accepted invitation to forest fires. Finally, the 
Cornell experiment did not conform to the first 
principle of true forestry in the Adirondacks, 
which is to secure natural reproduction from 
seed trees left standing after cutting only trees 
carefully selected and marked. 
Good forestry on State lands in the North 
Woods demands cutting so moderate as not to 
destroy forest conditions, or seriously disturb 
the forest cover. Practical forestry in the Adi¬ 
rondack Park should begin slowly and at first 
should cut not more than 1 per cent, of the park 
each year. The first consideration in all cuttings 
should be to improve the forest. Clean cutting 
should be forbidden by the constitution. So 
should cuttings so heavy as to impair or inter¬ 
rupt the forest condition or require the planting 
of trees after logging. All logging in green 
timber should be directed to encourage young 
growth, and all sound spruce trees below four¬ 
teen inches or hardwood below eighteen inches 
in diameter should be left standing. 
Before the constitutional question whether 
practical forestry shall be permitted in the Adi¬ 
rondack Park is submitted to the people for 
action, the Conservation Commission should be 
called upon to lay before the Legislature and 
the people a full description of the methods of 
practical forestry which it is proposed to apply, 
and the results these methods are intended to 
secure. 
In a virgin forest, as the young trees grow 
up, the old trees die and fall to the ground, 
thus supplying fuel for forest fires. In a prop¬ 
erly handled forest, mature trees are cut down 
and the slash disposed of, so that an Adiron¬ 
dack forest carefully and properly logged pre¬ 
sents no greater invitation to fire than one not 
logged at all. 
The timber in a virgin forest does not in¬ 
crease in quantity, because the growth of the 
young timber is offset by the death and decay 
of the old. But in a well handled forest the 
amount and value of the standing timber steadily 
increases. The result of practical forestry in 
the Adirondack Park will not be to decrease 
the future supply of timber, but to husband and 
increase it. It is not only to the interest, but 
it is the duty of the State to put its forests in 
the best possible condition to be useful to the 
people. That cannot be done without the wise 
use of the axe. 
The wide use and more efficient protection of 
(Continued on page 856.) 
