Without entering into statistics of the relative area of forested and denuded lands in New York, or the relative rate of forest removal and forest growth which is so disproportionate as to threaten the complete denudation of the State within 20 or 25 years, we may mention something of what has been done in the way of practical forest Conservation in the State, partly by the aid of this Association.
There are six principal ways in which the forests can be conserved:
1—By restriction of commercial lumbering
2—By prevention of timber stealing
3—By control of forest fires
4—By building good roads
5—By replanting
6—By prevention of flooding
1—Commercial Lumbering. There appear to be three ways of reducing the danger of the denudation of private forest lands, namely, (a) to educate the owners as to the unwisdom of indiscriminate and wholesale cutting; (b) to convert private lands into State lands by purchase, and thus bring them under the protection of the Constitution which forbids the cutting of trees on State land; and (c) the passage of laws offering inducements to, or imposing some restrictions on, private owners for the purpose of reducing their cut. Of these three methods, good progress has been made with the first two; the third has been attempted only in a mild way and without effect.
In the past dozen years, the private owners of forests in New York have awakened to a lively sense of the shortsightedness of the policy of cutting everything in sight. Prior to about 1890, roughly speaking, lumbermen as a usual thing took nothing less than two-log trees, leaving all that were under 12 inches in diameter on the stump. But with the improvements in machinery and processes for the manufacture of wood pulp, not only was the range of cutting extended from poplar to spruce, hemlock, pine, and balsam, but the lumbermen also disregarded size limits and cut all the trees of certain species, large and small. This close cutting was disastrous in both its primary and secondary effects; it left no provision for future growth, and it thinned the forests so much in places that further damage was inflicted by wind and ice storms. In the closing years of the last century signs of an awakening to the dangers of this policy appeared. In 1898 the Division of Forestry of the United States Department of Agriculture issued Circular 21 entitled "Practical Assistance to Farmers, Lumbermen, and Others in Handling Forest Lands," conveying an offer to cooperate with owners in the preparation of working plans for forest lands which presented conditions favorable for systematic and conservative management. One of the first private owners to appreciate the wisdom of adopting the more conservative course recommended by the Government was the late Honorable William C. Whitney, owner of a tract of 70,000 acres in Hamilton County. Prior to 1898 he had been cutting down to a diameter of 8 inches three feet from the ground; but in 1898, after securing expert advice, he raised the limit to 10 inches, which was maintained until last spring, when lumbering on that preserve was finished. The result of this judicious policy has been that there is now a fine growth of young trees on the property, which in a few years will come to merchantable size. In 1900 the State of New York appropriated $2,000 to enable the Forest, Fish, and Game Commission to take advantage of the Government offer to the extent of working out the theory of conservative forest management on a selected tract of land known as "Township 40 of the Totten and Crossfield Purchase," embracing Raquette Lake in Hamilton County. This could be only a theoretical demonstration as applied to State forest land, because (for very excellent reasons) the State adopted a Constitutional Amendment in 1894 which provides that—"The lands of the State now owned or hereafter 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 thereon be sold, removed or destroyed" (article VII, section 7). But while only a demonstration on paper of a theory and not a demonstration in fact, the result of the practical study on the ground and the consequent publicity of the conclusions was of value, for it attracted the attention of lumbermen to the diameter limits below which it is wasteful in the long run to cut. Township 40 is a virgin forest, and taking into consideration all the conditions of that particular tract—character and density of growth, rate of reproduction, proximity to outlets, cost of logging roads, camps, and stream improvements—it was calculated that 12 inches was the most advantageous minimum diameter to be used. In the following year a forest working plan for townships 5, 6, and 41 was worked out with a similar result, namely, the recommendation of a 12-inch minimum limit. Since that time conservative lumbering has been adopted on several private properties other than the Whitney preserve. One of the most notable cases is that of the International Paper Company, the owner of very extensive woodlands, which for sometime past has not cut trees less than 10 inches in diameter.
It may be said with confidence, therefore, that the campaign of education in forest matters during the past ten years in this State, and the mathematical demonstration of the wisdom, from the practical business standpoint, of placing limitations on the cut, are bearing fruit. Not only is the system of culling or selection tending to supersede wholesale tree-cutting of all sizes, but there is also reason to believe, from the latest available statistics, that in 1908 there was an actual change in favor of a reduced cut.
In the past decade there has been material progress in forest conservation by the enlargement of the forest land holdings of the State. During this period, the State has purchased about half a million acres of forest land, and its Forest Preserve, on January 1, 1910, embraced 1,641,523 acres, of which 1,530,559 were in the Adirondack mountains and 110,964 were in the Catskill mountains. Much of the land acquired during the past decade has been lumbered land, and has contained little merchantable timber. The purchases have had the advantage, however, of increasing the area of wild land which, so long as the present forestry section of the State Constitution shall stand, will at least have the chance to produce a new forest without risk of destruction. In pursuing the policy of building up its Forest Preserve, the State has shown in times past regrettable and costly procrastination, with the result that it has bought denuded land at twice the price at which it could have bought forested land. In this respect, the State still lags behind what many believe to be the rate at which the State's holdings should be increased. The signs of encouragement under this head are evident not only in the increased aggregate area of the State Forest Preserve, but also in the improved methods of administration. In times past, the forest administration has been so lax, not to characterize it more strongly, that while with one hand it was spending large sums in purchasing land, with the other it was parting with State property on flimsy pretexts, with the result that in some years, while purchases were being made, the State's holdings were actually decreasing instead of increasing. Weak compromises, by which the State parted with its timber and retained the land, involved transactions in which the State apparently bought a second time land which it already owned; and the purchase of land at exorbitant prices from favored friends, were practices of the past, the abatement or abolition of which is not the least encouraging evidence of the Conservation movement in this State.
In legislation, little has been attempted in the way of offering inducements to lumbermen to restrict their cut, and nothing has been done in the way of compulsion. In 1893 and again in 1894 Honorable Roswell P. Flower, then Governor, in a message to the Legislature recommended the enactment of a law which would provide for some reasonable compensation to such owners of private forests as should consent to cut no trees except under conditions imposed by the State; and a Law was enacted embodying that idea, and it now forms section 43 of the consolidated Forest, Fish and Game Law of 1909. This section provides that the Forest, Fish and Game Commission may "contract that lands within the Adirondack Park not owned by the State shall, in consideration of exemption from taxation for State and county purposes, become public as part of the park in like manner as State lands. Such a contract must provide against the removal of live timber except spruce, tamarack, or poplar, more than twelve inches in diameter three feet from the ground, and may reserve to the owner the right to clear not more than one acre within each hundred acres of land, and may contain such other reservations for occupancy as may be agreed upon. The approval of the commissioners of the land office must appear on any such contract by the certificate of their clerk. Such contract shall be recorded in like manner as conveyances made by commissioners of the land office." This law has proved no inducement to forest owners, and has been ineffective in limiting their cuttings.
Our Association has considered the subject of legislation providing for some discrimination in the taxation of forest lands which, by lowering the rate of taxation on immature forests, should offer an inducement to forest owners to allow their young timber to stand and grow; but as yet no satisfactory plan has been worked out. There is another phase of this question, however, which is attracting increasing attention in neighboring States, but which as yet has received little consideration in New York, namely, the compulsory restriction of timber cutting by legislation. Two recent judicial decisions on the power of a State to regulate the use of the natural resources of private land bear with much force on this subject. The Senate of Maine requested the Supreme Court of that State to give, for its guidance, an opinion upon the following question:
In order to promote the common welfare of the people of Maine by preventing or diminishing injurious droughts and freshets, and by protecting, preserving, and maintaining the natural water supply of the springs, streams, ponds, and lakes of the land, and by preventing or diminishing injurious erosion of the land and the filling up of the rivers, ponds, and lakes, and as an efficient means necessary to this end, has the Legislature power under the Constitution, by public general law, to regulate or restrict the cutting or destruction of trees growing on wild or uncultivated land, by the owner thereof, without compensation therefor to such owner?