SUPPLEMENTARY PROCEEDINGS (continued 4)

"Since the advent of the pulp and paper industry in Maine, covering a period of less than twenty years, the system of handling our forest lands has been completely revolutionized. Prior to ten years ago, in cutting logs in the woods, it has been demonstrated by actual tests and measurements that only from 60 to 65 percent of the volume of the lumber trees actually cut was saved and utilized for lumber purposes, while since that period on account of the paper industry it has been demonstrated by later measurements and experiments that from 80 to 85 percent of the volume of lumber trees is actually utilized, and what is of far greater importance is the fact that crooked, seamy and defective trees, as well as all of the undersized trees formerly cut and destroyed in swamping and in making yards and landings are now utilized. * * * Fully one-half of the whole territory of Maine has never as yet produced one single log for pulp and paper production. I refer to Saint John River drainage, where the same wanton system of lumbering, although possibly in a somewhat lesser degree, is being followed as was followed through the long period from 1860 to 1900. Were this territory fully developed for lumbering by means of proper railroad connections or water facilities, it is safe to assert that conservatively managed, as the paper companies are endeavoring to do today with the best knowledge obtainable, it would supply the entire demand for all the mills now located in Maine indefinitely."

In the State of New York all the paper makers who own lands in the Adirondacks have an Association, including many other lumbermen, which has cooperated with the State authorities in securing legislation which would foster conservative cutting and the prevention of fires.

The International Paper Company, owning nearly a million acres of forest lands in New England, New York State, and elsewhere in the United States, has always conducted its operations with a view to the future supply. In eleven years this company has cut less than two-tenths of a cord per year per acre, which is believed to be less than the natural growth. Two years ago this company started a nursery in Vermont, and each year it has been putting in transplants in increasing quantities in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York State, supplementing its own supply by purchases of seedlings and transplants at home and abroad. This replanting is being done on abandoned farms, pasture lands and burns. On their other holdings no replanting is necessary, as there is always sufficient growth left for reproduction. Some other companies have done replanting, but in general conservative cutting and protection from fire render extensive planting unnecessary.

The paper industry has acted on its own initiative, and while self-interest may have actuated it the result is none the less beneficial from the public point of view, and the policy is more apt to be followed permanently than if impractical law, attempting to make Conservation compulsory, were passed.

[Signed] E. W. Backus Delegate

REPORT OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION

The most important interest which this Nation has to guard is human life and health. The conservation of National vitality is fundamental to all plans for the conservation of property and material welfare. As the life is more than meat and the body more than raiment, so is the preservation of health and the avoidance of unnecessary sickness and death of far greater importance than any other interests. Realizing this, the American Medical Association, the National organization of the American medical profession, has been in hearty sympathy with the Conservation movement from its inception. Composed of 52 State and Territorial associations and 1997 local branches with over 70,000 members, this Association has for years advocated the conservation of human life through the abolition of preventable diseases and the betterment of sanitary and hygienic conditions with a view to making the future work of the profession prevention rather than cure. For the accomplishment of these purposes it is today carrying out a number of important lines of work:

1—The American Medical Association has, since its organization in 1847, labored constantly for the elevation of medical schools and of the standard of medical education. Especially during the last five years it has, through its Council on Medical Education, carried on a system of inspection of medical schools with the publication of reports thereon, which has materially raised the standard of medical education and has eliminated a considerable number of low-grade institutions. It is obvious that any increase in efficiency of the medical profession of the present or of the future cannot but result in increased economy of health. The Association is glad to report that medical education in the United States is today upon a higher plane than ever before, and that the public is coming more and more to realize the value of a thorough scientific training for those who undertake the care of the sick.

2—Through its publication, The Journal of the American Medical Association, it is constantly laboring to improve the economic condition of the profession, recognizing as a general principle the fact that a poverty-stricken doctor is a dangerous doctor, both to the profession and to the community. The physician who is not able to procure proper instruments and drugs, or who through poverty cannot keep up with the progress of the profession or secure the necessary books and medical journals for his instruction, may and often does become an actual danger to his patients. Proper efforts on the part of the profession for its own material well-being will result in a better class of physicians and consequently in better medical services to patients.

3—One of the most important activities of the Association in the past five years has been the work of our Chemical Laboratory established for the investigation of pharmaceutical preparations offered to physicians for administration to patients, and for the analysis of so-called patent medicines sold directly to the public. This work has been carried on through the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry supported by the Association, and has resulted in a much-needed reform in pharmaceutical products. Many preparations which were carelessly, ignorantly, or fraudulently compounded, as well as many others which were sold under false representations, have been investigated and the results published to the medical profession. Although much yet remains to be accomplished, the reform in pharmaceutical preparations has already resulted in an enormous amount of benefit to the people through the enlightenment and education of the profession on this important question. An investigation of "patent medicines" has also been carried on, and many of the preparations offered to the public have been shown, by chemical analysis, to be fraudulent; some are positively harmful, some are harmless but are not as represented; while extravagant, absurd, and impossible claims, false testimonials, and misleading advertisements, are common to many of these preparations. The Association, by its work, has exposed many swindlers and fakirs, and as a result has earned their bitter antagonism.

4—In addition to investigating and exposing frauds in pharmaceutical preparations, the Association has also established a bureau for the collection and preservation of material regarding medical frauds and fakes—including fraudulent "cures" for tuberculosis, cancer, paralysis, locomotor ataxia, and other diseases—which are advertised to the public through false representation, leading not only to an enormous loss to the people through money paid to the swindlers without any beneficial results, but also to great loss of life and economic loss through illness owing to the victims of these frauds being deprived of proper treatment. The Association is cooperating with other organizations and with the proper authorities for the detection and punishment of these frauds and for the suppression of this most despicable kind of swindlers—those who prey upon the sick and, as a means of extorting a few dollars of blood money, take advantage of the natural desire of the sick or dying to recover health. It has been estimated by the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis that the money loss alone to the people of the United States through fake consumption cures amounts to $15,000,000 annually. Probably the loss to sufferers from cancer and other incurable diseases is as great. This robbery of the sick and helpless should no longer be tolerated in any civilized country.

5—The Association has maintained a committee for the past four years on the prevention of ophthalmia neonatorum or blindness in infants due to gonorrheal infections, a preventable cause of a large percentage of existing blindness. The United States Census for the blind and deaf taken in 1900 states that 11 percent of the total number of blind lost their sight before the completion of the first year of life, and that in 25 percent the cause of blindness was due to this form of infection. The committee of the Association has been laboring for four years past, and is still at work, endeavoring to educate the public so as to secure proper legislation for the prevention of this form of blindness.

6—Through its State and county branches, as well as through its official publications and its connection with State boards of health and other agencies, the Association has been endeavoring to educate the public on the importance of better hygienic and sanitary conditions and laws, with special reference to pure food and water; proper ventilation of houses, stores, schools, factories, and work-shops; the prevention of avoidable accidents; the development of parks and playgrounds; and the avoidance of the evils of intemperance and excesses. Realizing the importance of this work and the inadequacy of existing methods for bringing practical instruction on sanitary and hygienic questions before the public, the Association at its last annual session established a Council on Health and Public Instruction, the special function of which shall be to place before the people, through the public press, magazines, pamphlets, public meetings, addresses, moving pictures, and every other available means, the best information obtainable as to the preservation of life and the avoidance of disease. The significance and importance of this action on the part of the organized medical profession of the country can hardly be overestimated. It means that physicians as a class have taken up seriously and systematically the prevention of disease and the education of the public as to how the elimination of avoidable diseases can be secured. With the cooperation of the newspapers and of the people many preventable diseases which have for centuries claimed a fixed toll of human life can be practically eliminated, and hundreds of thousands of lives saved each year.

7—While the Association has labored for the enactment of any laws, either State or National, which were for the benefit of the public health, it stands particularly committed to legislation on three subjects. These are: (a) Adequate State laws insuring purity of the food supply, (b) such State laws as will increase the efficiency of State boards of health and enable them to combat and suppress unnecessary and controllable diseases, and (c) such legislation as will provide an adequate plan for the collection and preservation of vital statistics, in order that proper data for the study and prevention of diseases may be available. It is not to the credit of this country that in half of our States human beings are born and die without any legal recognition of the fact, that not even as much attention is paid to the birth of a human infant as is given to the birth of a race-horse, a pedigreed bull, a blooded dog, or even an Angora kitten. It is not to our credit as a civilized Nation that human beings die and are buried without any legal recognition or record being made of the cause or manner of their death. It is in no sense to our credit that in many communities diphtheria, scarlet fever, and cerebro-spinal meningitis decimate the infant population yet no one knows, nor is it anyone's business to find out, how many deaths result from these epidemics, or how many persons die from various diseases in the course of a year. Proper birth registration lies at the basis of social organization, and has been so recognized for years by European nations, yet it does not exist today in this country. Vital statistics, showing the relative health, morbidity, and mortality of various sections, are of the utmost importance, since healthfulness is recognized as one of the best business assets which a town and county or a State can possess. Yet through lack of proper laws we have today death registration alone in only half of the Nation, and practically no registration of births whatever. This disgrace on our civilization, which is the wonder and amazement of European nations, should be at once removed by the passage and enforcement of uniform laws in all of the States.

8—The following resolutions were adopted by the House of Delegates of the American Medical Association, June 7, 1910:

"Resolved, That the principles of the Owen Bill, having for its object the creation of a National Department of Health, now pending in the Senate, and similar bills introduced in the House by Representatives Simmons, Creager, and Hanna, be, and are hereby, heartily approved by this Association, and the cordial thanks of the medical profession of the United States, officially represented, are hereby tendered to Senator Robert L. Owen, Irving Fisher, and their co-workers for their able and unselfish efforts to conserve and promote the most important asset of the Nation—the health and lives of its women, its children and its men—properly understood the greatest economic question now confronting our people.

"The members of this Association stand for pure food, pure drugs, better doctors, the promotion of cleaner and healthier homes, and cleaner living for individuals, for the State and for the Nation. We believe this to be held as equally true by the reputable and informed physicians of all schools or systems of practice.

"We welcome the opposition of the venal classes, long and profitably engaged in the manufacture of adulterated foods, habit-producing nostrums, and other impositions on the people, to the extent of hundreds of millions of dollars annually, and express our sympathy for the well-meaning men and women who have been misled and worked into hysterics by the monstrously wicked misrepresentations of a corrupt and noisy band of conspirators, who are being used as blind instruments to enable them to continue to defraud and debauch the American people.

"Medical science is advancing, especially on its life-saving side, with a rapidity unknown to any other branch of human knowledge. It is known of all men that our members in every community in the United States are unselfishly working day and night, instructing the people how to prevent tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and the other diseases from which physicians earn their livelihood. Therefore, we welcome and will wear as a badge of honor the slanders of these unholy interests and their hirelings."

The American Medical Association, representing as it does the medical profession of the country, stands pledged and committed to any measure which will improve the public health and preserve the lives of our people. Believing as it does that health and life is our greatest National asset, and that no nation is truly great whatever its material possessions that cannot boast of strong and healthy citizens, we ask the support and approval of the American public and of this Congress in the efforts which are being made for the preservation of human life.

[Signed] J. T. Priestly, Des Moines F. F. Wesbrook, Minneapolis A. R. Mitchell, Lincoln Chas. S. Sheldon, Madison F. R. Green, Chicago Committee

REPORT OF THE AMERICAN RAILWAY ENGINEERING AND MAINTENANCE OF WAY ASSOCIATION

In October, 1908, the National Conservation Commission invited the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance of Way Association, in connection with other technical bodies of this country, to be represented at the Conference in Washington, and to assist the National Conservation Commission with suggestions concerning advisable lines of inquiry, nature of report to be made, and possibilities of accomplishment on the part of the Commission. Acting upon this invitation, the Board of Directors of the Association appointed a Special Committee to cooperate with the Commission. This Committee consisted of eight members of the Association, selected from widely separated sections of the country.

The Association, through its Committee, was represented at the joint Conservation Conference held in Washington beginning December 8, 1908; and the Committee has been keeping in touch with the Conservation Commission through Mr Pinchot and the Secretary, Mr Thomas R. Shipp. Several meetings of the Committee have been held, and in March, 1909, the Committee was addressed by Dr Joseph A. Holmes, of the Commission.

In March, 1909, the Committee, through its Chairman, requested Mr Pinchot to furnish, through cooperation with the Forest Service, suggestions as to the best methods to be pursued by the railroad companies for the prevention and control of forest fires, with statistics of the loss from such cause, and urged upon the Commission the importance of endeavoring to effect reduction in the tariff on cross-ties and in lumber rates, in order to make it possible for the railroad companies to import ties and save thereby the home supply. The cooperation of the Committee was offered with the forest-products laboratory at the University of Wisconsin, or with any of the National or State organizations.

On May 13, 1909, an elaborate report was transmitted to the Committee by the National Conservation Commission, through Secretary Shipp, containing valuable suggestions as to the possibilities of railroad companies assisting the work of Conservation by thorough methods of prevention and control of forest fires and the cultivation of timber for railroad purposes, by the use of sawed instead of hewed ties, the use of treated timber and the extension of the supply of creosote, and other features, many relating to timber resources. This report was transmitted by the Committee to the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance of Way Association, published by the Association, and distributed throughout the country in one of its bulletins. Dealing directly, as it does, with those features of Conservation that affect the railroad companies and their patrons, and having a circulation among railroad officers covering the United States, as well as large portions of Canada and Mexico, the results should be exceedingly beneficial to the cause of Conservation.

In March of this year the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance of Way Association, recognizing the growing importance of the Conservation movement, established the Special Committee as one of the Standing Committees of the Association, at the same time largely increasing its personnel and bringing into membership a number of prominent railroad officers of this country and Canada.

The work of the Committee has been divided into sub-committees for the purpose of specialization; these, with an outline for investigation are as follows:

No. 1—Tree planting and general reforestation

a—Extent of existing forests considered in connection with increase of growth and consumption

b—Judicious selection of tree varieties for planting, and locality and soil conditions considered; possibility of value from growth on cut-over land

c—Methods of planting and cultivation, with cost of same, considering possibilities from cut-over lands

d—Anticipated results at maturity from trees so produced

e—Methods and costs of caring for and protecting existing forests

No. 2—Coal and fuel-oil resources

a—Extent of existing supplies, considered in connection with consumption

b—Extent of waste in production

c—Economic consumption, giving consideration to practical use of by-products

No. 3—Iron and steel resources

a—Supplies of raw material, considered in connection with consumption

b—Waste in production

c—Best methods of protecting finished products from destructive influences

The Committee will continue on the lines of investigation as shown, and holds itself in readiness to cooperate with the National Conservation Commission and its kindred and subsidiary organizations, as well as other National societies, for the furtherance of the great principles of Conservation of the Nation's resources.

The Committee:

A. S. Baldwin, Chief Engineer Illinois Central R. R. Co. (Chairman) Moses Burpee, Chief Engineer Bangor and Aroostook Railroad W. A. Bostwick, Metallurgical Engineer Carnegie Steel Company E. F. Busteed, General Superintendent Canadian Pacific Railway E. B. Cushing, Southern Pacific Company E. O. Faulkner, Manager Tie and Timber Department, Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe System W. F. H. Finke, Tie and Timber Agent Southern Railway J. W. Kendrick, Vice-President Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe System A. L. Kuehn, General Superintendent American Creosoting Company G. A. Mountain, Chief Engineer Canadian Railway Commission Wm. McNab, Principal Asst. Engineer Grand Trunk Railway C. L. Ransom, Resident Engineer Chicago and Northwestern Railway

[Signed] A. S. Baldwin Chairman

REPORT OF THE AMERICAN RAILWAY MASTER MECHANICS' ASSOCIATION

In behalf of the American Railway Master Mechanics' Association I wish to thank the officers of the National Conservation Congress for the courtesy shown our Association by inviting our President, Mr C. E. Fuller, to attend this Congress. Mr Fuller was unable to be present, and it was therefore my good fortune, as First Vice-President, to take his place.

As you no doubt are aware, the membership of the A. R. M. M. Asso. is composed of the heads of the mechanical departments of practically every railroad in the United States and a large number from Canada, and all of us are heartily in sympathy with the Conservation movement that has had such wonderful growth during the five years it has been before the public. The enormous amount of lumber, coal, etc., that is used by the railways makes it imperative for them to use it as economically as possible, and great efforts are being made, by education, to use a pound or a ton of coal so that the greatest efficiency may be obtained therefrom. During the calendar year ending December 30, 1909, the company I am connected with used 4,193,617 tons of coal in its locomotives and power plants; we have a large force of instructors, including master mechanics, road foremen of engines, and traveling firemen who are continually riding the engines and giving the enginemen the benefit of their experience in the proper method of handling the locomotive so that steam will not be wasted, and that only the proper amount of coal will be shovelled into the firebox to produce the desired results. The use of feed-water heaters, superheaters, and compound locomotives has been hastened by the desire to get as much use out of the heat in the coal as possible; the feed-water heater and superheater promising the best field for economy in locomotive practice. The lignite fields of Wyoming are being opened by using this kind of coal in locomotives that have been specially designed to burn it. Heretofore it was necessary to haul coal from southern Iowa to Wyoming, a distance of about 800 miles, which was a very wasteful operation; a good deal of this will be dispensed with by using lignite coal in the territory near which it is mined. So that a comparatively poor grade of coal can be made better, a washery, with a capacity of about 1800 tons per day has been erected and put in operation, which washes out a large percentage of the slate and other impurities in the coal; this means that a ton of washed coal has a greater heat value than the same amount of unwashed coal would have.

The question of conserving the life of the ties used has had due consideration, and a treating plant has been in use for nearly six years which is expected to increase, by treatment, the life of ties about 40 percent, besides enabling us to use an inferior kind of timber as ties, that before was considered impractical; the importance of thus prolonging the life of ties will be appreciated when I say that for the calendar year ending December 30, 1909, we used 2,996,957 ties. Other wood was used in the same period as follows: piles, 83,201; posts, 382,556; lumber, 56,172,000 board feet. It therefore makes it very necessary on account of the constantly increasing price of lumber to reduce the amount used and wasted. The use of concrete has enabled us to make things of that material, which a few years ago would have seemed impossible; floors in roundhouses and shops, which rapidly deteriorate (when made of wood), on account of moisture, are now made of concrete, which stands up admirably in that service.

We are enormous consumers of oil, and the same care is exercised in its use as with coal and lumber—in fact, under present conditions, it is absolutely necessary that the greatest economy be instituted in the use of all kinds of material as a matter of self-preservation.

During the time I have spent at your meetings, it has been quite a revelation to notice the intense interest that has been manifested by everybody on the subject of Conservation; and as the representative of the American Railway Master Mechanics' Association I wish to assure you of our heartiest cooperation in the work. Again I thank you for the opportunity of being present.

[Signed] H. T. Bentley First Vice-President

REPORT OF THE AMERICAN SCENIC AND HISTORIC PRESERVATION SOCIETY

The suggestions of the Committee of this Society appointed to cooperate with the National Conservation Association must naturally be determined by the objects for which the Society exists. It is the aim of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society to protect the interesting features of the natural landscape, to save from obliteration all historic places and objects, to erect suitable historical memorials where they are needed, to promote the beautification of cities and villages, and otherwise to develop in the people a regard for the beautiful in nature and for the historic in human institutions, cultivating this general field by means of free lectures, literature, prize competitions, correspondence, and other educational means as well as by using influence to have places and scenery preserved as parks and reservations. The interest of this Society, therefore, lies not so much in the fields of economic production as in the less definite regions of historic appreciation and artistic sensitiveness to surroundings. The report of its Committee on Conservation will naturally not deal with the direct economic questions with which most other cooperating societies and organizations would naturally be concerned.

The Committee desires first to express its appreciation of the work of the National Conservation Association and to pledge itself to cooperate with that Association in the furthering of its work. The Committee holds itself in readiness to cooperate in the enterprises originating from the National Conservation Congress and the National Conservation Association so far as they are within the proper province of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society. The Committee feels that the establishing of the National Conservation Commission, and its successor, the National Conservation Association, marks a distinct advance in utilizing for the good of all the people the resources which really belong to all the people, and which should be used for their welfare, rather than exploited for the interest and gain of a few persons or wasted and despoiled by the thoughtlessness of the people themselves.

The Committee holds that all natural resources should be protected and utilized in a scientific and unselfish way, and that the heritage of the earth should be passed over to our descendants with the least possible loss consistent with wise use in the present generation. Its special interest in the question, however, lies in the belief that all this effort should harmonize with the preservation of the beauty of the natural landscape and with the Conservation of all places and scenes of historic interest.

It is too little appreciated that every natural object makes a two-fold appeal to the human mind: its appeal in the terms of its physical or material uses, and its appeal to our sense of beauty and of personal satisfaction. As the people progresses in civilization, the public mind becomes constantly more sensitive to the conditions in which we live, and the appeal to the spiritual satisfaction of life constantly becomes stronger. It is, therefore, of the very first importance that whatever is done by the National Conservation Association shall be executed in the feeling that not only shall the physical needs of life be met, but that the earth will constantly be made a more satisfactory place in which to live, and that the lessons of history must exercise an increasing influence.

It is important that we not only save our forests in order that they may yield timber and conserve our water supplies, but also that they may adorn and dominate the landscape and contribute to the meaning of scenery. It is important that our coal supplies be not only conserved for their use in manufacture and the arts, but also that smoke does not vitiate the atmosphere and render it unhealthful, and discolor the objects in the landscape. It is of the greatest importance that water supplies be conserved by storage reservoirs and other means, but this Conservation should be accomplished in such a way as not to menace health or offend the eye or destroy the beauty of contiguous landscape; the impounding of waters without regard to preserving natural water-falls, streams, and other scenery, is a mark of a commercial and selfish age, and is a procedure that cannot be tolerated in a highly developed society. It is important that regulations be enacted regarding the operation of steam roads through wooded districts not only that the timber may be saved, but also that the natural beauty of the landscape may be protected from fire and other forms of destruction. The fertility of the soil must be saved not only that products may be raised with which to feed and clothe the people, but also that the beauty of thrifty and productive farms may be saved to the landscape. The property-right in natural scenery is an asset to the people, and the best Conservation of natural resources is impossible until this fact is recognized.

On this point we call attention to the following paragraph in the report of the Commission on Country Life: "In estimating our natural resources, we must not forget the value of scenery. This is a distinct asset, and it will be more recognized as time goes on. It will be impossible to develop a satisfactory country life without conserving all the beauty of landscape and developing the people to the point of appreciating it. In parts of the East a regular system of parking the open country of the entire State is already begun, constructing the roads, preserving the natural features, and developing the latent beauty in such a way that the whole country becomes part of one continuing landscape treatment. This in no way interferes with the agricultural utilization of the land, but rather increases it. The scenery is, in fact, capitalized, so that it adds to the property values and contributes to local patriotism and to the thrift of the commonwealth."

It is especially important, in the opinion of this Committee, that the National Conservation Congress and the National Conservation Association lend their influence to the establishment of reserves in all parts of the country for the preservation of natural features of great scenic interest, for the protection of birds, animals, and native plants, and also for the Conservation of the lessons of history. The Committee earnestly requests that in the program of the activities of the National Association these questions may be given their due consideration.

What the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society has Accomplished

Having now stated its general position and its outlook on the subject of the Conservation of our natural resources, the Committee cites, by way of illustration, a few of the things that the Society has accomplished.

The American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society is the medium through which Honorable Wm. Pryor Letchworth, of Portage, gave to the State of New York a superb tract of 1000 acres of land embracing the famous Portage Gorge of Genesee River, including the three picturesque Portage Falls. This property, which cost the owner about half a million dollars, will pass into the official custody of the Society, as Trustees for the State of New York, on Mr Letchworth's decease. Letchworth Park, as it has been named by the Legislature, possesses not only remarkable scenic beauty, but also high scientific and educational value. The geological strata here exposed have given the name to that extensive formation of rocks known as the Portage Group, and the vegetal and bird life of this reservation is remarkably varied and of the greatest interest to students of natural history.

The Society also secured the purchase by the State of New York, and is official custodian of, the famous Watkins Glen at the head of Seneca Lake. This property embraces about 105 acres of land, and includes rock exposures that have received the attention of the United States Geological Survey and prominent geologists for many years. It presents one of the most remarkable examples of stream erosion in the eastern States.

Through the intercession of the Society, the State of New York has purchased and committed to the care of the Society 35 acres of land on the promontory of Stony Point on the Hudson River. Here, in addition to an interesting exposure of primitive rocks and varied flora, are the historical associations of General Anthony Wayne's exploit during the Revolutionary War, which evoked the admiration of the leading military men of America and Europe. In like manner the State has purchased and committed to the Society's care a small reservation on Oneida Lake embracing the remains of Fort Brewerton.

Ten years ago, Governor Roosevelt requested the Society to represent the State of New York in concerted measures with the State of New Jersey for the Conservation of the Palisades of the Hudson. As the result of this initiative, the State of New York appropriated about $450,000, the State of New Jersey about $50,000, and the Honorary President of this Society, Mr J. P. Morgan, gave $125,000, and today the picturesque cliffs on the western side of the lower Hudson for a distance of thirteen miles have been rescued from defacement and are in the care of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission. As a sequence to this work, and a result of the general sentiment developed in favor of scenic and historic preservation, Mrs Edward Harriman recently gave to the State of New York 10,000 acres of land on the western side of the Hudson for a State Park, and she, together with Mr Morgan, Mr John D. Rockefeller, Mrs Sage, and others, have supplemented the gift with over $2,500,000 of money.

Ten years ago, the Society secured legislation by means of which a reservation of 35 acres at the head of Lake George was made by the State, for the purpose of preserving scenery and the ground made historic by events in the Colonial and Revolutionary Wars.

The long and difficult campaign for the preservation of Niagara Falls, in which the Society had an honorable part, is familiar to all, and need not be repeated here.

Many other instances could be cited in different parts of the country, some connected directly with the Society's work, and all the result of the general sentiment which has been developed during the past 25 years in favor of conserving natural scenery and creating urban and extra-urban parks for the benefit of mankind. Not the least important of these in their bearing on conditions of life are the city parks. In New York City, for example, the Washington Headquarters Park and Joseph Rodman Drake Park were created at the direct instance of the Society; and the famous Central Park, in the creation of which our late President Andrew H. Green, as Controller of the Park, was an important factor, has been protected against invasion by race tracks and many other artificial encroachments by the vigilance of the Society. Among the gifts of city parks by private individuals stimulated by the sentiment created by the Society's work may be cited a series of parks embracing about 500 acres and costing with their improvements a quarter of a million dollars or more presented in 1907 to the city of Utica by Mr Thomas R. Proctor, a Trustee of the Society. In 1909, another member of the Society, Mr Henry H. Loomis, gave to the city of Geneva (New York) about 26 acres of woodland for a city park. In Jamestown (New York) a park system has been developed largely under the influence of a Trustee of this Society. In Colorado Springs, within two years, there have been two remarkable expressions of this general sentiment which has now become so general that no one Society can claim direct connection with its results. We refer to the series of completed parks, boulevards, and paths, embracing over 1500 acres of superb scenery, given to that city by General W. J. Palmer; and the gift of the famous Garden of the Gods to the same city by the heirs of the late Charles W. Perkins, of Iowa. These two gifts have placed Colorado Springs in possession of what is probably the most remarkable series of city parks of the kind in the United States. The sentiment created by this Society has also expressed itself in the beautifying of many cities by the improvement of open spaces, public greens, and church yards, and by the erection of monuments and drinking fountains.

Of State parks as distinguished from city parks, those which have received the most attention from this Society, outside of the five reservations under its immediate control and the Palisades Interstate Park, have been the State Park at Niagara Falls and the Adirondack State Park. The State Reservation at Niagara Falls, comprising 112 acres of land and 300 acres of land under water, and including the American Fall and half of the Canadian Fall, was created in 1885; and it was partly on account of the lessons taught by that reservation that the President of the Niagara Commission, the late Honorable Andrew H. Green, ten years later founded the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society. In the long campaign for the protection of Niagara Falls from the inordinate diversion of their waters and the disfigurement of their environment the Society has taken a leading part. The Adirondack Park now comprises over 1,500,000 acres. Here, also, it has been necessary to maintain a constant campaign to protect the forests from destruction by fire, artificial flooding, and the illicit removal of timber.

In the far Southwest the efforts of the Society have been directed chiefly to the extension of the Grand Canyon preserve, and the protection of the Hetchhetchy valley—a part of Yosemite National Park—from what we believe to be an unnecessary project for flooding a part of the National Park for the purpose of supplying water to San Francisco.

In conclusion, we may say of the movement at large for the preservation of remarkable works of nature for the instruction and enjoyment of the people, that it is older than the organized movement for the Conservation of the material resources of the country; and if it cannot be said that one is the outgrowth of the other, it is true that both are necessarily closely inter-related and that each should proceed with full regard for the other's welfare.

The Conservation Committee:

L. H. Bailey (Chairman), Ithaca Charles M. Dow, Jamestown Henry E. Gregory, New York City Edward Hagaman Hall, L.H.D., New York City Samuel V. Hoffman, New York City Thomas P. Kinsford, Oswego Geo. Frederick Kunz, Ph.D., Sc.D., New York City William P. Letchworth, LL.D., Portage Thomas R. Proctor, Utica Colonel Henry W. Sackett, New York City Charles Delamater Vail, L.H.D., Hobart College, Geneva

[Signed] L. H. Bailey, Chairman

REPORT OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE ADIRONDACKS

The Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, with headquarters in New York City, was formed ten years ago before the word "Conservation" as now used had acquired its present meaning. In the light of the present use of that word the object of this Association might properly be expressed in the title "Association for the Conservation of the Natural Resources of the Adirondacks."

"The Adirondacks," in a general way, is the term used to describe a region of about 12,500 square miles in northern New York, lying between Lake Champlain on the east, Lake Ontario on the west, Saint Lawrence river on the north, and the Mohawk on the south. In the heart of this region the State has, by statute, delimited an area of about 3,300,000 acres, or 5,156 square miles, under the title of the "Adirondack Park." Within this more restricted area lie the principal mountains and the principal forests of the State. The State owns about one-half of the area of Adirondack Park, and its policy is progressively to acquire the remainder.

The work of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks for the past decade has been directed toward the preservation of the natural conditions and the material resources of Adirondack Park for the benefit of all the people of the State. During this period, what is now known as the movement for the Conservation of natural resources has developed, although "Conservation" in fact, if not under that name, was well begun in New York State a quarter-century ago when, in 1885, the Legislature established the Forest Preserve.

In the State of New York, the natural resources, as that term is commonly understood, to the conserving of which public attention is now chiefly directed, are the forests and the waters. While the forests lie chiefly in the Adirondacks, the streams and water-power sites lie chiefly outside of Adirondack Park; but in the protection of the Adirondacks is involved the water question as well as the forest question, for three reasons: First, because many streams take their rise in the Adirondacks; second, because of the intimate relation between the forest covering of water-sheds and stream-flow; and third, because there are a few possible reservoir sites situated on State lands in Adirondack Park which are coveted ardently by private interests strongly represented in the State Legislature.

The natural resources of the Adirondacks, however, are not limited to the forests and streams. In a State embracing a tenth of the population of the United States, including a city embracing a twentieth of the population of the Union—a State and a city in which the vocations of life are pursued under the highest nervous tension—the Adirondacks possess natural resources for the conservation of human vitality (for the recuperation of health and the recreation of personal energy) which are no less important to the welfare and prosperity of our people than the cultivation of a timber supply or the development of hydraulic power. In addition to these considerations, two other elements enter into the question of Conservation in the Adirondacks: One is the preservation, for purposes of science and sportsmanship, of the natural wild species of animal life which have become extinct not only in other parts of New York, but also generally throughout the eastern States; the other is the preservation of the scenic beauty of this great mountain resort, which is seriously threatened in ways hereinafter to be mentioned.

These latter considerations of health, recreation, and esthetic delight are not less entitled to recognition because they cannot be measured in terms of board feet or amperes convertible into dollars and cents. Rest and recuperation are not the exclusive needs of men of large expenditure of brain and nerve force, nor is actual positive pleasure conceded to be the exclusive privilege of men of large means. The principle contained in the ancient command to do upon six days all that thou hast to do and to rest upon the seventh day is receiving a wider application in modern industrial conditions which constantly tend to shortened hours of labor on the six days and a larger recognition of every man's right to a measure of the possible joys as well as the inevitable labors of living.

Therefore, to conserve the Adirondacks as a health and pleasure resort for the people at large as well as for a source of a timber supply and the fountain head of important water supplies is the object of our Association.

Forest Conservation

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?

With the exception of one justice, who declined to give an opinion for constitutional reasons, the opinion of the Court was unanimously in the affirmative (Opinion of the Justices, 103 Me. 506).

The other decision referred to was in the case of Hathorn vs. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., involving the use of the mineral waters at Saratoga Springs. The State of New York passed a law entitled "An act for the protection of the natural mineral springs of the State and to prevent waste and impairment of its natural mineral waters." The object of this law was to prevent the practice of artificially accelerating the natural flow of mineral waters for the purpose of extracting the carbonic acid gas for commercial uses. In the case in question, the Court of Appeals, with one dissenting voice, decided that the part of the statute in question was constitutional, and affirmed an order of the lower court restraining the defendant from doing what the law forbade. Judge Haight, the dissenting justice, differed from the majority, though not on the general proposition of the State's right to regulate the use of the springs; he based his objection on the ground that the statute in question did not attempt to regulate the production of the mineral waters in order that the public might enjoy the medicinal properties contained therein, but absolutely prohibited the pumping of carbonated waters throughout the State for the purpose of extracting carbonic acid gas. On the general question of the police powers and the conclusion that the Legislature may by statute regulate the use of the waters, Judge Haight was in full accord with the majority. "Surely," he said, "the State, under its police powers, may, in the interests of the people, protect such great gifts of nature to mankind."

Decisions like these would seem to be finger-boards pointing in the direction of compulsory Conservation if an enlightened self-interest or public spirit on the part of private forest owners do not accomplish the same purpose.

2—Timber Stealing. A very practical form of Conservation in which this Association has had a leading part has been the prevention of the unlawful removal of timber from State land. In 1905 reports reached us to the effect that in the face of the plain prohibition by the Constitution private parties had made deliberate arrangements with contractors to lumber on State land, and that these operations were being carried on with the ample knowledge if not actual collusion of the then Forest, Fish and Game Commissioner and his subordinates. To verify these rumors, the Association sent to the Adirondacks in the dead of winter a representative, who, using snow-shoes when other modes of travel were impossible, penetrated into the depths of the forests, and found the lumber men in active operation on State lands. As the investigation progressed, it developed that between 15,000,000 and 16,000,000 board feet of timber had been removed unlawfully from State land during the preceding year, with the knowledge of the authorities whose duty it was to prevent it; and that it was done under a well-understood system of friendly cooperation by which the timber thieves, technically called "trespassers," were permitted to go through a form of confessing judgment and paying for the timber at a rate so low as to make the transactions profitable for the trespassers. Not only was the mandatory legal penalty not exacted, but the so-called confessions of judgment were allowed to be made before country justices of the peace in amounts greatly exceeding their jurisdiction, and the timber was permitted to be removed from the State land in direct contravention of the Constitution. From the perfection with which the system was then working it was apparent that the illicit practices were of long standing; but the exposure by this Association resulted in the retirement from office of the Forest, Fish and Game Commissioner and the Chief Game Protector, and the effectual stopping of this form of depredation.

3—Forest Fires. Substantial progress has also been made in the direction of Conservation by fire prevention. The history of forest fires in this State may well prove of interest to other States having virgin forests. The most prolific source of forest fires in New York hitherto has been the steam locomotive. Before the introduction of the steam railroad in the Adirondacks, forest fires were infrequent and of small extent. With the construction of every new railroad using coal or wood for fuel, fires became more numerous. The danger from this direction was apparent 30 years ago, but with an indifference for which a costly penalty has been paid, the State failed to find a remedy until within the past two years. In the tenth United States Census, Professor Charles S. Sargent, speaking of the forest fires in the United States during the year 1880, said: "In the State of New York, the total area burned was, in acres, 149,491; and the value of the property destroyed, $1,210,785. Of the causes to which these fires were attributed, 37 cases were reported as originating from clearing land; 43 cases as originating from sparks from locomotives; 22 cases as originating from hunters." The "First Annual Report of the Forest Commission of the State of New York for the Year 1885" said: "The statistics show that in New York State at least, more forest fires are traced to railroads than to any other cause." Three years later (1888) the State Forest Commission was so alarmed at the danger of fires from railroads that it formally declared the extension of railroads into the forests to be a calamity. It declared—

The extension of railways into the Forest Preserve proper cannot but be regarded as a calamity, and it is respectfully submitted that it would be most expedient to put a check upon their further encroachment by proper legislation. * * * A further extension of 'better means of transportation' by railway or steamboat threatens more danger to the forest than it promises benefit to the public. * * * Complaints are loud against all railroads as being instrumental in scattering fire.

These warnings are cited not so much as an argument against the introduction of railroads into forest lands—which can now be done with safety by the use of oil fuel or electric power—as to show how early was the realization of the danger of forest fires from railroads.

About 1892 another railroad, the Mohawk and Malone, was built through the heart of the forests, and the testimony taken from old woodsmen in the fire investigation in 1908 showed that the building of the road was followed by the inevitable train of fire. The annual fire area in the Adirondacks which had previously ranged from a few hundred acres up to 25 square miles, increased to 80 square miles in 1899 and to 940 square miles in 1903. In 1908 an area of 277 square miles was burned over in the Adirondacks alone. The maps of the large fires of 1903 and 1908, showing the burned areas chiefly bordering the lines of railroads, were strong object lessons as to the principal source of the fires, however the railroad companies might attempt to disguise them. In 1908 public sentiment on this subject became aroused as never before. It was felt that whatever may have been the excuse for permitting the advent of coal-burning or wood-burning locomotives in the forests 30 or more years ago, the further toleration of these fire-spreading agents was little short of criminal since electricity and oil fuel had been developed as practical agencies for developing power. In the year last mentioned, therefore, the Forest, Fish and Game Commissioner, backed up by the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, applied to the Public Service Commission for an order to compel the railroads running through the Forest Preserve to use oil-burning locomotives during the fire danger season. The railroads, as was to be expected, earnestly protested against the innovation; but the evidence was so convincingly against them that the Public Service Commission ordered the use of oil fuel, and the installation of oil-burners has made an encouraging beginning.

With the removal of this prolific cause of forest fires, the enforcement of salutary laws which had practically been a dead letter, the enactment of certain new laws providing for toplopping by lumbermen, etc, and the organization of an improved fire-fighting system by the Forest, Fish and Game Commission, it is believed that New York has taken a long step forward in the direction of conserving her forests from fire.

4—Forest Conservation by Good Roads. The natural conditions in the Adirondacks which for so many years made the mountain wilderness impregnable by civilization and to a great extent preserved that region from the denudation which has characterized the more thickly populated parts of the State have also retarded the development of road building. The road system of the Adirondacks is therefore rudimentary. Avenues of communication are comparatively few, and such as exist are not systematically connected and are generally of poor quality. Until recently, this comparative impenetrability of the forests has doubtless tended toward their preservation; but conditions have changed to such a degree in recent years that the construction of good roads in the Adirondacks seems to be desirable both for the greater enjoyment of the Forest Preserve as a health and pleasure resort and for the greater safety of the forests themselves. The increased appreciation of the Forest Preserve as a refuge in summer time, the great progress made in methods of highway travel, and the increased facility which good roads would afford for visiting the woods, are in themselves strong reasons for the extension of the present highway system in that region. When, to the foregoing considerations, are added the very practical value of roads as fire lanes and the advantage which they would afford in reaching forest fires, the argument for their construction becomes very strong.

The attitude of this Association with reference to the bearing of the Constitution on the subject of roads in the Forest Preserve is that if good roads be necessary to keep the forest lands as "wild forest lands," in the words of the Constitution, they should be allowed. An opinion of Attorney General O'Malley, given to the Forest, Fish and Game Commissioner on or about June 22, 1910, however, has been interpreted to mean that no roads can be built on Forest Preserve land under the Constitution. The question was raised by the Superintendent of Roads in Franklin County, who asked permission to use stone from a ledge of rocks on neighboring State land for road purposes, promising not to cut away any timber or otherwise damage the land. In his opinion, the Attorney General said in part, "It was clearly the intent of the framers of the Constitution to preserve the lands constituting the forest preserve in their natural state, and therefore you have no authority to permit county officials to use the stone in the ledge referred to." In order, however, plainly to authorize the construction of highways in the Adirondacks, our Association caused two alternative propositions to be introduced in the Legislature of 1910. One was in the form of a bill providing that when validated by an amendment to the Constitution it should be lawful to construct upon State lands in the Forest Preserve any of the State highways described in section 120 of Chapter 330 of the Laws of 1908, and any of the county highways designated upon a map already prepared by the State Engineer and Surveyor, as provided by law and approved by the Legislature by Chapter 715 of the Laws of 1907. The bill limited such highways to a width of 4 rods, provided that they should be built and maintained under the supervision of the State Highway Commission, and imposed certain other conditions with reference to keeping the highways clean, removing inflammable material, the exclusion of railroads, the public inspection of maps of routes, etc. This bill, if enacted, was not to become effective until validated by an amendment to section 7 of Article VII of the Constitution specifically referring to it by chapter number and year.

After that bill was introduced it appeared that the same end might be attained, without becoming complicated with other questions relating to section 7 of Article VII, by amending section 12 of the same article referring to Highways. We therefore caused to be introduced a Concurrent Resolution to amend section 12 of Article VII of the Constitution by inserting after the first sentence these words: "Any county having part of the forest preserve therein shall receive its equitable apportionment of highways. Highways within the forest preserve shall be opened or improved in the same manner as other highways in the State, except that they shall not be laid out to a greater width than 100 feet or improved for a greater width than other highways in the State under similar conditions." But this proposition, so highly desired by the State Highway Commissioners, by the Forest, Fish and Game Commission, by the local communities in the Adirondacks, and by the visitors to the Adirondacks, was smothered in the Ways and Means Committee through the opposition of the Chairman, who was also the majority leader in the Assembly, who is financially interested in water-storage, and who was evidently determined that no legislation beneficial to the Adirondacks should be passed until the private interests which he represented had secured what they wanted in the way of permission to build storage reservoirs on State lands. For this reason, then, forest conservation by road building is at a standstill.

5—Replanting of Denuded Areas. Constructive forest conservation, that is to say, the building up of new forests to take the place of those removed, has made some progress in New York, but not so rapid as could be wished. The fault has not been that of the Forest, Fish and Game Department, but of the Legislature which has not furnished the means for the liberal prosecution of this work. The State has good nurseries and expert help, but lacks means to prosecute this branch of its work in the manner which its importance warrants. Fortunately, private owners are taking up the subject of replanting effectively. The International Paper Company, for instance, has adopted the policy of tree-planting to renew its crops, and has a large nursery at Randolph, Vermont, from which it is distributing young plants to different sections of the country, including the Adirondacks, where it owns and controls lands. Within the limits of the Adirondack Park there are about 120,000 acres of State land which should be replanted, and in the Catskill Park about 30,000 acres. As to the cost of replanting: last year the Forest, Fish and Game Commission sold about 1,000,000 trees to 180 private parties for reforesting, and a careful analysis and average of their reports by the Forest, Fish and Game Commissioner indicate that reforesting cost these parties, including cost of stock, expressage, and labor, $8.50 an acre. We are informed that the State could reforest to advantage from 2,000 to 2,500 acres a year, and could supply material for planting at least 30,000 acres a year on private land.

The importance of conservation by reforestation becomes apparent when one takes into consideration the relative rates of forest removal and forest reproduction. In the United States at large, we take from our forests each year, not counting the loss by fire, three times their yearly growth. We take 36 cubic feet per acre for each 12 cubic feet grown. We take 230 cubic feet per capita, while Germany uses 37 cubic feet and France 25 cubic feet. In the State of New York we are cutting away our trees five times as fast as they grow, and at the present rate of denudation, the State will be rendered practically barren of forest growth—except in the Forest Preserve—within 20 years, unless there is a decided change in the proportion between tree-cutting and tree-planting.

6—Tree Destruction by Flooding. A source of tree destruction of no inconsiderable extent in the Adirondacks in years gone by has been flooding by lumbermen's dams. The seriousness of this phase of the forest question has been greater than the area of destruction might indicate, for the reason that, in addition to the loss of the trees killed, unsightly and unhealthy conditions have been produced which have robbed certain regions of important elements of value. Prior to the adoption of the Constitutional Amendment of 1894, which prohibited the removal or destruction of timber upon the lands of the Forest Preserve, it had been the practice for nearly fifty years to build dams in the Adirondack region either for the purpose of driving logs or in connection with canal feeders. Those were days of prodigality, when the great North Woods stood in almost their pristine condition, and when the lumbermen, in the presence of thousands of square miles of luxuriant forests, thought nothing of killing thousands of trees by drowning. Almost every dam, therefore, that was built in the woods, set back the water upon forest land and killed trees. A dam built at Forestport in 1848 and subsequently enlarged killed so many trees that the State had to appropriate thousands of dollars simply to remove the dead trunks. About 1879 the State built a dam at Old Forge on Moose river, which is the outlet of the famous Fulton Chain of lakes, and subsequently built a dam at the outlet of the Sixth lake of the chain. These dams raised the water in the various lakes from one to six feet, blighting the adjacent timber and producing a scene of desolation the vestiges of which are still evident after a lapse of thirty years. In 1886 and 1887 the State built a dam on Beaver river at Stillwater, raising the water 9 feet. Great areas of timber land for a distance of 20 miles were flooded and the trees killed. The whole basin became filled with a tangle of drift-wood; great swamps were created beyond the flow line, springs were covered up and polluted, and the region rendered so unhealthy that land became unsalable. Lovely lakes and ponds were submerged, and favorite camp-sites obliterated; feeding grounds for game were destroyed; and hunting in that vicinity was ruined. The magnitude of the damage may be judged from the fact that one of the adjacent property owners, Mr Wm. Seward Webb, sued the State for $184,350 damages. The claim was settled by the State buying from the claimant 75,377 acres, including the damaged area, for $600,000. In 1865 the building of a dam was authorized on Oswegatchie river at the mouth of Cranberry lake; this dam created a reservoir of 13 square miles flooding thousands of acres of land, destroying large quantities of timber, and creating unsightly and unsanitary conditions. About 1882 a dam was built on Raquette river below the Tupper lake outlet, with the result that soon the region between Big Tupper and Little Tupper lakes looked as if some terrible blight had fallen upon it. The scene in 1893 is thus described in the Forest Commission's report:

The serious and extensive damage caused by the dam arrests the eye, presenting one of the saddest and most desolate pictures of destruction ever witnessed. No forest fire or devastating cyclone or ruthless axe of the charcoal burner ever wrought such ruin or left such a blasted scene as this. For ten miles the lands along the Raquette river are covered with the white and ghastly skeletons of the noble trees which once made this spot a sylvan paradise. The bare trunks, bleached by the sun and storm, the gnarled roots and gray, scrawny limbs thrust sharply forth, recall to mind one of Dore's pictures in the "Inferno." The traveler gazes on it all with amazement, and then gives vent to the strongest words that a righteous indignation can supply. And this was once one of the most beautiful rivers in all the wilderness.

Illustrations of this sort could be multiplied to show the spirit of indifference to tree destruction in the past, and conditions which are now forbidden to be repeated upon State land. The Constitutional Amendment adopted in 1894, prohibiting the destruction of trees in the Forest Preserve, was aimed at this evil among others, and has been one of the most valuable instruments in this State for forest conservation.

Water Conservation

The subject of water conservation in the State of New York presents five different aspects:

1—The development of hydraulic or electric power, 2—The improvement of commercial waterways, 3—Flood prevention, 4—Sanitation, 5—Domestic use.

As might be expected in the largest manufacturing State in the Union, there is in New York a very general appreciation of the importance of water storage for the development of power for industrial use; therefore, of the different phases of the water-storage question now pressed upon public notice, that one probably commands the most attention at the present time.

1—Power Development. The Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks is chiefly concerned with this question as it bears on the Adirondacks; but owing to the fact that waters originating in part in the Adirondacks flow in many cases to great distances beyond that region, it is impossible to treat the subject as one of purely localized interest. The question naturally arises, What proportion of importance is there between the question of water storage in the Adirondacks and water storage in the State at large? On the face of things, the proportion seems small. The water-sheds of the whole State aggregate 30,476,800 acres, while the State lands within the Adirondack Preserve with which we are chiefly concerned comprise only 1,530,559 acres, or less than 5 percent. A comparison of possible water-power developments shows a similar disproportion. The Fourth Annual Report of the State Water Supply Commission says that "With the complete utilization of all storage possibilities an eventual development amounting to not less than 1,500,000 horsepower, exclusive of Niagara and Saint Lawrence rivers, is possible for the entire State." If, to this estimate be added the existing 200,000 horsepower development at Niagara Falls, 100,000 horsepower as the resource of the lower Niagara, and 400,000 horsepower for the Saint Lawrence, an eventual total of 2,200,000 horsepower for the whole State does not seem to be beyond the range of possibility. From figures derived from the various sources it would appear that about 7¹/₂ percent of this development would require encroachment upon State land in the Adirondack Park, which is now forbidden by the Constitution. When it is considered that attention has been concentrated for several years on the resources of the principal Adirondack streams, while the possibilities of the rivers outside of the Adirondacks have not yet been completely explored, there is much reason to believe that were the census of the hydraulic resources of the State complete it would be found that the ratio of the power possibilities of State Forest lands to the power possibilities of the whole State is about the same as the ratio of the respective water-sheds, or about 5 percent. There are two or three reasons, however, why the question of water storage in the Adirondacks assumes an importance quite out of proportion to this ratio. One is the acknowledged fact that the majority leader of the larger house of the State Legislature is personally interested in water-power developed from Adirondack waters, and desires to have the Constitution amended so that State lands may be flooded for the benefit of his own as well as other private corporations. This powerful member of the Legislature has the sympathetic support of the Speaker of the Assembly, who stands sponsor for a power corporation on Genesee river, on the banks of which the Speaker lives. With the water-power interests thus strongly represented in the Legislature, and with some of them casting covetous eyes on State land from which they are restrained only by the Constitution, it is not surprising, perhaps, that in the public agitation of the water-storage question such statements should be made as that "the most important single obstacle to the carrying out by the State of this conservation policy" is "the necessity of amending the Constitution" so as to permit the flooding of State land.

Now the attitude of this Association—and this may be of interest to other States where the same question may arise—is as follows: At the outset, the Association opposed amending the Constitution for the purpose of permitting the flooding of State lands on two grounds; first, on account of the disastrous consequences to the forests which have invariably followed the construction of reservoirs in the past, and second, because it involved the principle of using public lands for private purposes without any guarantee of proportionate returns to the people whose domain was thus used. For several years the Association, with the unquestionable support of public opinion, maintained that position for the reason that there appeared to be no safe way of compromise.

During the past year, however, as the result of painstaking study of the problem by the New York Board of Trade and Transportation and our Association, a plan of legislation was evolved which it is believed may safely be adopted, and which, while conserving the public interests in the Adirondacks, will permit a reasonable use of State land for the purpose desired by the water storage people. The first problem encountered in working out this plan was presented by the fact that if the Constitution were amended generally so as to permit the flooding of State land, nobody could foretell to what extent or in what manner the lands might be flooded. It was therefore decided to prepare a law which should prescribe all the limitations and regulations in advance, and which should contain a provision that it should not become effective until validated by a constitutional amendment. Then, after this law had been enacted, it was proposed to adopt an amendment to the Constitution referring to the law specifically by chapter number and year, and permitting what was provided therein and nothing more. In pursuance of this plan, such a bill was drafted and introduced in the Legislature at its session which closed in May, 1910. It provided that storage reservoirs might be built upon State lands in certain specified water-sheds at certain specified points; that the flow-lines should be accurately surveyed and permanently monumented; that the total area of State land flooded should not exceed certain stated amounts—approximately 3 percent of the total area of the Forest Preserve; that all trees, stumps, and other organic material should be removed from within the flow-line; and certain other conditions designed to protect the public interests in the construction, maintenance and use of the reservoirs and the water-power developed therefrom. The law was not to become effective until validated by an amendment to the Constitution, and the constitutional amendment was to consist simply of an addition to the present section 7 of Article VII to the effect that "The provisions of this section may be modified as provided in chapter —— of the laws of 1910, but in no other respect whatever." By this plan it was believed that the safeguards would be erected in advance, and in voting for a constitutional amendment our citizens would know exactly what they were voting for. The bill, however, was defeated through the influence of the majority leader of the Assembly, and instead a concurrent resolution to amend the Constitution, proposed by him, passed the first of three requisite stages of adoption. The provisions of this amendment and the utterances of its author clearly reveal the attitude of the water-power interests represented by him, and present an issue of importance to every State in which the question of Conservation under State auspices may arise. This issue, in brief, is whether, after the State has granted the use of land already belonging to the people and has acquired additional land in the exercise of its power of eminent domain; after it has furnished the capital for building storage reservoirs and for managing them when built, the profits shall accrue only to the private individuals or corporations benefited thereby, or whether the State itself shall derive a reasonable revenue from its lands and reservoirs for the relief of taxation, or for public improvements, to the consequent benefit of all the people?

The Constitutional Amendment proposed by the water-power interests in the last Legislature provides only that the actual cost of the water storage shall be paid by the private beneficiaries, leaving to them all of the profits and advantages; and the author of the amendment publicly declared himself as opposed to the periodical regulation of charges for the use of water thus conserved, or to paying anything more than the bare cost of construction and administration. On the other hand, the proposition of this Association left the question of State revenue open for future legislation without any inflexible constitutional provision one way or the other. There the matter rests at the present moment. The issue remains to be fought out in the future, possibly in the Legislature of 1911, possibly at the polls the following November, and possibly later. At present the signs of the times are not encouraging to the belief that private interests will be given such valuable privileges without some reasonable return to the people from whom they are derived.

2—Improvement of Waterways. Water conservation for the improvement of commercial waterways has little connection with the Adirondacks. The principal waterway improvement now in progress in New York State is the enlargement of Erie Canal at a cost of $101,000,000. Very little of the water for the canal comes from the Adirondacks, and the construction of reservoirs on State forest land is not required to augment the supply.

3—Flood Prevention. The three principal streams within the borders of New York—the Genesee, Mohawk, and Hudson—are subject at times to disastrous floods. These are in no small part the result of human folly. In the first place, the indiscriminate denudation of forests of the greater part of the State has removed one of the most valuable natural regulators; and it is the universal complaint that such denudation has resulted in the spasmodic flow of streams which are dry or low at one season and raging torrents at another. In other cases, as for instance at Rochester, on the Genesee, the river has been obstructed by bridge piers unscientifically placed, which obstruct the flow of water and cause great damage. The Hudson, from the confluence of the Mohawk to Albany, is also subject to floods, and as the headwaters of the Hudson rise in the Adirondacks it has been argued by those who desire to have storage reservoirs for power purposes in Adirondack Park that the Constitution should be amended so as to permit the building of reservoirs in the Adirondacks to control the floods of the Hudson. As a matter of fact, the statistics furnished by competent engineers show that 75 percent of the floods at Troy and Albany are due to waters which do not originate in the Adirondacks, but can be controlled along the Mohawk; and that of the remaining 25 percent over half (say 15 percent) are due to water originating along the Hudson and its tributaries outside of Adirondack Park. So far, then, as flood control is concerned, it has little bearing on Conservation in the Adirondacks.

4—Sanitation. Except as a subterfuge, there is practically no connection between the subject of water conservation in the Adirondacks and sanitation. The Hudson is so polluted from Troy southward with sewage that the fish have been almost exterminated, and the industry of fishing on the Hudson which thrived within the memory of living men has almost disappeared. Sanitation of the Hudson from the head of navigation southward cannot be effected by storage reservoirs in the Adirondacks. The only prominence which the question of sanitation ever had in connection with water conservation in the Adirondacks was from five to ten years ago when persons who desired to build storage reservoirs on State lands, for the purpose of driving logs or developing power, used the plea of "public health and safety" in petitions presented to the River Improvement Commission to disguise their real purpose.

5—Domestic Use. There are those who think that in time the Adirondacks may be drawn upon for municipal water supplies for cities in the Hudson valley. The extent to which New York City has reached out for her water supply during the past 70 years would seem to lend color to such prophecies. In 1842 New York City introduced a water supply from the Croton Reservoir 40 miles distant; at the present time it is building a great reservoir in the Catskill Mountains 90 miles distant. Many people believe that eventually New York will be forced to go to the Adirondacks 200 miles away for a pure water supply, and that the resources of the Adirondacks should be preserved against that need and should not now be parted with for private use when there is the possibility that in the future they will be required for all the multifarious uses of human existence in the great metropolis. Water conservation in the Adirondacks for municipal use, therefore, is important chiefly with reference to the future.

Scientific Forestry on State Lands

As persons unfamiliar with the history of the Forest Preserve in New York may wonder why the State does not utilize commercially the timber growing on State lands, it may not be inappropriate to conclude this report with a brief explanation of the reasons for the iron-clad restriction placed by the Constitution on the removal of State timber. The reason for this restriction is two-fold: First, it is not apparent that there are enough trained foresters yet available or that the problem of the conservative handling of State forest lands for commercial purposes is yet sufficiently understood to warrant the State in undertaking scientific forestry; and second, the citizens of the State are not confident that if the removal of timber were permitted, the people at large would derive any benefit from it.

1—Lack of Practical Men. At a public meeting held in the American Museum of Natural History in New York under the auspices of this Association on April 25, 1907, Professor Henry S. Graves, then Director of the School of Forestry at Yale University and now Chief Forester of the United States, speaking on the subject of scientific forestry on the State lands in New York, said: "It would be exceedingly difficult at the present time to secure trained men with adequate experience to carry out a plan of successful forestry." That situation with respect to the dearth of practical foresters still exists and promises to continue until relieved either by the more general teaching of forestry in colleges and schools or by a more general training in the field, or both. Another drawback is the lack of systematic study and knowledge of our Forest Preserve. With the exception of Township 40 and adjacent territory, and possibly a few other tracts, little has been done in the direction of examining the land to determine its value, the amount and character of timber, the growth of trees, and the local conditions which are factors in the profitable management of the forests; nor has anything yet been done toward preparing a comprehensive plan for the whole Preserve.

A concrete illustration of the impracticability of scientific forestry under existing conditions is afforded by the experimental forest in Franklin County established under an act of 1898. The hopes entertained in regard to this experiment were well set forth in the message of Governor Black to the Legislature on January 5, 1898. The Governor pictured in graphic terms the desirability of enlarging the Forest Preserve as a health resort and a conserver of the northern New York water-sheds, and referred to the rapid inroads made upon the forests by commercial lumbering, and to the protection which the Constitution extended to State lands. He argued that, properly managed, the State forests might be made productive of a substantial revenue; but, he said, "The Constitution should not be amended until the people have learned prudence instead of waste, and have equipped themselves with knowledge and experience adequate to the care of this great domain. Our conditions here are not like those in Germany and France, but in what respects they differ, few can tell." Then, with a view to the acquisition of this necessary knowledge and experience, he recommended the following plan:

There are students here who have made a careful study of the forests, their capacities and their needs. The number of these gentlemen I understand to be increasing, for through the labors of several of our citizens of great generosity and public spirit, the subject has been studied and discussed, and upon the general ignorance relating to this question there is beginning to be some light. The knowledge necessary to the proper treatment of the woods must come largely through experiment. It cannot be had unless the means of acquiring it are provided. I believe the means can be secured best through the purchase by the State of a tract of ground covered with those trees which are to be the subject of experiment. Such a tract the State could set apart and gain from it the knowledge which will enable it by and by to deal with the millions of acres it has already and will in the meantime acquire. The time will come when the State will sell timber to the lumbermen, spruce to the pulp mills, reap a large revenue for itself and still retain the woods, open to the public, protecting the sources of water, growing and yielding under intelligent cultivation. The management of this experiment should not be subject to the vicissitudes of politics. It should be placed in charge of the Regents, or of the Trustees of Cornell University, or of some similar body not subject to political change. The State should pay such reasonable sum as may be needed to administer the plan. Reports should be made to the Governor and the Legislature annually of progress and results. The income from the tract so acquired should be paid to the State and the land itself should become the absolute property of the State, and a part of the Forest Preserve at the expiration of a period named. I believe such a plan would be soon, if not at once, self-sustaining, for the trees now ready to be cut would produce immediate revenue, and such revenue would be repeated at short intervals. The benefits could be hardly overstated, and in this direction, as in many others, the wisdom of New York entering upon a comparatively new and untried field would be finally approved.

Following Governor Black's recommendation, the Legislature of 1898 enacted a law pursuant to which 30,000 acres of forest land in Townships 23 and 26 in Franklin County were purchased for $165,000 and conveyed to Cornell University for the purposes of a "New York State College of Forestry;" and in the years 1898 to 1902 sums aggregating $110,000 more were appropriated for salaries of the Director and instructors in the College of Forestry and for working capital for improving, maintaining, and administering the College forest. With a view to making the forest self-sustaining, the University on May 5, 1900, made a fifteen-year contract with the Brooklyn Cooperage Company by which it agreed to deliver to the company annually one-fifteenth of the wood and timber standing in the College forest. The details of this contract and the litigation which ensued are not essential to the present statement, but the results of the experiment were highly important; instead of yielding the State a revenue, all of the moneys appropriated were used up except about $9,000 of working capital, while about 3,100 acres of forest land were denuded and only about 440 acres replanted. The results were so obviously disappointing that in 1903 Governor Odell vetoed the appropriation of $10,000 for that year, and since then no appropriation for the College of Forestry has been made except one of $5,000 in 1903, exclusively for the purpose of removing the underbrush and for replanting trees. Soon thereafter (June, 1903) Cornell University discontinued the College of Forestry. In his message to the Legislature in 1904, Governor Odell, speaking of the School of Forestry, said: "Its operations had for their object the substitution of valuable growths for so-called worthless timber, but this has resulted in the practical destruction of all trees upon the lands where the experiment was in progress. No compensating benefits seem possible to the present generation. The preservation of the forests is primarily for the protection of the water supply, and this is not possible through the denudation of the lands. Therefore this school failed of its object, as understood by its founders—a failure which was not due, however, to the work of the University, which followed out the letter and the spirit of the law."