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we are conducting a valuation survey of a 60,000 acre tract. The work is in charge of a trained forester of the Conservation Commission, and under him are several other trained foresters. In the crew are forestry students and other men familiar with woods work. The land is divided into strips taken at regular intervals within each forest type, upon which strips every tree is actually measured. One man in the crew is an expert on the lumber that a tree will yield, and he gives its classification in this respect. An expert on lumbering operations takes into consideration the difficulty and cost of removing the timber. From the notes, as this work progresses, a map is prepared in the camp and computations are made which show the actual value of the land and timber. Thus, when we have finished, we know that the land is worth, not by mere guess work, but by detailed analysis of the property. Already approximately 7,000 acres have been bought, subject to approval of the title by the Attorney General, and the highest price per acre so far paid is $9.00. You are deeply interested in the successful conduct of conservation in the Adirondacks, and I am sure that it will gratify you to know that many of the reports that have been circulated regarding the very high prices which the state must pay for Adirondack timber land have been much exaggerated. We are buying land at figures which are entirely reasonable, and where it is not offered at such figures, we are refusing to buy at all. We have power, however, to condemn, when that is necessary.

Another forward step must ultimately be taken as a safeguard to Adirondack watersheds. It has come to be recognized that the state has an interest in maintaining a forest cover in certain regions which transcends the private interest of the land owner, and that in such places it can place restrictions upon cutting, not prohibiting it entirely, without violating any constitutional right of the owner. This is an important subject, which I wish that we might discuss thoroughly, because sooner or later it must come to the Adirondacks. It will mean the practice

of scientific forestry by the private owner, the practice of selective cutting, of leaving a growing stock and a forest cover for the future, rather than the wholesale denudation of the land for immediate gain.

In the last two years a great many improvements have been made in the fire protection system. They are improvements in technical

methods, however. While very important, if we are to properly protect our forests in seasons of severe drought, they are nevertheless of chief interest in the actual work of fire fighting. Their purpose is to make the detection of fires and their accurate location more certain, to make reports of those fires to the rangers more quick and accurate, to get the fire fighters on the fire line with less loss of time, and, finally, to make the work of the men more intelligent and effective when they have reached the scene. Thus, while no revolutions have been introduced, the business of fighting forest fires has been made more intensive all along the line.

For instance, we have erected twenty-five steel towers on mountain tops, to lift the observers above surrounding obstructions, and have had these towers enclosed at the tops with glass, making a room seven feet square, in which the observer may be protected at all times from the high winds of mountain summits. This might at first seem to you simply a matter for congratulations to the observers themselves. From our point of view, however, it enables us to demand the presence of the observer on his tower all day long throughout the dry season, regardless of wind or weather. Better telephone communication has been established, and in the steel towers the telephones are located at the tops of the towers themselves, so that the observer may have instant communication with the nearest ranger.

Many of you have seen the Ford cars with which the district rangers are equipped. This year we have supplied each one with a trailer, in which fire fighting tools and camp equipment can be transported to the nearest highway point to a fire. The cars and trailers make it possible to get men and tools to the scene far more rapidly than was ever before possible.

Another important detail that has been worked out during the last two years is the fire map. It is a war map of the Adirondacks, for the purpose of fighting forest fires. Just as the steel towers, telephone lines, Ford cars and trailers constitute material preparedness, so the fire map and the frequent discussions that are based upon it constitute strategic preparedness in advance for meeting any situation that may arise.

The seven state nurseries of the Conservation Commission are now producing trees for reforestation at an annual rate of approximately ten million. I might tell you in detail of what this work means to the Adirondacks, but you cannot fail to see it yourselves as you move about. Suffice it to say that this year we are breaking all records, reforesting approximately 4,000 acres of denuded state land.

Recently, however, a very serious danger has arisen, to threaten not only our reforesting operations, which are conducted chiefly with white pine, but also all of the white pine trees, both native and planted, in the entire state. This danger is the white pine blister rust. I wish you to understand that I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that it threatens the absolute economic destruction of the white pine forests in the State of New York. This means the destruction of our most valuable timber tree. When you consider that the time is coming when substantially all lumber will be produced from planted forests, and that white pine lends itself, more than any other tree, to this sort of reproduction, you will have some faint conception of the gravity of the situation which we are now facing.

As you have ridden over the line between Saranac Lake and Lake Placid, you have passed through a region ideally adapted to white pine, and have seen white pine on every hand. The same is true of most of the territory between here and Lake Champlain. I want you to know, however, that white pine blister rust is advancing from Lake Champlain in this direction, through that wonderful white pine belt, by leaps and bounds. Unless it is eradicated there will be no new generation of white pine trees in that region.

White pine blister rust spreads by spores, which blow from the white pine trees to currant and gooseberry bushes, and there pass through an intermediate stage before they blow again to other pines. The checking of the disease accordingly means the eradication of all currants and gooseberries, both wild and cultivated, in infected areas. All summer long we have had men in Keene Valley, throwing an immune zone around the infected area. By the eradication of currants and gooseberries in this zone we hope to confine the disease and stop its spread.

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How successful this work will be ultimately I dare not say. campaign will require the united efforts of the authorities concerned, and also of every owner of forest and agricultural land. You can help very materially in this work by lending your influence for the destruction of currants and gooseberries, and by helping to secure adequate appropriations for the prosecution of the work.

The second fundamental duty of the Conservation Commission. in the Adirondacks is that of protecting and increasing fish and game. We are going about this in many ways. Fish and game constitute a far more important food supply than most people realize, and everything that any individual can do at this time to conserve and increase that supply is quite as patriotic a duty as raising gardens. You know that the Conservation Commission maintains eleven fish hatcheries, which produce nearly six hundred million fish a year, and that it operates three game farms for stocking the covers of the state with pheasants. You are thoroughly familiar, too, with the fact that the fish and game laws are designed to make fish and game more abundant, and that they have been scientifically worked out for this purpose. If we had no fish and game laws, we would not thereby increase the available supply of food for the people, but would rather decrease it so quickly that in a remarkably short time it would be practically gone. It follows from this that every violation of the fish and game laws to a certain extent defeats the purpose of the law to increase fish and game, and defrauds the entire public. For instance, the catching of a short trout, which has not yet attained the age where it has spawned and reproduced itself, means that that fish has been taken from the stream without leaving another to replace it. In the same way the taking of a trout after the close of the season, when the fish should be left undisturbed to spawn, means a reduction in the available supply of fish in ensuing

years.

The Conservation Commission has definitely established, by a very careful study and analysis of the condition of the deer in the entire state, that the buck law is working absolutely satisfactorily. It is a fact, which we have detailed reports to prove, that the dear of breeding age are breeding absolutely normally. Nevertheless, as most of you know,

the buck law, among a very large number of people, is extremely unpopular, and many hunters are too prone to shoot before they have determined the sex of their deer, and even to shoot anyway. I feel that one of the most important things that we have to accomplish in game protection in the Adirondacks at the present time is to overcome the antipathy of these people to the buck law, and to game laws in general. There are two methods of doing this. One is by education, the exercise of moral persuasion, and the other is by more rigorous application of the law. Both of these methods can be made far more effective through wider public cooperation. I want to repeat that cooperation of this sort is a public and patriotic duty which every citizen owes to the

state.

The beaver have been brought back, until we have them upon every hand, and they constitute one of the chief attractions of the woods. We are now endeavoring to reintroduce elk, and apparently with excellent success. Fifteen years ago this would have been quite impossible, because of the lack of game protection.

Reports from all over the state, which we receive weekly from the game protectors, prove that the supply of bird life is everywhere increasing, as a result of the Federal Migratory Bird Law. All of these reports constitute our game census, by which we are endeavoring to keep a check upon the wild life of the state. It is not an actual estimate of numbers, except in the case of such large animals as the deer, but it is a running check which enables us to tell from the observation of our own paid employees whether our wild life is on the increase or deIt is certainly gratifying to know that it is increasing. You can all do very much to further the work of game protection by lending your own moral support to the game protective force.

crease.

The third important duty of the Conservation Commission, closely related to that of forestry, is the conservation and equitable distribution of the immense water resources of this region, resources upon which the welfare of the entire state, even to its farthest borders, is vitally dependent. Practically all of the large streams in the State of New York rise in the Adirondacks, and their power is utilized in industry in the farthest sections. The Division of Waters of the Conservation Commis

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