Morning journal and courier., 1884-01-15
Tuesday, January 15. 1884.
THE ADIRONDACK FORESTS.

THE ADIRONDACK FORESTS. The special committee appointed by the Senate Of New York last year to ascertain the condition of the State lands in the Adiron- dack region, with view to the preservation of the forests growing thereon, have made their report, which is an important and in. teresting document.
 The committee found, by an extended tour through the Adirondack region, that a large amount of valuable timber land had been sold at prices utterly out of proportion to real value, and that on lands belonging to the State lumbermen were working indus triously. But they also found that so much of the State forest land was still in fair con dition, being too far from water-courses to make even stealing profitable while lumber is at it's present prices, and so many of the nat ural reservoirs of the annual rainfall were practically uninjured, that there is no need or excuse for the State to go into the market as purchaser of land and to be swindled.
 It is cheering to know that much of the forest land of the Adirondack region is not yet beyond the reach of protection, although the State has parted with large areas of tim Der for almost nothing. The committee met with some encouragement in their work, and also with considerable Encouragement. From almost everyone of the northern coun- ties came citizens favoring the sale of State lands, claiming that they possessed but little value, ana that such value as they now had would soon be gone, owing to the constant depredations, almost systematically carried oD, by which these lands were being de- prived of thousands of dollars worth of val uable timber-stolen outright by parties without any shadow of title. Other oppo- nents of the proposed preservation of the forest ridiculed the idea of the States pos- sessing the power to protect these lands from trespsss, or that under any State man. agement or supervision system of forestry could be maintained. But the committee very properly considered that such views were not only bad in policy but wrong in principle. 'If the State, says the commit tee, ''is not now able to defend it's rights to property placed in it's possession for the pub lie good, it is because the laws are imperfect or the officials lacking in power or negligent in the use of the power delegated to them to maintain the rights of the State"
 Doubtless the present legislature of New York will take suitable action to prevent the further destruction of the beauty and value of the Adirondack region The New York Sun forcibly states the case as follows: When these forests have perished, and the evil con- sequences of their destruction are fully re- alized, frantic efforts will be made, as they have been made in other countries, to restore what has been destroyed. Great sums Of money will be spent in storing the waters of the wilderness in reservoirs and in planting trees upon the denuded hills, in the hope that by such methods the integrity of our rivers may be restored. This is very expensive work and under the most favorable circum- stances it can never be satisfactory or really successful, because no work of this sort planned by human ingenuity can ever equal the nice equilibrium of nature. Millions will be spent, and spent in vain, as millions have been spent in other counties for similar purpose, in the endeavor to reproduce the forests for whose destruction we now pay bounty. This is a case if there ever was one where prevention is better than cure.
 It is to be hoped that in other States than New York the preservation of forests will re- ceive more attention than it has. Unless a different policy than that which has pre- vailed is generally adopted in this country we shall soon suffer seriously from forest destruction