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
7-1/2 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."
Mr Justice Chester, of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, in
his opinion rendered in June, 1910, in the case of the People of the
State of New York against the Brooklyn Cooperage Company and Cornell
University,[6] said that there could be no net revenues from the College
Forest, as the expenses exceeded the income. He also pointed out how,
under the operation of the contract, practically the entire College
Forest would be denuded for the benefit of a private industry and not
for the promotion of education in forestry. "There is proof in the
case," he said, "that 500 acres were sufficient for conducting
experiments on the 'clear cutting' system of forestry as distinguished
from the 'selection' system."
Notwithstanding the failure of the forest experiment, Governor Odell in
1904 hoped that the Forest School would be continued: "Because," he said
in his message, "with the lapse of years, a proper understanding of
scientific forestry will become more and more a necessity." What
Governor Odell said remains true. But what is needed is not only
scientific knowledge but also knowledge of local conditions. A high
order of theoretical knowledge was brought to the management of the
Cornell tract, but the experiment failed for lack of knowledge of local
conditions and business prudence.
_2--Lack of Confidence that Benefits will Accrue._ The second obstacle
to the introduction of scientific forestry upon State lands is the lack
of confidence that if the forest products were utilized any benefit
would accrue to the people generally. The feeling may be understood in
the light of the history of the Forest Preserve. In its beginnings, this
was not a deliberately planned institution, but grew up in haphazard
fashion, without forethought or system. Once the State owned nearly all
the land within the Adirondack wilderness, but prior to 1883 there were
no laws which prevented the State from parting with its lands, and large
areas were sold to private parties for almost a song--lands which the
State has gradually been buying back ever since at constantly increasing
prices.[7] In a message to the Legislature in 1882, Governor Cornell
called attention to the shortsightedness of this policy, in these words:
By far the greater quantity of land within the Adirondack
wilderness proper belongs to the State. Individual ownership is
now confined to a few hundred thousand acres. Heretofore it has
been the practice of the State, with questionable policy, to
sell its wild lands at nominal prices to private parties, who
have gone on, in most cases, and cut off the marketable timber
where accessible, and then abandoned to the State the
clearings, worthless generally for agricultural purposes,
thereby escaping the payment of taxes. Forest fires have
followed and raged with destructive fury, denuding the
mountains and checking the flow of springs and streams that
supply the navigable waters to the north and the Hudson river
to the southward. Furthermore, many of the lakes, the natural
reservoirs of the mountain courses, have been damaged by dams
and overflow, so that the shores of those lying within the
working timber limits present the effects of irreparable
injury.
In 1883 a law was enacted which prohibited the sale of any State lands
in the counties of Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Hamilton, Herkimer,
Lewis, Saratoga, Saint Lawrence, and Warren, and by subsequent acts the
counties of Oneida, Washington, Delaware, Greene, Sullivan, and Ulster
were added to the list. Prior to that year the State had recovered about
800,000 acres of land which the owners had permitted to be sold for
taxes--patches of land scattered here and there without any system or
studied continuity. After the passage of the laws forbidding the sale of
State lands the value of the lands began rapidly to appreciate, and
private parties, desiring to acquire it endeavored to circumvent the law
prohibiting the sale by attacking the State's tax titles. With the aid
of pliant State officials, these efforts in many cases were successful,
the State either parting entirely with its title or, retaining the title
to the soil, parting with the title to the timber. In this manner the
State lost about 100,000 acres of land. A report made to the Comptroller
in 1895 showed that these cancellations were made with disregard of the
law and the rights of the State. As the result of all the tax-sale
transactions of the State, it has acquired about one-half of its present
forest-preserve holdings in the Adirondacks. The other half was acquired
by purchase. The first actual appropriation of money for the purchase of
land for forest purposes was $10,000 appropriated in 1883 during Grover
Cleveland's administration. In 1885 the Forest Preserve was established
by law, and since then the building up of the Forest Preserve has
proceeded with more intelligence and upon a more definite policy. Up to
the present time, the State has spent about $3,800,000 on the purchase
of lands for the Adirondack and Catskill forests.
While the Forest Preserve was thus being evolved, other evils than the
illegal cancellation of State titles developed. While the
statutes--subject to change at any time at the wish of the
Legislature--forbade the sale of State lands, there was nothing, to
prevent the sale of the timber on the land. In 1893 Governor Flower,
whose friendship for the forests was unquestionable, recommended to the
Legislature that "the State could acquire considerable revenue by
granting permission to fell trees above a certain diameter on State
land." But the policy thus proposed with the best of intentions was a
disastrous one, for the reason that with the reckless lumbering methods
employed the lumbermen would destroy fifty trees while taking out
one.[8] By 1894, with the juggling in titles to State lands, the
destruction of trees in lumbering operations, the killing of trees by
flooding, the creation of unsanitary conditions by dams, and the general
misuse and mismanagement of the State forests, conditions became
intolerable, and the Constitutional Convention of that year adopted the
stringent section before quoted (page 399). Every word was carefully
weighed, and designed to meet some phase of the situation. The necessity
was so obvious that it was adopted without a dissenting vote by the
Convention, and subsequently was overwhelmingly ratified by the people.
Since then, persistent efforts have been made by the lumber and
water-power interests to impair this safeguard, but without success. We
do not believe that the time has yet come to relax this section of the
Constitution with respect to timber cutting; for while it is true that
during the past few years conditions in the management of the Adirondack
Forest Preserve have greatly improved and the public confidence in the
possibility of the proper utilization of our forests had begun to take
root, it is an unfortunate fact that that confidence has received a
severe set-back by the course of legislation in 1910 with reference to
the use of Adirondack waters. When the controlling powers in the
Legislature are hostile to the idea that the State shall derive a
revenue from its waters, it cannot be said that the auspices are
propitious for the State's deriving any revenue from its timber. We do
not believe that the people of the State are prepared to part with their
forests upon the terms upon which they are asked to build storage
reservoirs and furnish water-power to private interests, that is to say,
for the bare original cost of the timber.
It therefore appears to be the part of wisdom for the people to defer
scientific forestry on State lands while the present attitude of the
legislative mind continues, and to preserve their forests intact until
the prospect of deriving a revenue from them is better.
[Signed] WARREN HIGLEY,
_First Vice-President_
EDWARD HAGAMAN HALL,
_Secretary_
REPORT OF THE CARRIAGE BUILDERS' NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
Soon after the Conference of Governors called by President Roosevelt in
the White House, May 3-15, 1908, the Carriage Builders' National
Association appointed a Committee on National Conservation, which has
submitted two reports adopted by the Association. The last report,
recently adopted, covers the items in which the carriage trade is most
vitally interested. In addition to data taken from the Report of the
National Conservation Commission, it summarizes the work and opinion of
our Association on the important subject of Conservation.
A late census report showed in its lumber cut a total of 203,211,000
board feet of hickory as compared with 9,255,000,000 feet for all
hardwoods. This would indicate that the hardwood forest at present
contains a little over 2 percent of hickory; probably as much as 4
percent for the entire hardwood area. The forest of the eastern half of
Kentucky has been estimated recently to contain about 5 percent of
hickory. The lumber cut does not show the large quantity of hickory
which is cut and shipped in the form of round billets, rived or split
spoke stock, etc. This form of material is frequently culled from the
forest ahead of the lumberman, and tends to cause the low percentage of
hickory in the lumber cut before noted. Including this with the
203,000,000 feet of hickory lumber would raise the total cut to at least
350,000,000 feet per year.
Add to this hickory cut for fuel in localities with no transportation
facilities, and the heart, pecky, and other portions wasted, and the
total soon amounts to 400,000,000 feet. If hickory forms 3 percent of
this forest (much of which is culled already for hickory--the lumber cut
alone showing a little over 2 percent) there would be a total stand of
12,000,000,000 feet of hickory. Much of this is mature timber, with an
annual growth of less than 1-1/2 percent. Hence there may be figured a
growth of less than 180,000,000 feet against a consumption of about
400,000,000 feet. Though this is to some extent speculation, when
supported by increasing difficulty in getting hickory timber and with
rising prices, it is nevertheless sufficient to indicate that a thorough
study of the growth of hickory is one of the important steps in
attempting to plan relief measures.
The report made to President Roosevelt was enthusiastically received,
and an organization was formed to bring about a campaign of education
among the people of the United States on National Conservation of our
resources. In turning over the office of President to William H. Taft,
Theodore Roosevelt recommended to him strongly the work of National
Conservation, and reports through the press have shown that he is very
enthusiastic and is taking a live interest, notwithstanding some of the
newspaper reports regarding the controversy between some of the members
connected with the Association, which, in our judgment, has been a
splendid advertisement for the cause.
We are also pleased to report that the National Hickory Association of
the United States (whose membership is composed largely of the members
of our Association) have taken a great interest in this work of
Conservation, and have taken an active interest with the National
Conservation Commission appointed by President Roosevelt in making up
their report. They also held an enthusiastic meeting in Cincinnati last
April, passing resolutions to work toward the end of having a permanent
National Conservation Committee appointed by the Government, and also in
the various States.
Your committee recommended that all our members take an active interest
and cooperate with the members of the National Hickory Association and
the National Conservation Association, and offered the following
resolutions which were adopted:
"_Resolved_, That we heartily endorse the work of the National Hickory
Association and assure them of our hearty cooperation.
"_Resolved_, That we favor the maintenance of Conservation Commissions
in every State, to the end that each commonwealth may be aided and
guided in making the best use of those abundant resources with which it
has been blessed.
"_Resolved_, That we also especially urge on the Congress of the United
States the high desirability of maintaining a National Commission on the
Conservation of the Resources of the Country, empowered to cooperate
with State commissions, to the end that every sovereign commonwealth and
every section of the country may attain the high degree of prosperity
and the sureness of perpetuity naturally arising in the abundant
resources and the vigor and intelligence and patriotism of our people.
"_Resolved_, That a joint committee be appointed by our chairman, to
consist of six members of our Association, whose duty it shall be to
work in harmony with the State and National Commissions and the National
Hickory Association."
Respectfully submitted,
[Signed] H. RATTERMANN, Cincinnati, Ohio
_Chairman_
J. D. DORT, Flint, Mich.
DANIEL T. WILSON, New York City
E. W. M. BAILEY, Amesbury, Mass.
GEORGE H. BABCOCK, Watertown, N. Y.
WILLIAM A. SNYDER, Piqua, Ohio
W. P. CHAMPNEY, Cleveland, Ohio
D. M. PARRY, Indianapolis, Ind.
MAURICE CONNOLLY, Dubuque, Iowa
LUCIUS GREGORY, Chase City, Va.
_Committee_
REPORT OF THE DELAWARE STATE FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS
As the one Delegate from the State of Delaware, I feel that I must speak
a word for her. Delaware has an enviable list of great names, from Caesar
Rodney, whose memorable ride turned the scale in the vote for liberty,
with Thomas F. Bayard and John Clayton, down to the present time, when
we have a man like Judge George Gray to be proud of.
The Delaware State Federation of Women's Clubs, which I represent, goes
hand in hand with the women of sister States in this great movement. Our
Legislature has appointed a State Forester--and the Granges and our
Agricultural College at Newark are working to improve our soil and
crops, while our women are supplementing their efforts wherever they
can. We are cooperating with the Red Cross in the fight against the
White Plague, and have succeeded in having a child labor law enacted,
and are now working for a juvenile court. We have offered prizes to the
public school children for the best essay on waterways; and we are
beautifying our waterfronts and securing pure water. We have no great
forests, but we raise the best peaches in the world and are rapidly
coming to the front in apple culture, and we are going to keep up a
ceaseless educational campaign, so that our people will realize the
importance of conserving our natural resources.
I consider it a great honor and privilege to represent the women of
Delaware at this great Congress, and thank you for your attention.
[Signed] CORNELIA R. HOLLIDAY
REPORT OF THE FARMERS' UNION OF AMERICA
It is a matter of great regret to me that the National Convention of the
Farmers' Union occurs almost simultaneously with the gathering of the
Second National Conservation Congress.
I regard the question of Conservation as one of the very greatest now
before this country. I regard Gifford Pinchot as the father of the
Conservation idea in America. I believe that future generations will
credit his activity in awakening the American conscience to almost
criminal extravagance in exploiting our resources as one of the most
practical displays of patriotism in National history.
I trust that the deliberations at Saint Paul will be attended by much
progress and profit. Let me beg also that while you concentrate on
resources, you do not overlook the conserving of that greatest of our
resources--the American Farmer. I regard his uplift of first importance
to the present welfare and destiny of America.
I shall hope that such steps as you take during the current session will
be of far-reaching influence in directing the vital thought of an
aroused people.
[Signed] C. S. BARRETT
_President_
REPORT OF THE GENERAL FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS
It gives me great pleasure to report to this Congress the work
undertaken and accomplished by the Waterway Committee of the General
Federation of Women's Clubs during the sixteen months of its existence.
Every State federation in the Union was asked to assist in this movement
by adding to their standing committees one called Waterways; and ready
responses came from many States. The work as outlined for each State
falls under three departments, Civic, Educational, and Publicity. In
this way the work can be systematized and developed along the lines to
meet the needs of each locality.
We have been told that our country stands foremost in waterway richness;
with its many splendid rivers and great lakes, as it is well nigh
girdled by oceans. Plans are rapidly maturing for the celebration of the
short route to the East through Panama in 1915. From the dawn of history
to the present time, civilization has followed the water routes; all the
great cities are on, or in close proximity to, waterways. The date of
the rapid reaching of railroads in every direction throughout our land
was the signal for the neglect and non-use of water highways, until in
the majority of cases the river fronts have been absorbed for railroad
ways. There are now scarcely any good terminal facilities to be found
for water transportation. To meet the problems confronting us in regard
to our waterways, women resolved that there must be instituted a
campaign for education, such an education that the awakening resulting
therefrom shall become a force of tremendous energy.
Man must know that in giving development to a stream it must be improved
from its source to its mouth, and for its every use. Storage dams should
be built at every available point. The fish raised in the reservoirs
thereby created will soon pay for the outlay in construction. It is
estimated that by fully conserving the waters and utilizing the
water-power developed in connection with storage and other works, three
times as much land can be reclaimed in the western half of the United
States. Such dams will decrease largely the annual damage from flood
waters, with which we are so familiar, as well as regulate a more even
stream-flow. A larger and purer water supply will be assured; water for
irrigation in the more accessible regions will be afforded. An improved
stream provides cheaper power for manufacturing purposes, stimulates
various industries, and thereby furnishes larger fields of employment.
If the limitation of streams as self-clarifiers were better understood
there would be such protection given to them and their water-sheds that
there would be no more refuse, laden with typhoid, cholera and
inflammatory intestinal germs given to them, especially if the great
distances these germs travel and their tenacity of life were better
known. The developed stream affords water for transportation when the
stream is navigable, which affects both the producer and consumer from
the remotest section to the heart of the Nation.
It costs no more to develop the average stream than to build a railroad
of the same mileage, but the improved stream carries 125 times as much
freight per year as can be carried by rails, and at one-sixth the cost.
Some 75 percent of the total freight commodities originating on the
traffic lines in the United States consist of heavy raw materials, the
staple productions of the farms, the forests, the mines, and the live
stock ranges of the interior. These are commodities where economy of
transportation is a prime essential to production. The even stream-flow
which comes from improvement gives moisture to the agricultural lands
along the banks; the trees at the head waters and outlining its
meanderings testify to the interdependence of forests and streams. An
improved river system as outlined in these suggestions also necessitates
drainage of all lowlands, save those suffering from the encroachments of
the sea.
At a glance we readily see that the development of waterways affects the
Nation at large and man individually in a more vital way than any other
of the natural resources. The idea is generally prevalent that the
development of our Nation's waterways is pre-eminently man's work, and
that there is nothing for the women to do. Yet there is not one phase of
waterway development that does not directly or indirectly touch every
home of this Nation. Who is there, then, to say that it is not the duty
of every woman as mother and citizen to inform herself thoroughly on so
vital a subject that she may be among the most active educators in this
great campaign? In almost every great sociological and reform movement,
women have been the originators; and today they are the dynamic forces
which destroy the evils that are opposing civic righteousness. Shall
the homemaker refuse to protect her household from one of the greatest
sources of physical infection which follows in the wake of modern
indifference to pure water supply? Purity in water means health,
impurity means sickness and death.
Every year millions of dollars are spent by Americans in travel in the
older countries. We read beautiful descriptions of voyages down the
Rhine. Along the Thames the Victorian embankment adds glory to London.
The little River Seine with its many canals, making Paris, though
inland, one of the greatest ports in France, remains beautiful
throughout its length; flowing through the center of Paris, it has been
kept decorative, banked with foliage and flowers, skirted by long lines
of graceful masonry, with pleasure promenades, bordered on either side
with beautiful statuary and sparkling fountains. Does it not fill your
heart with a sense of mortification to compare these water fronts of
European cities with the water fronts of our American cities? Public
beauty excites that love of country which is at the very foundation of
true patriotism. Let us resolve within ourselves to reverse these
conditions, and bend our energies to improve and make of our waterways
the most beautiful in the world.
Reports from the 39 States now in active work along these lines have
shown great returns from the efforts put forth. We have 619 federated
clubs showing definite results of their undertakings. In one State a
splendid reference library on "Waterways" has been established; in
another a great warfare was waged for pure drinking-water, the women
going to the polls and making a fight for the sand filtration plan.
Sixty-three clubs have reported making sanitary and parking water fronts
as their especial work with splendid results. Prizes have been offered
in many States to school children for the best essay on "Inland
Waterways": over 5000 children in one State alone entered this contest.
Placing Conservation in the public schools has been accomplished in
several States; in every State great work is being done along
educational lines, with the hearty cooperation and support of the
superintendents and teachers. This subject has been given place on 150
programs of State, district, and local meetings of various
organizations; and many speakers have addressed schools and club
assemblies. The press has been most courteous in every State in its
cooperation with this Committee; 101 different articles have been
published in all the prominent newspapers throughout the States. The
Waterway Committee of the General Federation have sent delegates to
waterway conventions in a number of States. There is scarcely a club in
the Federation that has not given at least one number on its program, if
not the entire program, to the Conservation of our natural resources.
Fifty thousand circulars and pamphlets have been sent from the
Chairman's office and distributed throughout the States by the different
chairmen. The great demand for waterway literature from every quarter
convinces us of the growing interest in this subject. Thus we stand as
strong allies in this great Conservation movement.
[Signed] Mrs J. D. WILKINSON,
_Chairman Waterways Committee_
(Reported through Mrs G. B. SNEATH)
REPORT OF THE LAKES TO GULF DEEP WATERWAY ASSOCIATION
I bring greetings from three different bodies allied in this work: the
Business Men's League of Saint Louis; the Missouri Waterways Commission,
of which I have the honor to be Chairman; and the Lakes to the Gulf Deep
Waterway Association, of which I have the honor to be President. On
behalf of Governor Hadley and the State of Missouri, I wish to extend to
this Congress the assurance that Missouri is for the policy of
Conservation of natural resources in the way in which it is understood
by most of you; that is to say, she is for the economical development of
her resources in the highest degree, and at the same time for the
preservation of the rights of the people in the control of those
resources.
Some time ago, following out the policy advocated by Mr Gifford Pinchot
and by President Roosevelt, Governor Hadley appointed the Missouri
Waterways Commission to examine and report upon the water resources of
the State. In this department, Missouri is richer than many other States
in the Union. Located in the center of the most fertile valley in
America, she possesses two great rivers; the Mississippi, forming her
entire eastern border, and the Missouri, exactly bisecting the State,
connecting her two great principal cities. In addition to these there
come down out of the Ozark Mountain region a series of smaller navigable
rivers, the Osage, the Gasconade, the Big Piney, the Current, the Black,
the White, and many smaller streams flowing into the great rivers and
enabling boats to reach almost every part of the interior. In the course
of time all of these rivers will be very much improved, and many of them
made navigable. The sources of these streams are in the Ozarks, and they
are fed by the most beautiful springs which are known to exist in
America; one of these springs, named after our Governor, discharges, it
is estimated, 50,000,000 gallons a day, even in the driest season--an
amount equal to the entire consumption of a city of probably 50,000
inhabitants. There are many more which flow from 5,000,000 to 10,000,000
gallons a day. You cannot go a quarter of a mile along any valley road
in the Ozark region without coming upon a spring oozing out of the
limestone or sandstone cliffs, and adding its limpid waters to some
brook or river. The crest of the Ozarks is 2,000 feet above the sea,
more than 1,500 feet above Saint Louis, and all of these streams flow
pell-mell down the hills to their navigable portions; so that the State
has a very large amount of latent water-power. It is well to remember
that the Ozarks remain forested, and that it is in the shelter of these
forests that the waters gather to form the abundant springs and streams.
The Missouri Waterways Commission has employed one of the best-known
hydraulic engineers in America, Mr M. L. Holman, to make a preliminary
survey of these and other resources; and on this he is now engaged. When
this has been completed, a report will be made to Governor Hadley
embodying a policy for the control and development of this power, and
this policy, it is expected, will be recommended to the next State
Legislature by the Governor with the view of securing legislation
conserving at the same time the water resources and the people's rights
in them.
This is not, of course, the full extent of the Waterway Commission's
work, for we have also to consider the use of the streams for
navigation, a department in which the State is as much interested as the
Federal Government, although we are not allowed to tamper with the
navigable rivers themselves. We are also to consider the reclamation of
swamp lands, the preservation of soil, and the general use of water,
which is today the Nation's greatest asset. In the last Congress an
appropriation of $1,300,000 was made for Missouri river, which means as
much to Missouri as a part of its Conservation work as it does to the
cities and the Nation for its value to navigation. Both the Missouri and
the Mississippi are great devourers of soil. The Missouri will tear out
an entire farm and ruin a farmer in an incredibly short space of time
when it is changing its bed. The application of revetment to the banks
and the contraction system in the effort, certain of success, to obtain
a 6-foot permanent channel between Kansas City and Saint Louis, will
return to the farmer, it is estimated, more than the entire outlay in
additional capital wealth represented by the rich accretions of the
Missouri bottoms. The securing of this appropriation and the very large
appropriations also for the Mississippi fronting the State and leading
from this beautiful city of Saint Paul all the way down to the Gulf of
Mexico, has been largely stimulated by the work and activity of the
Lakes to the Gulf Deep Water Association; and many of you will remember
how much that organization has had to do with the doctrines of
Conservation.
This reference to the Lakes to the Gulf Deep Waterway Association may be
pardoned, when it is remembered that this Association has always stood
for the complete utilization of the waterways for all purposes for which
they are available, and that it has thereby become one of the most
effective Conservation agencies in the world. It may interest you to
know that we of the Lakes to the Gulf Waterway Association played an
historic part in the early history of Conservation in this country. In
October, 1907, the Association chartered a fleet of steamers and carried
President Theodore Roosevelt from Saint Louis to Memphis to show a
President of the United States for the first time the necessity of
improving the inland waters. One of the steamboats which made that trip
was the General McKenzie, and the passengers on the McKenzie were the
Inland Waterways Commission appointed by President Roosevelt, upon the
suggestion of our Association, to examine the question in hand. One of
the members of this Commission was Gifford Pinchot; another was Mr
Frederick H. Newell, head of the Reclamation Service; another was Dr W J
McGee, Secretary of the Commission; another was Herbert Knox Smith, head
of the Bureau of Corporations; and another was Alexander McKenzie,
always a friend of the waterways. On the steamer Alton, escorting the
President, were the Governors of 22 States; and still another vessel
bore about 75 members of the Federal Congress.
The second night out from Saint Louis was a stormy night; the rain fell
in torrents, and the vessels made their way with great difficulty
through the intricate channel of Point Pleasant reached from New Madrid
southward. On that memorable night Gifford Pinchot and his associates in
the Inland Waterways Commission came aboard the steamer Alton, and on
the deck of that steamboat, protected from the storm by canvas awnings,
held the historic meeting that gave birth to two great movements:
Conservation, and the House of Governors. As a result of that meeting,
where the policy of Conservation was fully laid out, President Roosevelt
announced in his speech at the Lakes to the Gulf convention in Memphis
that he would call a meeting of the Governors, and did call this
memorable meeting of May 15-18, 1908, at which public sanction was given
to the Conservation movement, and the House of Governors became an
established organization. We have always felt that the place of the
Lakes to the Gulf Deep Waterway Association in bringing about this
meeting is one of the proudest achievements that the Association has on
its records, and will live in history.
The Lakes to the Gulf Deep Waterway Association has always felt the
necessity of allying itself with the Upper Mississippi River Improvement
Association, the Ohio River Improvement Association, and the general
Conservation movement for the best development of all river channels.
The Mississippi today has the largest storage reservoirs in the world,
although they are almost equaled now by the storage in the Salt River
Irrigation Project in Arizona. But because of the cutting and burning of
the forests, and the failure of the Government to complete the
reservoirs, the Mississippi this year has been unnavigable above Saint
Louis through the whole summer season. Nothing but conservation of the
head-waters--and it must be remembered that adequate attention should be
given to the forests about the head-waters--can prevent a recurrence of
that circumstance in the next drought. The reservoirs which are now
established should be supplemented by others on the Wisconsin, the
Flambeau, the Chippewa, the Minnesota, and all the other streams flowing
into the upper river, and some scheme for conserving the waters of the
Ohio, although it will come at great expense; and the Tennessee also
must be dammed and reservoired, both to withhold the floods and to
conserve the water for dry-season navigation. Costly as these reservoir
systems may be, it will require but little figuring to show that, again
in league with the Conservation policy and a light charge by the
Government on the water-power in these navigable streams, they will
return interest and sinking fund on the cost of the improvements. Here
in Saint Paul, and between here and Minneapolis, we have an illustration
of the great lack of proper development in the series of falls and
rapids--not half of which is properly utilized--on which the Government
has spent much money and for which the people receive no return
whatever.
But the Lakes to the Gulf channel is a magnificent illustration of
Conservation. It requires, as in Illinois, the cutting of 100 miles of
canal through rock and riverbed, and the building of dams which will
develop 150,000 horsepower; and the use of the money from that power now
going to waste will pay the entire cost of this expensive rock channel
(this in itself is an ideal example of Conservation). In the Mississippi
reach between Grafton and Cairo, which is to be deepened to 14 feet or
more by three large dams, will be developed more than 600,000
horsepower, and this in return will also pay for the cost of the work
and a surplus besides. Below Cairo the improvement of the river
contemplates--and the present appropriations are carrying this out--the
revetment of the banks in every bend, which will save to the Nation in
soil an amount every year which it is impossible to calculate, but which
is worth many millions of dollars; will allow the building of levees
close to the waterfront without danger of their caving in, and so
reclaim possibly 100 square miles of additional land in the Delta; and
will make a permanent and safe drainage system for the great swamps
along the river, from which a few years' crops will more than pay for
the entire Lakes to the Gulf Deep Waterway.
Swamp drainage, storage to prevent floods, storage to provide
water-power and better channels, the establishment of suitable banks and
good levees--all of these are a part of the Conservation policy that was
launched on that memorable trip on which Theodore Roosevelt inspected
the Mississippi.
[Signed] W. K. KAVANAUGH,
_President_
REPORT OF THE LEAGUE OF AMERICAN SPORTSMEN
The Committee appointed by the League of American Sportsmen to make
recommendations to the National Conservation Congress beg leave to
report briefly as follows:
_Federal Laws_
The United States should enact laws so that in addition to those now in
force, the following will be possible:
The protection by the United States Government of migratory birds and
fishes.
The setting apart and protection of game refuges, parks, and breeding
grounds, and scientifically caring for same. Some of these should be
established in the forest reserves now existing that are suitable for
this purpose, and competent caretakers put in charge. The Wichita
Reserve is a good example to follow. Marsh lands and water should not be
forgotten, as all bird and forest life must be considered.
Trained Government game-keepers or experts should be provided, that can
be furnished upon applications received from State or private game
parks--same to be paid by the applicant served.
_The States_
The States should each and all set apart game refuges and parks and care
for them practically. Competent care-takers and trained game-keepers
should be put in charge. These game refuges for wild life should be
distributed as generally in each State and cover as wide an area as
possible; for it must not be forgotten that the song and insectivorous
birds are as important to save and find refuges for, as is what is
usually denominated "game."
The game laws of the States should be as nearly the same as geographical
and local conditions will permit.
The enforcement of the game, bird, and fish laws, together with the care
of game preserves, should be divorced from politics. At present in most
of the States the selection of a game warden is based not upon training
or fitness for the position, but is the reward of party or personal
political fealty. Should by chance the appointee show adaptability and
really study the subject of game protection, by the time his education
is well under way and he has become valuable to the State, the political
wheel turns again and some one else is to be rewarded.
So-called game laws to be enforcible must be practical and have the
sympathy of the people. Therefore, the work of education must be
continued and amplified by both the State and Federal powers to show,
_first_, the value of bird life to the farmer and all the people as
insect and weed-seed destroyers; _second_, the value of game and fish as
food products; _third_, their value as an incentive to a life
out-of-doors and health; _fourth_, the value to the State because of the
tourist and sportsmen's travel attracted thereby (statistics on this
subject should be gathered by both Federal and State authorities, and
given constant and wide publicity); _fifth_, the non-resident hunting
and fishing license should be made as nearly alike in the several States
as possible, and a reasonable amount of fish or game allowed to be taken
home by the terms of said license; _sixth_, resident licenses issued by
the State should furnish funds for carrying on the work of game, bird,
and fish protection and propagation, and we recommend a careful
consideration of this subject by those States that have not already such
laws in force; and _seventh_, the so-called spring shooting of
water-fowl should be stopped.
All of which is respectfully submitted:
[Signed] WM. B. MERSHON, Saginaw, Mich.
_Chairman_
JNO. F. LACEY, Oskaloosa, Iowa
F. SHAROIR, Stamford, Conn.
J. H. MCDERMOTT, Morgantown, W. Va.
J. ADAMS BROWN, New York City
R. D. EVANS, Washington, D. C.
_Conservation Committee_
REPORT OF THE NATIONAL BOARD OF FIRE UNDERWRITERS
Since the commencement of the Conservation movement, the National Board
of Fire Underwriters has been deeply interested in the governmental and
associational activities aiming to foster and protect the natural
resources with which our country has been so bountifully blessed. Our
representation at the Washington Conferences of 1908 indicated our
sympathy with the propositions presented, and the continuance of our
Conservation Committee is a manifestation that we have been and are ever
ready to cooperate in a furtherance of those principles which you as an
organization stand pledged to advance. We believe that unless there is
an intelligent development and utilization of our natural resources, the
comfort, prosperity, and happiness of future generations will be
seriously impaired, and we are in hearty accord with all legislation
having for its object the preservation from destruction of Nature's
gifts and Man's handiwork.
The address which this Committee presented to the Joint Conservation
Conference sought to set forth some very important facts concerning the
excessive fire waste which persists in the United States and suggested
remedial measures, which we still firmly believe, if adopted, would
materially diminish the grievous loss of life and the tremendous and
unnecessary destruction of created values by fire. We therefore beg to
reaffirm those suggestions at this time, as follows:
The present fire waste in this country is an unnecessary
National calamity, and to reduce it it is essential--
_First_--That the public should be brought to understand that
property destroyed by fire is gone forever, and is not replaced
by the distribution of insurance, which is a tax collected for
the purpose.
_Second_--That the States severally adopt and enforce a
building code which shall require a high type of safe
construction, essentially following the code of the National
Board of Fire Underwriters.
_Third_--That municipalities adopt ordinances governing the use
and keeping of explosives, especially inflammable commodities,
and other special hazards, such as electric wiring, the storing
of refuse, waste, packing materials, etc. in buildings, yards,
or areaways, and see to the enforcement of such ordinances.
_Fourth_--That the States severally establish and support the
office of fire marshal, and confer on the Fire Marshal by law
the right to examine under oath and enter premises and to make
arrests, making it the duty of such officer to examine into the
cause and origin of all fires, and when crime has been
committed requiring the facts to be submitted to the grand jury
or proper indicting body.
_Fifth_--That in all cities there be a paid, well disciplined,
non-political fire department adequately equipped with modern
apparatus.
_Sixth_--That an adequate water system with proper distribution
and pressure be installed and maintained. In the larger cities,
a separate high pressure water system for fire extinguishment
is an absolute necessity, to diminish the extreme imminence of
general conflagrations.
The publication by the U. S. Geological Survey of Bulletin 418, known as
"The Fire Tax and Waste of Structural Materials in the United States,"
is worthy of high commendation, and we believe a wider distribution of
this pamphlet and the preparation and dissemination annually of similar
information, will materially serve to awaken the public to a realization
of the enormous values in utilized resources which are destroyed by fire
beyond recall, and cause action to be taken by States, municipalities
and individuals to enact such laws and regulations as will make for the
exercise of greater care and forethought in the preservation of
materials produced from our natural resources. It must be evident that
the conservation of our forests and mines will fail of its full results
if the utilized products therefrom are to continue to be unnecessarily
destroyed by fire to a degree that is a National disgrace.
We share the pride of all our fellow citizens in the remarkable growth
and prosperity of this country, in the extensive building operations,
and in the increased commercial values; but, if we would conserve those
natural resources which have been the principal foundations of our
success, we submit that it is equally important to adopt and enforce
such measures as will lessen the steadily and rapidly increasing fire
waste of our utilized resources.
The National Board of Fire Underwriters has for years devoted its
energies and activities principally to the reduction of the fire waste
and the safeguarding of life and property. Standard rules and lists of
hazardous and protective devices and materials are distributed free of
charge, the results of the tests conducted at the Underwriters'
Laboratories are made known to anyone evincing an interest, a model
Building Code, prepared under the advice of experts in construction and
engineering, has been urged for adoption in every municipality of the
country, and as a result our advice and cooperation are sought in the
revision and adoption of the building laws of our cities. Under the
immediate direction of our Committee on Fire Prevention, expert
engineers investigate the fire-fighting facilities and structural
conditions of our cities, submitting copies of the reports, with
suggestions for improvements, to the officials of the city visited and
to the press; the expense of the work of this Committee alone, for the
last six years, has amounted to $432,742.
We have persistently endeavored to influence the introduction of
improved and safe methods of building construction, to encourage the
adoption of better fire protective measures, to secure efficient
organization and equipment of fire departments with adequate and
improved water systems, and to have adopted rules regulating the storage
and handling of explosives and inflammable products; and we contend that
successful efforts along these lines will very largely lessen the fire
waste of the utilized resources, the destruction of which at the rate of
over $216,000,000 annually (1900-1909, inclusive) is one of the
greatest drains upon our natural resources and one which can be
corrected, if the Nation, State, city, and citizen will cooperate along
the lines indicated above.
The destruction of our utilized resources by fire is increasing at such
a rapid rate that the subject of its reduction should be very prominent
in the minds of the people. Losses recorded for the past thirty-five
years, not including forests, mine or marine fires, total the enormous
sum of $4,906,619,240. Unrecorded losses, if obtainable, would
materially increase these figures. These annual fire losses run from
$64,000,000 in 1876 to $518,000,000 in 1906. In 1907, a normal year, our
recorded losses were $215,084,709, and our estimated fire defense cost
$241,401,191, or a total amount equaling about 50 percent of the value
of the new buildings erected that year in the entire country. In 1908,
also a normal year, our ash-heap cost $217,885,850, and the relations of
defense-cost and fire loss to new buildings remained about the same. Our
contributions to fire that year were over $1,250,000 each day of the
year, a sum equal to the operating expenses of our Government, including
those of our army and navy, for the same year; and in 1909 we gave to
fire over $25,000,000, more than was spent in that year for the same
governmental functions.
No one organization can effect the needed reform. Since 1880 the
population has increased 73 percent, while the fire loss for the same
period increased 134 percent. The National Fire Protection Association
and the National Credit Men's Association are spreading the doctrine of
reform in the recklessness with which our utilized resources are
destroyed by fire. Each organization should be encouraged. Membership is
open to all in the former, and in the latter to the business men and
merchants of our cities. The work, however, is carried on without State
or municipal cooperation and therein lies the chief reason of delayed
success.
If the office of State Fire Marshal were created by every commonwealth,
and that official and his deputies were given power to enforce good
fire-prevention laws, to investigate and if necessary prosecute cases of
arson or criminal carelessness in the starting or spreading of fires, to
ascertain the cause of every fire, and by the distribution of literature
to educate the citizen to the need of care and forethought in the
protection of his property, a distinct conserving of the utilized
resources in that State would follow.
If our municipalities will enact and enforce improved and safe methods
of building construction and cause the removal or reconstruction of
existing structures which constitute, because of their construction, a
menace to adjoining properties, our cities will be freer from the
imminent conflagration which now threatens them. Eliminate defective
chimney flues, unprotected external and internal openings, excessive
areas, weak walls, and combustible roofs; prohibit the storage of
rubbish, and demand the safe use and handling of dangerous inflammable
liquids and oils; regulate the use of explosives; and the destruction of
our values, created from the natural resources but enriched many-fold by
human toil, industry, and skill, will be materially diminished.
If the citizens of a community, as members of their local civic bodies
and boards of trade, will create in such organizations a Committee on
Fire Prevention, whose duty it shall be to study the subject and awaken
among their associates a realization of individual and communal
responsibility, and if our boards of education will emulate the action
of the State of Ohio in prescribing primary education of the school
children as to the chemistry of fire, the causes of fires in our homes
and how to guard against them, and how to extinguish incipient fires or
hold them in check while awaiting the response of the fire department, a
preparation will be made in that community which will check the
constantly increasing fire waste.
And so while this Congress discusses and formulates policies for the
Conservation of our natural resources, it should, at least, as
representing the official, professional, commercial, and industrial life
of the Nation, distinctly and emphatically advocate such regulation as
will preserve those resources which are the embodiment of the thrift and
industry of our people--the utilized resources--from unnecessary and
wasteful destruction by fire.
Respectfully submitted,
[Signed] A. W. DAMON, Springfield
_Chairman_
GEO. W. BABB, New York
C. G. SMITH, New York
W. N. KREMER, New York
R. M. BISSELL, Hartford
R. DALE BENSON, Philadelphia
R. EMORY WARFIELD, New York
_Committee_
REPORT OF THE NATIONAL BOARD OF TRADE
In response to the invitation of this Congress, the National Board of
Trade, which participated in the Conference of Governors at the White
House in 1908, is permitted to take part in its deliberations. The
National Board of Trade, as its name implies, is National in character,
and is composed of a large number of Boards of Trade, Chambers of
Commerce, and other organized bodies representing many of the large
commercial and industrial centers of the entire United States. It was
organized 42 years ago for the purpose indicated in the following
declaration: "The National Board of Trade was formed for the purpose of
promoting the efficiency and extending the usefulness of the various
Commercial and manufacturing organizations of the United States of
America, securing unity and harmony of action with reference to business
usages and laws, and especially the proper consideration of and
concentration of opinion upon questions affecting the financial,
commercial, and industrial interests of the country at large, and to
provide a concerted action regarding National legislative measures and
Governmental department affairs."