Throughout all of the earlier lumbering operations the spruce forest on the high mountain tops, which occurs in those localities in practically unmixed stands without hardwoods, was neglected. Over large areas it is now falling before the axe. In its place there are left piles of dry "slash," veritable tinder for forest fires which threaten to consume not only the few remaining trees upon the mountain tops, but the thin soil of the mountain sides as well. Wherever the soil is destroyed on such mountain tops, the return of a forest cover is forever impossible. So serious are these conditions becoming in many localities that a forest fire once started in them during dry weather would be absolutely uncontrollable until it reached green timber. The damage that it would then cause in the green timber in a season of drought would be tremendous.

The State's own holdings, totalling in value fully $40,000,000, are menaced at innumerable points by the fire traps created upon the privately owned land that is interspersed with the State property. Some idea of the extent to which State and privately owned land is intermixed, and of the danger from fire which this entails upon the State land, may be gathered from the fact that the State's property lines, because of the many small parcels, aggregate more than 9,000 miles. In the language of the trenches, these salients of privately owned land must be eliminated and the State lines must be consolidated as a measure of protection for the property that the State now owns.

Consolidation of larger areas under State ownership and control is assuming rapidly increasing importance in the minds of water supply and sanitary engineers because of the fact that New York City must shortly look to the Adirondacks for a pure and adequate water supply. The probability of utilizing this source was clearly foreseen as long ago as 1900, when an exhaustive report upon New York's future water supply was prepared by John R. Freeman, Civil Engineer, under the direction of City Comptroller Bird S. Coler; 2,650 square miles of available water shed in the Adirondacks were then studied and mapped and estimates of cost and plans were prepared which show that 1,000,000,000 gallons per day may be delivered to the city by gravity. The limit of the

supply in the Catskills will be reached in from twenty to thirty years. Safeguarding the Adirondack sources is accordingly of immediate importance.

State ownership and control of land now privately owned in the Adirondacks and Catskills will be directly effective in increasing the value of the property. Fire danger will be reduced to a minimum, because of the prevention of lumbering, while reforestation of lands already cleared of tree growth will be conducted. In 1915 three thousand acres of State owned land were reforested from trees grown in the five State nurseries. In 1916 an equal area was reforested. This is in addition to the reforestation of land in the Palisades Interstate Park. The Conservation Commission has entered upon a policy of complete reforestation of all denuded State land. The lumber corporations of the Adirondacks and Catskills are making practically no attempts to bring back a forest cover upon their denuded land, and accordingly the only hope of growing a suitable forest upon these areas is that of bringing them under State ownership.

Bond issues for practically all other State purposes provide money which is to be used for outright expenditure. Money spent for purchase of additional lands in the Adirondacks and Catskills, however, is money invested. For this purpose the State has already spent $4,075,000. The title to the land which was purchased remains in the State, with all that this means to the people in the increasing value of the property. It is conservatively estimated that the Forest Preserve is now worth, if it should be placed on the market, at least $40,000,000. It is thus true in every sense that the bond issue of $10,000,000 for additions to the Forest Preserve and to the Palisades Interstate Park is an investment in the broadest sense, upon which the State can never lose, and which will have a constantly increasing monetary value as time goes on, aside from the resulting benefits to the people in many other ways. The acquisition of lands with this $10,000,000 thus authorized will extend over a number of years and it is provided by chapter 569 of the laws of 1916 that no proceeds of the bond issue may be used for this purpose until they are first appropriated thereto by the Legislature. For the extension of the Forest Preserve $7,500,000 can be used, but only "under the direction of the Con

servation Commission, by and with the advice and consent of the Commissioners of the Land Office." The Commissioners of the Land Office are the Lieutenant Governor, the Speaker of the Assembly, the Secretary of State, the Comptroller, the Treasurer, the Attorney General, and the State Engineer and Surveyor.

The remaining $2,500,000 "shall be expended and lands acquired by the Commissioners of the Palisades Interstate Park, under the provisions of Chapter 170 of the Laws of 1900, as amended," which is the law under which this great Park has been created and devoted to the public.

PAPER MANUFACTURE AND THE FORESTS

Increase in Cost of Paper in 1916

The year 1916 will be remembered as a notable one in the history of the paper industry and all interests affected thereby. Among the interests more or less involved in this situation are those of scenic and historic preservation, for print paper is now made largely from wood-pulp, and its consumption bears directly on the subject of the permanence of our forests. Furthermore, the permanence of printed records is directly affected by the quality of the paper used in them, and wood-pulp paper is notoriously perishable.

Wood-pulp has been used in the manufacture of paper for fifty or fifty-five years. The date of its first use is uncertain. On March 5, 1917, the New York Evening Sun said that the first wood-pulp was procured in this country on March 5, 1867. A few days later, the Evening Sun published a letter from Mr. A. Price Dillont of Maplewood, N. J., questioning the accuracy of that date. He

says:

"Having been connected with the paper industry for over twenty-five years, it has been a matter of interest to me to observe from time to time the names of those claiming the distinction of having been the first' to introduce wood-pulp paper in this country. Ex-Senator Warner Miller has been credited with this honor, he having been interested in the manufacture of wood-pulp late in 1866 or early in 1867. However, in an address recently delivered by him on this subject he states that Alberto Pagenstecher had already been making wood-pulp and selling it to the Smith

Paper Company at Lee, Mass., previous to that time. This bears out in turn a claim by the late Wellington Smith that he was the 'first' one to make paper from wood-pulp, and it is reasonable to assume that it was prior to 1867. In the April, 1914, issue of the National Printer Journalist it was state that I. Augustus Stanwood was selling wood-pulp paper to the trade in 1863. In 1862 he erected a wood-pulp factory at Gardiner, Me. In the April 1, 1914, issue of Paper, Inc., a trade magazine, Robert MeAlpin is said to have begun the manufacture of paper from wood-pulp in 1860 at Lee, Mass."

The reason why the year 1916 will be a memorable one in the history of the paper industry is, that during that year there was an enormous advance in the price of all kinds of paper for news, book and commercial uses.

In 1916, the contract price of the International Paper Co., for ordinary newspaper was 2.15 cents a pound delivered. Their contract price for 1917 is 3.15 cents delivered. But this does not represent the extent of the advance in some instances where the increase has been as much as 800 per cent according to a statement in the New York Evening Sun of February 15, 1917.

From a prominent printing house in New York, we learn that the prices of paper used in book and commercial work advanced as follows in the year 1916: Cheap newspapers advanced from 234 and 3 cents a pound to 62 cents. The price of flat papers was first raised by successive increases of a cent a pound at a time; then, after a while, the price per pound ceased to advance but paper was billed at the increased price per pound " plus ten per cent," "plus 20 per cent," and so on up to" plus 60 per cent," the average being plus 50 per cent. Book paper which in 1915 was 712 cents went up to 16 cents; ledger papers formerly 17 cents to 36 cents; coated paper from 6 cents to 102 cents; light weight paper (bible paper, etc.) from 6 cents to 13 or 15 cents; and manila paper from 515 and 6 cents to 12 cents. The average increase has been from 100 to 150 per cent in price.

An incident which may be mentioned to illustrate the uncertainty which existed in the paper market in 1916 occurred in connection with the contract made in December, 1916, for the publication of the old Common Council Minutes under the auspices of the Mayor's Committee upon which this Society is represented. (See page

182.) The contract called for a certain number of volumes to be printed on 60 per cent rag paper at 15 cents a pound. After the bids were sent in, but before they were opened, the bidders learned that the paper would cost 27 cents a pound, and all but one withdrew their bids.

This enormous advance in prices of paper affected all branches of business and every profession, for there is not one of them that does not use paper in some form. The newspapers felt it severely. Some newspapers announced limits to the number of pages which they would print in a single edition and refused to insert advertisements after the allotted space had been filled. Small newspapers in various parts of the country were actually compelled to suspend publication.

The cause of this advance in cost was not apparent to the public.. When, with a view to ascertaining if the war had anything to do with it, the writer of these pages asked an official of one of the largest paper making concerns in the country in January, 1917, what the cause of the increased price of paper was, he received the unresponsive reply that even at the increased price, the publishers were using more paper than ever before. In publishing circles, the helief became prevalent that the increase in price was artificial, unwarranted, and due to a combination of the paper-makers to make increased profits. This the paper-makers denied. In order that the facts might be ascertained, the United State Senate authorized an investigation which began in August, 1916. Information which indicated violations of the Sherman anti-trust law was turned over to the Department of Justice, while facts bearing on the economic phases of the situation were collated by the Federal Trade Commission. The latter continued its investigations and held hearings at Washington, with the result that on February 16, 1917, the representatives of the print paper manufacturers requested the Federal Trade Commission to ascertain the cost and fix the selling price of print paper to be sold from March 1 to September 1, 1917. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice had started its machinery, and on February 15, 1917, the Federal Grand Jury began an inquiry into the same subject in New York City.