THE RELATION OF FOREST CONDITIONS IN NEW YORK TO POSSIBILITIES OF NUT GROWING

DR. HUGH P. BAKER, DEAN OF THE NEW YORK STATE COLLEGE OF FORESTRY AT SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

The forester presumes to come before your organization because he is concerned with one of the greatest of the natural resources of this and other states of the Union and not with the idea of bringing information as to details in nut culture.  Possibly nut culture as a business is more closely related to agriculture than forestry.  Forestry is not subordinate to agriculture in this country but co-ordinate with it.  Together they will come as near solving the soil problems of the country as is possible for man to solve them.

The forester is interested and concerned with the wild nut trees wherever he has to do with the forests or forest lands of the country.  Throughout the great hardwood sections of the East there are many native nut-bearing trees, and in the proper utilization of the trees which make up the forests the forester is concerned not alone with the lumber which may come from these trees, but he is concerned as well with the value of the by-products of the forest and the influence of the utilization of these by-products upon the forest.

In view of the forester’s interest in all of the trees which make up our forests, my purpose of addressing you today is to bring before you the question of the most effective use of the forest soils of this state.  I shall also attempt to make some suggestions to your organization in the matter of interesting the man on the street in nut growing.  This profession and the business of forestry have been passing through a period of general educational work in this country.  Some of the lessons which we have learned through our efforts to interest the people in their forests may be of help to you in interesting the people both in the consumption and the production of nuts.

New York as a Great Forest State

Twenty-five years ago New York was one of the leading lumber-producing states of the Union.  Today some twenty other states produce more lumber than comes from the forests and woodlots of New York.  Statistics given out recently by the United States Census Bureau and the Conservation Commission of New York show that, out of the land acreage of over thirty-two millions in New York, but twenty-two millions are included within farms.  This leaves something over eight millions of acres outside of farms and presumably non-agricultural.  The forests of the Adirondacks and Catskills and the woodlots of the rougher hill counties in the southern and southwestern part of the state come within this vast area of eight millions of acres.  Without doubt with increasing population there will come some increase in the use of what are now non-agricultural lands for the practice of agriculture, but with three hundred years of agricultural history back of us in this state it does not seem likely that there will be much change in the relation of non-agricultural to agricultural land during the next half-century.