March 23, 1931 – Release – Afternoon papers – re: Perpetual Forests

 

  • March 23, 1931 – Release Afternoon Papers – Perpetual Forests

Commissioner Morgenthau Comments on the New Adirondack Park Bill

Albany, March 23. “The enlargement of the Adirondack State Park marks an important step in the state’s enlarged reforestation program” said Conservation Commissioner Henry Morganthau, Jr., today. “It gives New York State the largest public park in the country and it also tends to clear up a misunderstanding that has existed in the minds of many people as to the meaning of the terms Adirondack Park and Adirondack Forest Preserve.”

“The Adirondack Park, as now fixed by Chap. 95, Laws of 1931, comprises 4,604,000 acres and includes all of the land that is desirable for park purposes because of scenic and other recreational attractions, and also all the forested lands that are needed for the protection of the head waters of the rivers having their source in the Adirondacks. It includes practically all of the Adirondack Forest Preserve which consists of state-owned land in the Forest Preserve counties. Only 15,000 acres of state land is now outside of the Park boundaries, and it is the policy of the State in acquiring land hereafter for Forest Preserve purposes to make those purchases within the boundaries of the Park. Practically one-seventh of the entire area of the state is now included in the Park and all lands therein owned by the state, under the provisions of Sec. 7 of Article 7 of the Constitution will be held in perpetuity as wild forest land under the ownership of all the people of the state.”

“With this enlargement of the Park and the adoption of the Hewitt amendment by the voters next fall, it will be possible for the state to acquire outside of the Adirondack Park abandoned lands in areas of not less than 500 contiguous acres for use as reforestation areas wherein forests can be grown on lines similar to those that have been profitable followed in European countries for hundreds of years past. These areas, purchased with money appropriated for this specific purpose, will be reforested, the forests grown thereon cut at maturity, and again reforested, thereby making perpetual productive forests.”