History of the New York State College of Forestry

"[5] Along with the establishment of the College, the legislature also provided for the purchase of 30,000 acres (120 km2) of forest in the Adirondack Mountains, the Axton tract near Upper Saranac Lake, from the Santa Clara Lumber Company, for $165,000.

[6][7] This act came as an enlightened response to the devastation being wrought at the time by indiscriminate logging not only in New York, but also in Pennsylvania, Michigan ("the lands that nobody wanted"),[8][9] Wisconsin, and elsewhere.

Ezra Cornell, under advice from lumberman trustee Henry W. Sage, wisely parlayed the grant into ownership of Wisconsin pine lands that he held until the wanton logging was diminished and the price for lumber increased, providing a substantial endowment for the university.

[22] A fruitful marriage or hybridization between German methods[23] (Professor Bernhard Fernow) and American practice of forestry, silviculture[24] came about in the person of Raphael Zon, an emigre' from Simbirsk, Russia.

Subsequently, the Quarterly was published independently with a board of editors composed of many prominent figures in American forestry in the early part of the 20th century, including Editor-in-Chief Bernhard Fernow and Carl Schenck, founder of the Biltmore Forest School.

Fernow's plan called for clearcutting the tract at the rate of several thousand acres per year to prepare for planting conifers.

With an annual state appropriation for the college of only $10,000, Cornell entered into a contract with the Brooklyn Cooperage Company for the project to be viable.

Fernow had a 6-mile (9.7 km)-long railroad spur built from Axton to Tupper Lake in order to deliver logs to the company's facility.

The firm turned the hardwood logs into barrels and the cordwood into methanol and charcoal, through a process called destructive distillation.

[29] Smoke from the burning of brush and logging slash, along with Fernow's disposition toward landowners from nearby Saranac Lake further alienated the public.

In its findings, the commission concluded that "the college has exceeded the original intention of the State when the tract was granted the university for conducting silvicultural experiments.

In his statement, Governor Odell said: "The operations of the College of Forestry have been subjected to grave criticism, as they have practically denuded the forest lands of the State without compensating benefits.

I deem it wise therefore to withhold approval of this item until a more scientific and more reasonable method is pursued in the forestry of the lands now under the control of Cornell University.

"[33] On the night when the telegram arrived announcing Governor Odell's veto of the annual appropriation for the College of Forestry, Dean Fernow was at a dance.

However, Cornell's Board of Trustees and President Schurman, despite Bailey's urgings to the contrary, decided to close the doors of the Forestry College.

It has developed a faculty of eight trained men, all of whom are graduates of forest schools of high standing.... Dr. Hugh P. Baker, who is the Dean of the College ... has received applications from over eight hundred prospective students.

Brown subsequently secured the state appropriation for Marshall Hall, which offered greater teaching and laboratory space.

[57] Samuel N. Spring was appointed dean of the New York State College of Forestry in Syracuse, NY in February 1933, succeeding Baker.

[58] The United States Forest Service had declared the American chestnut dead and advised cutting any trees having salvageable lumber.

[60][61][62] The SUNY ESF effort is following the trail blazed by plant tissue culture pioneers Gottlieb Haberlandt and Cornell University's Frederick C.