In brief, I have kept my imagination and
enthusiasm under strict control. But, after all, the Adirondacks are
a wonderland, and we, who dwell in the Hudson and Mohawk valleys, are
happy in having this great park of Nature's making at our very doors.
It has charms alike for the hunter, the angler, the artist, the
writer, and the scientist. Let us rejoice, therefore, that the State
of New York is waking at last to the fact, that these northern
mountains were intended by nature to be something more than lumber
ranches, to be despoiled by the axe, and finally revert to the State
for "taxes" in the shape of bare and desolate wastes. Nor can the most
practical legislator charge those, who wish to preserve the Adirondack
woods, with idle sentiment; as it is now an established scientific
fact that the rainfall of a country is largely dependent upon its
forest land. If the water supply of the north were cut off, to any
perceptible degree, the Hudson, during the months of July and August,
would be a mere sluice of salt water from New York to Albany; and the
northern canals, dependent on this supply, would become empty and
useless ditches.
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