School of Forestry of Cornell University

Courtesy of Klaus and Lisa Meissner

The School of Forestry of Cornell University was a short-lived school of "scientific forestry" near Coreys.  The school ran afoul of the wealthy landowners of Upper Saranac Lake, and the school's purchase of 30,000 acres of Forest Preserve land was ruled unconstitutional.  The school was replaced by [Environmental Science and Forestry] in Wanakena.

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Forestry and Irrigation, [1902]

New York State Forest, Fish, and Game Commission gave a hearing on an application to have declared void the purchase by the State, of 30,000 acres of land in Franklin county, near Upper Saranac and Tupper Lakes, for the School of Forestry of Cornell University. This application was made by [P. Swenson], representing an association of residents and property owners of Upper Saranac Lake. Ex-Gov. [P. Morton], [S. Bache], [M. Colgate], [Peabody], [N. Seligman], [S. Bangs], and Alfred L. White were among the signers of the petition. The association was represented by David Wilcox and [G. Agar], of New York city, and James F. Tracy, of Albany. Cornell University was represented by President J. G. Schurman, Dr. [E. Fernow], Director of the School of Forestry, and State Civil Service Commissioner Cuthbert Pound.

The citizens' association charges that the purchase of the 30,000 acres of land is unconstitutional, and that the School of Forestry has exceeded its authority, even though the act were constitutional, by cutting down and selling the timber product of the land.

Dr. Fernow stated that his conduct of the school has been to demonstrate that the forests can be reproduced with a view to future earnings. He admitted that a contract had been entered into with a Brooklyn cooperage concern for a period of fifteen or twenty years, to utilize the timber cut from the lands. This timber was cut, he said, with a view of affording opportunity for scientific reproduction.

Lieutenant-Governor Woodruff said that the authorities of Cornell had evidently labored under a misapprehension as to what was intended when the school was authorized. He was a member of the Forest Preserve Board at the time of the purchase, and knew that Governor Black and the legislature had no intention of permitting any one to denude any part of the forests.

John G. Agar said that it is the intention of the school to practically denude the entire tract, which would be a great detriment, not only to neighboring property, but to the entire Adirondack region...

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Adirondack Daily Enterprise, March 25, 1995

Forester's experiment evidence of Axton's history

By JOHN J. DUQUETTE

"Fernow's Planting," off Route 30 near Upper Saranac Lake, remains today as a legacy of one forester's efforts at a short-lived experimental site at Axton, a former lumbering camp.

One of the major lumber outfits that was active in and around Tupper Lake in the 1890s was the Santa Clara Lumber Company. During the early years of that decade, the company purchased large landholdings in the Upper Saranac-Raquette River area and set up a lumber camp on the Raquette called Axe-Town. It was a typical headquarters installation with living quarters for the workers, a superintendent's office, barns for the horses, and a vegetable farm to supply the kitchen.

Located near what is now known as Coreys, the name was soon shortened to Axton and as such became well situated to serve as the southern terminal of the Indian Carry. A horse and wagon was stationed here to carry boats between the Raquette River and Upper Saranac Lake.

In 1898, the state decided to fund a College of Forestry and chose Cornell University to be its educational partner in the program. The deal was to purchase a parcel of forest land and turn it over to the university for a term of 30 years for experimental forestry practices. At the end of the 30 years, the land would revert to the state as a part of the Forest Preserve.

To head up the program, a search for a professional forester ended with the hiring of Dr. Bernhard E. Fernow, who came to this country from Prussia in 1876 with a solid background in the field of forestry in Europe. In 1886, he was appointed to be in charge of all forestry work of the United States government. At Cornell, 22 years later, the school became the first to operate in New York state. Earlier, in 1885, Fernow was involved in the drafting of state legislation in the formation of the Forest Preserve where he met and shared his enthusiasm with then-Assemblyman Teddy Roosevelt.

Fernow's first assignment for the College of Forestry was to locate a proper site to set the plan in motion. After visiting many Adirondack areas he settled on Axton for its proximity to the mills of Tupper Lake and its bordering along the Raquette River. The state purchased 30,000 acres from the Santa Clara Lumber Co. for the sum of $165,000. Axton was very near the center of the two north and south portions of the 30,000-acre parcel.

At the start, Fernow would make use of some of the lumber camp buildings with a plan to add a two-story building, 50- by 100-feet, to house the students. The immediate, project would be the planting of a tree nursery at Axton to raise seedlings. One hundred and fifty pounds of seed, mostly white pine and Norway spruce, was purchased and sown on the former lumber camp farm lands. This planting was expected to produce 1,500,000 seedlings, but a severe winter cut heavily in this prediction. Fernow reported that even in June and July potatoes were frozen at Axton.

Along the road from Tupper Lake to the Wawbeek Hotel, an area was selected for a cut-and-burn clearing. Mostly mixed hardwoods were removed and replaced with pine and spruce seedlings. This experiment would prove to be Fernow's undoing. The university had entered a contract with the Brooklyn Cooperage Co. in Tupper Lake whereby the hardwood being removed would be purchased by the company for the manufacture of [barrel] staves. The Brooklyn Cooperage Co. built a railroad to the site to transport the logs but trouble was brewing. As the hardwood trees were cut, the tops and brush piles were being burned. The smoke drifted toward Upper Saranac Lake where wealthy camp owners rushed to Wawbeek to see what was going on. They neither understood nor liked what they saw, and with influential contacts in Albany halted the project and had Fernow fired. The contract with Brooklyn Cooperage was declared hull and void. Cornell lost its College of Forestry but not before a substantial planting had been established at the Wawbeek site.

Today, when driving west on Route 30 from Upper Saranac Lake toward Tupper Lake, shortly before reaching the intersection with Route 3, notice a small sign on the right side of the highway which reads "Fernow's Planting." Here one can walk over a half-mile nature trail and decide whether or not Fernow was right to do the planting. Better yet, stop out at the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) headquarters at Ray Brook and pick up a folder for use on the self-guided tour. Between the parking area and the Fernow planting there is a slight fringe of mixed hardwoods -- beech, birch, maple, and cherry -- that formed the original shield from the highway.

After passing through this strip, you will begin to view towering pine and spruce: trees being "spruced up" by Paul Smith's College students under the direction of DEC personnel.

The firing of Fernow by no means ended his career; in fact, he went on to bigger and better employment. He wrote text books on the subject of forestry that were acclaimed by major universities throughout the nation. After leaving Cornell, he moved to Canada where he was appointed dean of faculty of forestry at Toronto University. Also, the closing of Cornell's State College of Forestry was not the end of the line: for that branch of education. Eight years later, Syracuse University opened a re-born State College of Forestry, which is still functioning today. Of local interest, our own Bob Marshall of Knollwood Club first among the Adirondack; 46'ers with both western and Alaskan park credentials, was a graduate of this school.