FISHERIKS, GAME AND FORESTS. \2J 



The foresters have displayed a commendable activity in patrollin^r their districts. 

 Wherever any timber cutting occurred it was stopped b\- them before any serious 

 dama<^e was done. At the same time some trespasses of a trivial character may have 

 escaped their notice. Occasionally a forester finds, while traveling through the 

 woods, some place where a few trees have been cut ; he may have well-founded 

 suspicions as to the offender; but unless he has positive evidence, unless he can come 

 upon the offender unawares while at his work, it would be useless for him to make an 

 arrest. 



The " natives " living in the vicinity may know all about the matter, and may 

 have seen their neighbor when he was cutting the State timber; but they are loyal to 

 each other, and never furnish evidence except when they have had a quarrel and seek 

 revenge. 



The State has only ten foresters in the Adirondack counties. Their combined 

 districts include over 6,000 square miles of forest territory. Of this area the State 

 owns less than one-fourth, but as its holdings are scattered throughout the entire 

 region the foresters in their wood ranging have to travel through the whole territory 

 Worse than all, the Forest Preserve includes thousands of acres in small, isolated lots 

 scattered through the farming region, situated ten to forty miles distant from the main 

 forest, and these outlying lands must be watched by the foresters also. 



Under such circumstances the present force is entire!)' inadequate to a thorough 

 protection of the land. Still, the foresters do all in their power to prevent timber 

 cutting, their vigilance being stimulated and assured by the wise provision of the law 

 passed at the previous session, which gives the forester a share of the penalties 

 collected for timber cutting. 



Litigation. 



The prosecution of trespassers for cutting timber on the Preserve is but a small 

 part of the litigation in which this department finds itself involved, and which calls for 

 no small amount of care and attention on the part of the Commissioners. Important 

 suits, on whose issue depends the title to several hundred thousand dollars' worth of 

 State land, are now pending, the conduct of which devolves largely on the Commission 

 as well as the attorneys. 



It would seem that legal contests over land titles should be outside the province of 

 this department. But in many suits brought for trespass or ejectment the defendants 

 plead that the State does not own the land, and the Commission in order to win the 

 suit, to punish the timber thief or eject the squatter, must defend the State's title. 



