130 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



continued residence has r;'.ised the question of adverse possession. Each one of these 

 occupants was ready and anxious to take out a five-acre lease from the State and 

 waive all claims to ownership, but under the forestry clause of the new Constitution 

 this remedy was denied. 



Ejectment suits have been commenced in two cases on Raquette Lake, and one 

 on Eighth Lake. Others will follow soon. These three were selected as a beginning, 

 because they were aggravated cases, two of the parties having built their cottages 

 with timber cut from the adjoining State forests. These three parties have each put 

 in a defense alleging that the State has no title. 



Arrangements have been made for posting every lake and stream on the Forest 

 Preser\'e with notices forbidding the erection of any building, no matter how small, 

 the notices stating further that any one erecting a house will not only be dispossessed, 

 but will be prosecuted as a trespasser. 



I5an(ls Pttrct)ase<i. 



The lands acquired during the year were : acres. 



W. S. Webb Purchase, ....... 75^377 



W'm. iMcEchron Purchase, ....... 1 7)354 



John Pirown Farm, ........ 243 



92-795 



In the Webb Purchase the State acquired, in addition to the 7S'3i77 acres in fee, 

 an easement on 15,000 acres of forest in Township 8, John Brown's Tract, Herkimer 

 County, which, under the terms of the contract, are to be held permanently as a public 

 forest — one where the people shall have a right of way over the trails and the privilege 

 of hunting and fishing. 



The lands known as the Webb Purchase were bought of Dr. William .Seward 

 Webb, of Shelburne, Vt. The tract is situated in the northern part of Herkimer 

 County, a small portion extending into Hamilton. It is well watered and contains 

 several small lakes, some of them unsurpassed in beauty and scenery by an}' in the 

 Wilderness. Part of this forest has been linnbered or is subject to a timber right; but 

 this right reserves only the softwood timber, which includes less than fifteen per cent, 

 of the trees. It forbids the felling of any tree less than ten inches in diameter on the 

 stump, a provision that protects the young evergreens which elsewhere are removed 

 for pulpwood. But the greater part of the tract — about 50,000 acres, including all 

 north of the Beaver River — is a primiti\'e forest, in which no cutting has been done 

 and on which no timber rights were reserved. The 'price paid b\- the State for the 



