NEWS AND NOTES. 



We regret to have to record the death of one of the early- 

 pioneers of the forestry movement in this country, Colonel W. F. 

 Fox, well known to all foresters as Superintendent of Forests 

 under the Forest, Fish and Game Commission of New York State, 

 which position he held for nearly a quarter century. He died at 

 Albany on June 16, in his 70th year, having ailed for several years 

 with heart trouble. 



Colonel Fox, who earned his title during the Civil War, came 

 into his position and into prominence in the forestry world in 1885, 

 when the State Forest Commission was created. He was neither 

 a forester by profession or study, nor had he been one of those 

 who had exercised himself to advance the establishment of forest 

 policies ; it was a purely political appointment. He was a grad- 

 uate of Union College and previous to his appointment had been 

 civil engineer with the Blossburg Coal Company. But Colonel 

 Fox was an intelligent man, with executive ability, and especially 

 with geniality and tact, which helped him to keep his place 

 through Republican as well as Democratic administrations, al- 

 though he was an openly professed Democrat, and a thoroughly 

 honest man, who steered through the mazes of political corrup- 

 tion without even a suspicion of improper use of his position for 

 personal gain. Later on in his career, his intimate knowledge 

 of property conditions and personnel in the Adirondacks made 

 his services invaluable, and in this direction especially his loss 

 will be most severely felt. Although himself an amateur, he 

 had a proper appreciation of the possibilities of professional 

 forestry, and, as far as the limited opportunities of his 

 activity permitted — circumscribed as it was by the well-known 

 puerile clause of the State Constitution — he tried to make room 

 for it. It was through his suggestion that the fated State College 

 of Forestry at Cornell came into being, and the waste land plant- 

 ing operations of the Forest Commission — a clear violation of the 

 same clause in the Constitution — were encouraged by him. 



He was a facile writer, and, besides the annual reports of the 

 Commission, which made up in elegant form what they lacked in 



