1889.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 65 



State, is required twice in each year to cut and burn off, or re- 

 move from its right of way, all grass, brush, or inflammable 

 material, under proper care against the spread of the fire; and 

 it is required that the locomotives on such roads shall be pro- 

 vided Avith sufficient arrangements for preventing the escape of 

 fire from their furnace or ash-pan, and sparks of fire from their 

 smoke-stacks. 



In seasons of drought these railroad companies are charged 

 with employing a sufficient additional number of trackmen for 

 the prompt" extinguishment of fires. A penalty of $100 is im- 

 posed for the violation of any of these provisions. 



This Act further provides for the fine or imprisonment of any 

 person who shall wilfully or negligently set fire, or assist in 

 setting fire, to any waste or forest land belonging to another or 

 to the State, whereby the forests are injured or endangered. 

 He shall also be liable for all damages that may result from such 

 fires. 



Instruction in forestry in schools is provided for in the 

 following terms :— 



"The Forest Commission shall take such measures as the 

 Department of Public Instruction, the Regents of the University, 

 and the Forest Commission may approve, for awakening an 

 interest in behalf of forestry in the public schools, academies, 

 and colleges of the State, and imparting some degree of elemen- 

 tary instruction upon this subject therein.^' 



And the law further provides for public instruction through 

 the preparation and free distribution of tracts or circulars of 

 information upon forestal subjects. 



In these provisions the Legislature contemplated, no doubt, a 

 most important work, requiring rare fitness in the Commission 

 and much labor. 



These educational provisions, so far as I have been able to 

 learn, have been as a dead letter in the administration of the 

 Forest Commission. Since the establishment of this Commis- 

 sion, public agitation of this question in New York seems to have 

 subsided. The people have become apathetic, — resting in the 

 sufficiency of the law to secure the desired ends so long labored 

 for. 



After four years' trial the people are awakening to the fact 

 that the laws and the Commission have not proved effective in 

 preventing, or even checking to any considerable degree, the 

 destruction of the forests in the Adirondacks, or on other water- 

 sheds of the State, or in promoting forestry instruction in the 

 institutions of learning, or in distributing forestry literature 

 among the people, or in reforesting any part of the State lands. 



The State now owns an aggregate of 855,980 acres of land in 



