406 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



eion found so strong' opposition among the lumbermen that it could 

 not be passed. 



It was the privilege of the writer to formulate the two bills, which 

 were merged into one and became a law in 1885, the one being the 

 forest fire law, which afterwards served as the basis for the 

 laws of Maine, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Minnesota, the 

 other providing for a state forest reserve administered by a forestry- 

 commission. 



It was found that the state then owned some 600,000 acres of laud 

 in the Adirondacks, of which it had become possessed through the 

 neglect of the owners to pay taxes, usually lumbermen who had 

 culled the valuable soft woods and had no further interest in the 

 land, it being almost entirely unfit for agriculture. 



The commission was to manage this property, with technical ad- 

 vice, under forestry methods. It had power to cut and sell timber 

 and do all that would be required in a forestry management. But 

 the commission failed to employ any technical advice, and the right 

 to crt and sell timber was exercised by merely selling stumpage to 

 lumbermen, who proceeded without change of methods. Only the 

 fire nuisance was greatly reduced. Charges of improper exercise 

 of its powers by the commission resulted in an insertion of a clause 

 into the constitution of the state in 1894 forbidding the cutting of 

 any timber on the lands, thus preventing at the same time the inju- 

 dicious cutting by lumbermen and the judicious use of the axe by 

 foresters. At the same time, the forest commission was merged into 

 one with the game and fish commission of the state. 



In spite of the setback, as we must regard the change, public 

 interest was thoroughly aroused by this time, so that in 1897 an act 

 was passed providing for the additional gradual purchase of lands^ 

 to embrace finally an area of two or three million acres, more or 

 less, covering the main part of the Adirondacks. Under this act the 

 state has increased its holdings to over one million acres, spending- 

 one and one-half million dollars during the last two years for the 

 additions. 



This movement was largely backed by the press and the influen- 

 tial men of New York city, an Adirondack park association having 

 been formed, while the New York State Forestry Association did but 

 little to advance it. 



Meanwhile it had become evident that by the mere reservation of 

 the land without a definite policy as to the treatment of the forest 

 cover other than a let-alone policy, the object of the reserve was not 

 fully attained. It was believed that the state should go one step 

 farther and institute an experiment or demonstration of how for- 

 estry methods might be safely applied to this property, when at a 

 later date the constitutional bar to the practice of forestry, which 

 means rational timber cutting, might be removed. 



Governor Black, taking interest in the proposition, conceived 

 the idea that such an experiment, requiring a long time of continu- 

 ous, unchanged policy, had best be removed from the ever changing 

 influence of politics and should be entrusted to a strong and stable 

 educational institution. 



