FORESTRY PLAN AND COMMENT. 323 



FIFTH:— The state shall have full power to lease for revenue or 

 for protection from tire or trespassers low meadow tracts, or for 

 pasture where it would not interfere with the growth of the forest 

 trees, and to sell dead and down timber, which, as the adjoining 

 lands are settled, will in the near future aggregate a large income; 

 and generallj' the state must have full power of control, even the 

 power of alienation of certain tracts when recommended by the 

 state board of forestry, as where the growth of towns, the building 

 of railroads, water powers, etc , may necessitate alienation; the pro- 

 ceeds of sale to be distributed as are the proceeds of the product of 

 the forest area. 



COMMENTS OF PROF. B. E. FERNOW. 



"In answer to your specific <iuestion, I will state that I know of no 

 legislation in existence which covers precisely such a case as you 

 have in hand. The nearest approach to it is a clause in the law cre- 

 ating the New Hampshire Forest Commission in 1893, which em- 

 powers that commission to receive donations in lands or money 

 towards the establishment of a state park or forest reserve, but, as 

 far as I know, no particular method or condition is prescribed nor 

 has anything resulted from it." 



Extract from Xe\s Hampshire Forestry Law, (Session of 1893), p. 142. 



"Sec. i. \\lienever any person or persons shall supplj' the necessary funds 

 therefor, SI) that no cost or expense shall accrue to the state, the forestry com- 

 mission is hereliy authorized to buy any tract of land and devote the same to the 

 purpose of a public park. If they cannot a^ree with the owners thereof as to the 

 price, tliey may condemn the same under the powers of eminent domain, and the 

 value shall be determined as in the case of lands taken for highways, with the 

 same ri«hts of appeal and jury trial. On the payment of the value as finally 

 determined, the land so taken shall be vested in the state and forever held for the 

 purposes of a public park. The persons furnishing the money to buy such land 

 shall lie at liberty to lay out such roads and paths on the land and otherwise im. 

 prove the same under the direction of the forestry commission, and thetract 

 shall at all times be open to the use of the public." 



(Evidently the above law was devised solely to assist some parties 

 to acquire, by aid of the state's eminent domain, a hunting park. It 

 has not the ring of an earnest effort to establish a state forest re- 

 serve. There is no incentive held out for donations to the state of 

 non-agricultural lands as a beginning for systematic forestry, as is 

 proposed by the foregoing plan for Minnesota 



If private owners are to be appealed to, in order to save the state 

 the expense of acquiring a forestry reserve, some such incentive 

 must be held out as is proposed by Mr, Cross.) 



"I confess that in the absence of more intimate knowledge of the 

 existing organization of your state institutions, my ideas on your 

 plan can be only crude and of a general character, I may, however, 

 suggest the following: 



"1. Create a board of trustees to receive the lands and to act as a 

 board of control after the lands have been turned over to the admin- 

 istrative body to be mentioned later on. You may remember that in 

 the state of Massachusetts there exists since 1S91 such a Ijoard of 

 trustees, whose function it is to receive donations not only for the 

 state but also for any cities, villages or municipalities, and hold 

 them until they can be turned over to the properly constituted state 

 or city commission. 



