THE ADMINISTRATION OF STATE FORESTS 



By CLIFFORD R. PETTIS 



THE State of New York is one of 

 the largest land owners in the 

 East, and, as a matter of fact, 

 the administration of the area embrac- 

 ing over 1,800,000 acres is somewhat of 

 a problem. The present Constitution is 

 so drastic that it practically prohibits 

 any use of this great area which is one- 

 half as large as the State of Connecti- 

 cut ; therefore, our efforts are directed 

 largely to protective measures. 



This area is not a solid block but con- 

 sists of nearly seven thousand parcels 

 of varying sizes scattered over sixteen 

 Adirondack and Catskill counties. It is 

 bounded by approximately nine thou- 

 sand miles of lines and the title to it has 

 been derived in many different ways ; 

 one-half has been acquired by purchase 

 and most of the remainder by tax sales 

 through the nonpayment of taxes. 

 Some of the finest timber lands, virgin 

 forests, have been thus acquired. The 

 purchases have been the best invest- 

 ment the State ever made and the lands 

 could be sold today at a very handsome 

 profit. 



In order to protect the land it must 

 first be located, this usually necessitates 

 surveys. The original locations were, 

 in most instances, made soon after the 

 Revolutionary War, and during the 

 century or more since, lumbering, fire 

 and decay have obliterated many of the 

 monuments. This, therefore, increases 

 the actual work because it is often nec- 

 essary to run lines of adjacent lots in 

 order to be satisfied as to the exact de- 

 termination of the lines as any subse- 

 quent survey is governed entirely by 

 the old monuments. A large amount of 

 poor surveying by incompetent and 

 careless persons has resulted, in many 

 instances in numerous erroneous lines, 

 and, therefore, it is necessary to make 

 a study of the same to determine which 

 of them should be accepted. 



Another difficulty in this connection 

 is that the original grants were usually 

 made for large areas. These field notes 

 and maps are usually on record, but 

 the interior allotments of those tracts 

 were not made by the State but by the 

 grantees, and unfortunately they did 

 not, in some instances, appreciate the 

 value of the records of those surveys 

 for future generations in locating 

 parcels of land. This causes searching 

 through various channels and office 

 records to discover the necessary data. 



It is also necessary to make searches 

 in order to determine the quality of the 

 State's title to certain lands. This is 

 not as simple a matter as might be ex- 

 pected because in many instances parties 

 did not place their deeds on record and, 

 therefore, there is a break in the chain 

 of title; also many of the old grants 

 were given to foreigners and we have 

 been unable to find some of the records. 



As already stated, the Constitution 

 prohibits lumbering on State land, there- 

 fore, "one of the principal duties in con- 

 nection with the administration of State 

 property is to protect the land from 

 trespass. This not only necessitates 

 knowledge of surveys and titles but also 

 the location of the lands in the field and 

 familiarizing the forest rangers with the 

 location of the lines. 



The first consideration in our plan of 

 administration is to secure protection 

 from fire. As many of you are aware, 

 a new system was adopted in 1909 after 

 the disastrous experience of 1908. At 

 that time the old town fire warden 

 system was abandoned and an organi- 

 zation was affected with paid fire rang- 

 ers. The Adirondack and Catskill ter- 

 ritories are now divided into five dis- 

 tricts with a district ranger in charge of 

 each district and the work is conducted 

 under their immediate direction. The 

 plan is two-fold ; first, preventive, and 



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