754 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



at low prices. The lands were bought for the sake of their standing 

 timber where and when lumbermen saw a chance for a profitable 

 operation. But after as much of the timber as was valuable at the 

 time had been cut off, the lands were often allowed to revert to the 

 State through nonpayment of taxes. When through added growth 

 or advancing lumber prices they become valuable again, they were 

 rebought to repeat the process. In his annual message of January 

 1, 1884, Governor Grover Cleveland pointed out how, under the 

 established procedure for dealing with tax-delinquent lands, owners 

 who from the first day of their ownership had refused payment of 

 all taxes had from 7 to 12 years in which to cut off and sell the timber 

 before the State foreclosed on the land. Twelve years before this 

 message the legislature had appointed a temporary commission of 

 inquiry; but its recommendations had languished until 1883. In 

 that year the legislature put a stop to the revolving system of alternate 

 public and private ownership; and in 1884 it authorized the comp- 

 troller to employ "such experts as he may deem necessary to investi- 

 gate and report a system of forest preservation/' The commission 

 was headed by Prof. Charles S. Sargent, of Harvard, and made its 

 report the following year. Opposition said to have come partly 

 from lumbering interests resulted in the passage of a compromise act, 

 the law of 1885, establishing a permanent forest commission to 

 "have the care, custody, control, and superintendence of the forest 

 preserve", and generally to promote forestry throughout the State 

 by means of various specified activities. 



The law of 1885 also put into effect a system of organized fire 

 protection for both public and private forest lands within the State, 

 the provisions of which will be discussed later. 



The task imposed upon the Commission at the outset with respect 

 to the State lands was of Herculean proportions. From time out of 

 mind these lands had been subject to depredations, often highly lucra- 

 tive to those engaged in them, and similar in many ways to those to 

 which the Federal public domain was exposed. It is improbable that 

 the members of the Commission, at the time of their appointment, 

 were under any illusions regarding the unpopularity with which any 

 whole-hearted attempt to enforce the laws against stealing timber 

 from the State lands would be received, and the hornet's nest that 

 honest performance of their duties was bound to stir up ; but if they 

 were, their minds must have been very promptly disabused, Local 

 custom confirmed by State complaisance had given the lands virtually 

 the status of public commons, in the eyes at least of those who lived 

 in their general neighborhood ; and the business interests which stood 

 to lose by a sudden drying up of the supply of bootlegged logs were 

 certain to be heard from by the Governor's appointees. That their 

 course had aroused both resentment and opposition the words of their 

 second annual report bore testimony to, in a passage which said : 



The Commissioners, of course, could not have remained in ignorance of the 

 fact that in the performance of the official duties with which they were charged 

 they have incurred the suppressed ill-will in some cases, and in others the open 

 hostility of those with whom they have been compelled to deal. * * * They 

 are conscious that they have intentionally given offense or caused injury to no 

 man, and that in all instances they have pursued their work with none but the 

 kindliest feelings, exercising at the same time as much leniency and forbearance 

 as was compatible with the ends of justice. While, on the one hand, they have 

 shown no favoritism, so, on the other, they have shown no hostility and felt 



