CONSERVATION COMMISSION. 7 



AREA BY SOURCES OF TITLES. 



Purchased 769,136.96 



.Mortgage foreclosures 8,249 .01 



Tax sales 753,186.53 



Original ownership 25,290.48 



Appropriated 68,192 .41 



Areu. land . 1,624,055.39 



Waters 201,827.32 



Total acreage, forest preserve 1,825,882.71 



The Forest Preserve, as already indicated, consists of all the 

 lands owned by the State, with above exceptions, within the 

 twelve Adirondack and four Catskill counties, while the central 

 portions of each of these mountainous sections are distinguished 

 as the Adirondack and Catskill Parks respectively. The 

 boundaries of these parks are fixed by statute and indicated upon 

 our forest maps by a heavy blue line. The original purpose of 

 establishing the park was to prescribe a certain area within which 

 the State would purchase land for Forest Preserve purposes. 

 The definition "Adirondack and Catskill Parks " until 1912, ap- 

 plied to the lands owned by the State within the blue line but 

 since that time has been changed to mean all lands both State and 

 private within that area. 



The first appropriation for buying land for the Forest Preserve 

 wa> made in the year 1890. Purchases were to be made by the 

 Forest Commission with the approval of the Commissioners of 

 the Land Office, and the price that might be paid was limited to 

 one dollar and fifty cents per acre. 



The first purchase was December 8, 1891. In 1895 the 

 Fisheries, Game and Forest Commission was created taking over 

 the work of the former Forest Commission and under an appro- 

 priation made that year the limit in price that might be paid was 

 removed. Purchases by the two commissions amounted to 

 140.305 acres. 



In 1897 a special board, known as the Forest Preserve Board, 

 for the purchase of land for the preserve was created. They 



