State Activities. 491 



California in the West, seemed simultaneously to 

 have awakened to their duty, largely as a result of 

 the propaganda of the American Forestry Association. 



In California, a State Board of Forestry was in- 

 stituted, with considerable power and ample appro- 

 priations, which, however, eventually fell into the 

 hands of unscrupulous politicians and grafters, the 

 resulting scandals leading to its abolishment in 1889. 



In Colorado, which when admitted to Statehood in 

 1876, had, in its Constitution, directed the general 

 assembly to legislate on behalf of the forestry inter- 

 ests of the State, these interests were rather tardily 

 committed to a forest commissioner, who was charged 

 to organize county commissioners and road overseers 

 throughout the State as forest officers in their re- 

 spective localities, to act as a police force in preventing 

 depredations on timbered school lands and in enforc- 

 ing the fire laws. Col. E.T. Ensign, who had been 

 most instrumental in bringing about this legislation, 

 was appointed commissioner, and, with singular 

 devotion, in spite of the enmity aroused by his activity, 

 which eventually led to a discontinuance of appro- 

 priations, tried, for a number of years to execute this 

 law. With his resignation from the office, this legis- 

 lation also fell into innocuous desuetude. 



In New York, concern in the water supply for the 

 Erie Canal, had led such a far sighted statesman as 

 Horatio Seymour, twice Governor of the State and 

 once running for the Presidency, to conceive the need 

 of preserving the Adirondack watershed in State 

 hands. Accordingly a law was passed, in 1872, naming 

 seven citizens, with Horatio Seymour chairman, as as 



