492 United States. 



State park commission, instructed to make inquiries 

 with the view of reserving or appropriating the wild 

 lands lying northward of the Mohawk, or so much 

 thereof as might be deemed expedient, for a State 

 park. The commission, finding that the State then 

 owned only 40,000 acres in that region, and that 

 there was a tendency on the part of the owners of 

 the rest to combine for the enhancement of values 

 should the State want to buy, recommended a law 

 forbidding further sales of State lands, and their 

 retention when forfeited for the non-payment of taxes. 



It was not until eleven years later, in 1883, that this 

 recommendation was acted upon, when the State 

 through the non-payment of taxes by the owners 

 of cut-over lands had become possessed of 600,000 

 acres. 



In 1884, the comptroller was authorized to employ 

 "such experts as he may deem necessary to investi 

 gate and report a system of forest preservation." 

 The report of a commission of four members was made 

 in 1885, but the legislation proposed was antagonized 

 by the lumbermen's interests. The legislature finally 

 passed a compromise bill, which the writer had drafted 

 at the request of Senator Lowe, entitled "An act 

 establishing a forest commission, and to define its 

 powers, and for the preservation of forests," the most 

 comprehensive legislation at that time. 



The original forest commission, appointed under the 

 act of 1885, was superseded in 1895, by the commission 

 of fisheries, game, and forests, which brought allied in- 

 terests under the control of a single board of five 

 members appointed by the Governor for a term of five 





