New York Forest Commission. 493 



years. In 1903, the commission was changed to a 

 single commissioner, and another backward step was 

 taken in 1911 by handing over the work of this com- 

 missioner to the newly created State Conservation 

 Commission, consolidating with it several other 

 commissions. 



Here, then, for the first time on the American con- 

 tinent, had the idea of State forestry, management of 

 State lands on forestry principles, taken shape; a new 

 doctrine of State functions had gained the day. Not 

 only was the commission charged to organize a ser- 

 vice, with a "chief forester" and "underforesters, " 

 to administer the existing reserve according to fores- 

 try principles, but also from the incomes to lay aside 

 a fund for the purchase of more lands to constitute 

 the State forest preserve. Unfortunately, instability 

 of purpose, the characteristic of democracy, spoiled 

 the dream of the forester. Both, commission and 

 chief forester were, of course, political appointees, 

 and, rightly or wrongly, fell under the suspicion, 

 when proposing the sale of stumpage, that they were 

 working into the hands of lumbermen. A set of 

 well-meaning but ill-advised civic reformers succeeded, 

 in 1893, in securing the insertion into the Consti- 

 tution, then being revised, of a clause preventing 

 the cutting of trees, dead or alive, on State lands, 

 declaring that they shall forever be kept as "wild 

 lands." Later, this constitutional provision was 

 deliberately set aside by the commission, which be- 

 gan to plant up some of the fire-wasted areas, the 

 legislature appropriating money for this breach of 

 the Constitution because it was popular: and lately 



