the neighboring land owners at least one day 

 before setting the fires. 



This is most excellent law. The fire was 

 evidently recognized as a public enemy akin to 

 riot and invasion, to be fought at once and by 

 all citizens. But this law remained a dead let- 

 ter. Why? Because the officers who are 

 charged with the duty of executing the laws 

 found this not a popular one to execute and 

 they were not compelled to by law. Had the 

 sheriff and town officials been compelled un- 

 !er severe penalty to execute this law fires 

 would have been very few, and for thinly set- 

 tled towns and count'es a proper amount of 

 State aid would soon have been called for and 

 obtained. 



2. The law of 1903 practically repeals the 

 provisions of the old law, but adds State aid 

 and supervision by making the Land Commis- 

 sioner "Forest Commissioner," providing a 

 "Chief Fire Warden" at $500 per year(!) and 

 makes the supervisors of the towns local "fire 

 wardens," with authority as under the old law. 

 But it provides for a payment for fire fighting 

 at $2 per day, and then cripples the whole en- 

 terprise by putting a limit of $50 per township 

 for any one year. It also provides that one- 

 third of the expense shall be borne by the 

 State. After four years of trial the State Land 

 Commissioner publicly acknowledged that this 

 law was valueless. The law was ignored. The 

 Chief Fire Warden did nothing except play a 

 little politics and collect a lot of useless "guess- 

 ing-bee" reports. The $2 payment encouraged 

 rather than reduced firing. In cases where 

 help was really wanted the supervisor had ex- 

 cuses for not calling out the people. 



3. In 1907 the work was turned over to the 

 State Game Warden's department, on the as- 

 sumption that this department being in the 



6 



