82 



THE FORESTER. 



April, 



ceeding twenty stripes or service to ' Ex- 

 piate the Crime.'" 



When, in 1697, the Earl of Bellomont 

 became Governor of New York, he was 

 at once aware of the value of the timber 

 lands. The letters which Bellomont wrote 

 home to his superiors, especially those to 

 the Lords of Trade, who heard all his re- 

 ports and recommendations and advised 

 him in detail, make frequent and urgent 

 appeals for more provident regulations 

 concerning the use of timber. 



He saw in the pine forests plentiful sup- 

 plies of ships' timbers and of naval stores 

 turpentine, pitch, tar, rosin and these 

 he was zealous to preserve for the Royal 

 Navy. Thus in a letter of May 29, 1699, 

 he writes of 20 masts which a certain Mr. 

 Dellius had cut on his largest grant and 

 which had been floated down the Hudson. 

 " I am told there are most larger on that 

 land," he says, " and an infinite number 

 of them, and 'tis said too, the timber is 

 much firmer than at Pescataqua and more 

 solid." On April S, 1676, the Council had 

 passed an order providing "that for the 

 future no trees be cut for planks, or other 

 use for sale, but from the latter end of 

 November to the beginning of March, and 

 the tree not to be less than twenty inches 

 through ; and the Court of Assizes had 

 granted two petitions of a Mr. Hallet, the 

 first in 1669, "about Barking of Trees," 

 and the second in 1671, to prevent "ye 

 destroying of his timber by Tanners and 

 Strangers." 



Bellomont desired to carry through very 

 rigorous measures. Writing again to the 

 Lords of Trade under the date of August 

 24, 1609, ne speaks of " a necessity of giv- 

 ing the King sole rights of all the woods in 

 the Province, reserving to the inhabitants 

 the liberty only of house-boot, fire-boot, 

 hedge-boot, and plough-boot, that is, a suf- 

 ficient supply for the construction and re- 

 pair of their houses, for fuel, etc. He 

 speaks also of what he terms a " barbarous 

 custom": " In the dry times of the year 

 the people burn the woods to clear the land, 

 and often where a man has a design to 

 clear hut ten acres, the fire shall consume 

 twenty times as much, for the Pine and Fir 

 (which will be chiefly useful as Naval 



Stores) burn like torch wood, and if the 

 body of the tree escape from being burnt 

 down, yet the bark never, and so the Tree 

 dies." 



Once while on a visit to Boston, Lord 

 Bellomont wrote that the Lieutenant Gov- 

 ernor of New York had issued a procla- 

 mation forbidding the cutting of any of 

 those great trees fit for masts," adding: 

 "But in the Province of New York, 

 people little mind Proclamations or Laws 

 either." In 1700 Bellomont urged the 

 passage of an act " obliging every body 

 who cuts down a tree to plant four or five 

 young trees in its stead, which, I am told, 

 is the custom in Norway, otherwise the 



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woods in Norway would have been ex- 

 hausted long ago." During the following L ;; 

 decade the waste of woods was so seri- 

 ously felt that an act was suggested im- 

 posing a fine of 100 pounds for every tree L 

 cut or destroyed, except by the govern- [ e 

 ment's permission." 



Bellomont's predecessor, Gov. Fletcher, 

 had made enormous grants of land. These 

 Bellomont regarded as most extravagant, 

 and he used his influence to have some of 

 them vacated, not without success. 



In 1710 an act was passed (Nov. 25th) 

 to prevent the burning of woods, which 

 fixed a penalty of forty shillings for its 

 offenders. A later fire law in 1743 (Dec. 

 17th) provided that if one person burned 

 the woods of another, he must pay 5 

 pounds for each offense, and damages, or 

 else be imprisoned 3 months, or till he 

 could find bail. It provided further that 

 any one discovering a fire should call to 

 his aid all persons within reach to help 

 him extinguish it, and a fine of five shil- 

 lings was imposed on all who refused to 

 help, except for good reasons. This act 

 expired three years later, in 1746. A 

 similar act was passed in 1758 and in 

 1760 came a fuller law, which, in turn, 

 expired in 1766, and was succeeded in the 

 s-ime year by a detailed law, December 

 19, 1766, entitled " An act for Extinguish- 

 ing Fires in the Woods in the Counties of 

 Albany, Webster and Orange." This law 

 provided for the election of "firemen," 

 or as we should say " fire-wardens," who 

 were authorized, on seeing or hearing of 



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