978 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 313. 



States, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois have 

 nothing to offer in this direction, while the 

 "Western prairies and the Pacific slope have 

 their own peculiar and difiBcult problems, 

 with which we are not immediately con- 

 cerned. It is with the group of Central and 

 North Central States that our lot is cast 

 by nature, and though behind all of them 

 in our care of the forest, we are neverthe- 

 less fortunate in being able to draw on their 

 experience, albeit experience that has not 

 passed the experimental stage. 



NEW YORK. EARLY LEGISLATION. 



The state of New York has been a pio- 

 neer in American forestry. In 1885 a law 

 was enacted by the Legislature providing 

 for the appointment of a forest commission 

 with power to appoint a forest warden, 

 forest inspector, a clerk and other agents. 

 Provision was also made by the same Leg- 

 islature for a forest preserve consisting of 

 all the lands then owned or thereafter to 

 be acquired in certain counties lying in 

 the Adirondack and Catskill regions " to be 

 forever kept as wild forest lands, not to be 

 sold or leased, or taken by any person or 

 corporation, public or private." 



The forest commission was given control 

 and superintendence of the forest preserve, 

 and it was made its duty to maintain and 

 protect the forests on the preserve, to pro- 

 mote as far as practicable the further growth 

 of forests thereon, and in short to have 

 charge of the public interests of the State 

 with regard to forests and tree planting, 

 and especially with reference to forest fires. 

 Supervisors were made ex-qfficio protectors 

 of lands in their townships, the forest com- 

 mission having power to require, when nec- 

 essary, that the supervisor appoint one or 

 more forest guards to aid in the control of 

 fire and otherwise. 



The commission was also charged with 

 preparing circulars of information and ad- 

 vice for the care of woodlands upon private 



lands and the starting of new plantations 

 on lands denuded, exhausted, or injured by 

 fire * * * or waste and unfit for other use, 

 * * * these publications to be furnished 

 without cost to any citizen of the State. 

 The commission was unpaid, but the sum of 

 fifteen thousand dollars was appropriated 

 for the purposes of the act. 



Considering the early date of this legis- 

 lation, its comprehensiveness and the ex- 

 tent to which its main features have ever 

 since been retained are alike remarkable. 

 In the first place, the creation and main- 

 tenance of a forest preserve as the property 

 of the State but controlled by a forest com- 

 mission has from that time to this, for a 

 decade and a half, been a central principle. 

 Again, the forest commission, while charged 

 with general responsibility, was expected 

 to appoint officers who should be in im- 

 mediate charge of actual forestry opera- 

 tions. This feature then embodied in the 

 appointment of forest protectors is still re- 

 tained in the far more developed system of 

 the present time, in which the commission, 

 not composed of experts, is represented in 

 actual forest administration by the su- 

 perintendent of forests assisted by other 

 ofBcials and employees. A third feature of 

 the legislation of this early period was the 

 attempt to utilize the services of persons 

 already filling township ofBces in the en- 

 forcement of law, the supervisors, as al- 

 ready stated, being made ex-o-fficio protectors 

 of lands in their respective townships. 



Subsequent experience, naturally enough, 

 showed the necessity of certain changes 

 even in legislation that embodied so much 

 of permanent value. The provision for the 

 control of forest fires, for example, was in- 

 adequate. Making supervisors ex-officio fire 

 wardens could not, in the nature of the case, 

 be made operative without strong pressure 

 from a higher authority, and the employ- 

 ment of a commission without compensa- 

 tion, and accordingly without obligation to 



