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Gross-examination : • 

 By Mr. Anibal: 



Q. When were you appointed forest commissioner ? 



A. I think it was in 1885. 



Q. What salary did you get, if any compensation, for your services ? 



A. We get no compensation. 



Q. You simply get traveling expenses ? 



A. Necessary traveling expenses. 



Q. Will you explain to the committee and state to them about what 

 condition you found the Adirondack wilderness, or that part of it 

 known as the forest preserve, when the forest commissioners came in 

 office; explain it in your way, and tell them in what condition you 

 found it in, with regard to trespasses and fires and such things, as 

 you think of ? 



"A. When we took office in 1885, we knew but very little of the State 

 management of the forest; upon estimation we found that the Comp- 

 troller had had an annual appropriation of several thousand dollars, 

 with the view of the management of the forest, and had employed 

 county agents; we sent out our inspector and our warden around the 

 outside of the woods, one to the east and one to the west, to look up 

 the matter and see what was being done in order to familiarize our- 

 selves with the subject-matter; we found a large number of trespasses, 

 some very large and some small — the number so large that we were 

 very much surprised; upon examining as to the mode of treating 

 those trespasses, we found it had been customary to settle those tres- 

 passes at a nominal figure, which seemed to me, as a lumberman, a 

 nominal figure. 



Chairman Bian. — With whom were they settled; who had the 

 settlement of those ? 



A I think they were made by the county agents and reported to 

 the Comptroller; we found settlements were being made from five to 

 twenty-five cents a standard, and it seemed to me as though that was 

 rather an encouragement than a prohibition, that as soon as men 

 could go on to State lands and cut timber and then settle for it at a 

 nominal sum, so long they would want to do it, and we proposed a 

 resolution, or agreed that we would endeavor to make the cutting of 

 timber — put the price so high that people should buy the timber — 

 would stop the cutting. 



Q. You may state right in this connection what price you put upon 

 the lumber ? 



A- We made this rule for the time being, that where men had been 

 purchasing logs without going on to lots and cut" the timber, we 

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