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one of the most important parts of the water shed on this side of the 

 Hudson from New York to Albany; it is celebrated as an important 

 water shed. 



By Chairman Rtan: 



Q. How much land is there in that section of the same general 

 character as that that the State has ? 



A. The whole township of Denning; I forget how much the town- 

 ship is. 



Q. I don't mean what the State owns, but how much is there besides 

 that? 



A. A vast amount; really it is something that if we take care of it 

 properly we can get the Helderberg mountains put into the State 

 land; from the Helderbergs to the Pennsylvania line it is a continuous 

 forest, where all kinds of game can be bred; around about all the 

 country where the State owns land in the Gatskill region, and there is 

 twenty-five miles at least in length of primeval forest fitted for the 

 habitat of deer; it is very wide; I should say it was somewhere in the 

 neighborhood of twenty-five miles square; it is perfectly grand; 

 excuse me for being a little enthusiastic, for I have got to be so fond 

 of it that when you begin to take up the " Gatskill region " I warm up 

 a little. 



Q. Do you think it would not be a difficult thing to carry out the 

 present policy, or that Which you have pursued, to obtain a tract of 

 land of nearly 300,000 acres, or four times as much as you already 

 Lave ? 



A. I don't think they will get it as fast in the future as we have 

 heretofore; we have had a great deal of help from the gentlemen, and 

 we are going to have some more this year; of course if there was 

 money to be appropriated you can buy land there; you can get a 

 great deal of that land for a dollar and a dollar and a half an acre; so 

 if the State was a mind to appropriate money for that purpose, we 

 could have a park very nearly twenty-five miles square. 



By Mr. Davie : 



Q. How did you get those 20,000 acres additional; have you bought 

 any? 



A. No, sir; when we commenced we didn't have Delaware in, and 

 that added about 14,000 acres. 



Q. How did you get that ? 



A. Because they came in ; the land belonged to the State, but the 

 county was not included in the preserve at first. 



