576 



and then take them at, the very highest prjoe for them. This is the 

 ■whole scope of this report and when Mr. Knevals was on the stand, 

 I asked him a little about it to see how much he knew about 

 the forests and really what was in his mind on the subject of this park, 

 and you will remember that he said, as he was informed, his report 

 was largely on information and advice; his information was that there 

 were $25,000,000 of capital invested in the woods, in mills about it, 

 some thirty or forty or fifty thousand people engaged. I asked him 

 how much these mills cost around the circle of the woods. He didn't 

 know. Give some sort of an estimate. Couldn't do that. Name 

 some sum. Didn't think it would exceed that. You have got so many 

 acres up there of land owned by individuals ? Y^s. You take out the 

 three or four million dollars that represents the mills, and the rest of it 

 goes to the lands, divide it up among the lands, how much? Well, 

 make it some five or six, or seven or eight, or nine dollars, may be ten. 

 Who was it for ? People had bought up on speculation as against 

 the State. He didn't know that within the last year of two large 

 quantities of land in the woods had been bought up, and none of 

 them had cost above two dollars an acre, from one to two dollars an 

 acre, and here was this great sudden rise; if the State should take it 

 or do something, who was to have the benefit of it ? What was to 

 become of it ? A night or two afterwards in the Senate chamber 

 Warner Miller advocated a park larger than the park proposed by the 

 forest commission, and his idea was at a fair price for the land, if 

 you were to exercise the power of eminent domain, would not exceed 

 over six or seven millions of dollars, and that by making arrangements 

 to take off the ripe timber, sawing timber, down to a foot in diameter, 

 that these lands could be acquired, all of them, within the lines 

 of his park for about three millions of dollars, and his view 

 was entirely hostile to any lumber speculation or of men who 

 had bought up lands for the purpose of turning them over to 

 the State, at a tremendous profit, an extravagant price and sum. 



This report and bill and map, if I understand it rightly, was the 

 result of misinformation, want of consideration or ignorance of the 

 subject, and I will not go further than that. 



There is another place in the North woods, the Adirondack region, 

 where there is considerable forest land, and where there has been some 

 want of good administration on the part of fchis forest commission, and 

 I speak of lands at the north in Franklin county, and up in the vicinity 

 of Pittsburgh, and I regret to say that the state of things up there is 

 very much worse than over in Minerva and at Long Lake. There was at 

 the committee a witness, living at Plattsburgh, named Benton Turner; 



