594 



miles square can be obtained in that region at comparatively trifling 

 expense and when obtained, if judiciously and sensibly managed, it 

 will prove of inestimable advantage and benefit to the whole country." 

 That message also contained this statement : "It seems to me that 

 the limits within which lands are to be retained by the State for this 

 purpose should be settled and defined, and should include the 

 wilder portion of this region covering, the mountains and /lakes, at 

 and around the head-waters of the several rivers that rise in that 

 locality, including the Hudson river; and that all the lands outside 

 of these limits should be subject to sale as other State lands are sold. 

 If practicable these lands should be exchanged for wild and forest 

 lands within the limits prescribed." Then followed a reference of 

 this communication by the Senate to the finance committee, that was 

 followed by a report by the finance committee to the Senate in which 

 they said among other things that a State park from fifty to seventy 

 miles square in the wild section of this region, in and about the 

 head-waters of the rivers, should be laid out for the use of the 

 people, and stated "a corollary from the latter proposition and 

 one that is immediately obvious to all, is contained in the sug- 

 gestion of the Governor that if this park was established, it would be 

 good policy for the State to sell or exchange all outlying parcels of 

 State land and confine the holdings of the State to the park itself." 

 Now, gentlemen of the committee, in 1890, this message by the 

 i Governor, this report of the committee to the Senate, was made and 

 following it was a recommendation of the adoption of a concurrent 

 resolution, and that concurrent resolution I will call attention to here- 

 after, relating to a park, providing for action by the forest commission 

 in regard to it. This was followed by a suggestion from the office of 

 the Attorney- General to one of the commissioners that it was desir- 

 able that an exchange of land should be had. Thereupon the commis- 

 sion proceeded to act in regard to the matter. The Everton Lumber Com- 

 pany's application had been postponed from time to time and no action 

 had been taken upon it, but when it appeared to the commission that the 

 chief executive of the State, the Senate of the State and the law 

 officer of the State all insisted that action should be taken by way of 

 exchange of land, they proceeded to act favorably with regard to the 

 exchange of the Everton Lumber Company. The reasons for delay 

 were up. to that time, it had not been the settled policy of the State 

 there should be a park and there had not been any fixed ideas with 

 regard to it either on the part of the executive or legislative branch 

 of the government. Thereafter it was fixed, as far as these branches 

 of the government were concerned, there should be a park and it was 



