FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 25 



have exercised a local censorship over the operations of such of their neighbors whose 

 carelessness in this respect is apt to inflict on the town a bill for fighting fire. The 

 average Adirondack citizen who gazes undisturbed at a forest fire on non-resident 

 lands frowns severely on any firewarden's bill that will increase the town tax. 



While it is doubtful whether the State at large should pay any part of these bills 

 for protecting property in a town, this proposed amendment will result in one very 

 desirable arrangement. Before the town can receive its moiety from the State, the 

 firewarden will have to comply with the law requiring him to send in a full report 

 of the fire, date, location, extent, damages and origin. The department has had con- 

 siderable difficulty in past years in obtaining this desirable information, especially that 

 relating to the origin of these fires. It will now devolve on the town authorities to 

 see that the firewardens comply with this reasonable and important requirement, or 

 they will fail to receive their rebate. 



We have already alluded here to the large proportion of burned area due directly 

 to the carelessness of farmers or others in the use of fire for clearing land. After ten 

 years' experience in endeavors to abate this evil through rules and regulations issued 

 by the Forestry Department, we find that it is necessary to enact some stringent law 

 with a penalty attached, which shall have more force than the mere set of rules 

 formulated by the Commission. 



We would, therefore, recommend that the present law relating to forest fires be 

 further amended by the insertion of a clause forbidding the lighting of fallow fires, or 

 fires for clearing land, or the burning of brush, in certain counties or towns, between 

 April 1st and June 10th, and between September 1st and November 10th ; and that 

 from June 10th to September 1st such fires may be started only on such day as the 

 firewarden or district firewarden may approve ; and then, only, when the firewarden is 

 present, personally, to see that the fire does not escape. This amendment should pro- 

 vide further that the firewarden shall not give permission for the lighting of such fires 

 until the applicant or person wishing to start the fires shall have employed enough 

 assistants to watch and prevent any possible escape of the flames into an}' forest which 

 may be near or within possible danger ; also, that the services of the firewarden or 

 district firewardens in such cases shall be a town and State charge the same as when 

 employed in fighting a forest fire. The forest towns to which this amendment shall 

 apply will be specified in the bill. 



This may seem unnecessarily arbitral'}- and restrictive ; but an extended observa- 

 tion in this matter induces the firm belief that such a law is absolutely necessary to 

 immunity from forest fires. 



