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[T is not customary to introduce the Report of a State Com- 

 mission with a formal preface, but the character of the 

 Fisheries, Game and Forests Commissioners' Report for the 

 part of a year ending September 30, 1895, is so unusual in some respects that it appears 

 to be justifiable in this instance to depart from custom, particularly as there are 

 some explanations to be made concerning it that cannot well be made elsewhere. 



It is the desire of the Commission that its first report shall be something more 

 than commonplace ; something more than a dry recital of work accomplished, such 

 as is commonly supposed to be required by law, with prosaic facts and cold figures as 

 to the numbers of fish propagated, game law offenders punished and forest fires 

 extinguished ; for, important and necessary as all these and kindred matters may be 

 when tabulated and explained, they are not apparently of themselves sufficient to 

 appreciably interest the general public in the work of the department, as the general 

 public might become interested if the facts and figures were presented for inspection 

 and approval with auxiliary matter, and all in an attractive dress. 



While it is the object of the Commission in the following pages to interest and in 

 a degree instruct the great mass of the people of the State in regard to the fisheries, 

 game and forests by adding other than statistical information, it must not be under- 

 stood that the value of statistics is in any way, even by implication, underestimated. 



On the contrary, the United States Fish Commission says truly: "The depend- 

 ence placed upon fishery statistics by those who are connected directly or indirectly 

 with the industry is attested by the avidity with which statistical reports are received 

 and by the frequent demands for such data on the Fish Commission by the general 

 fishing public, State officers, economists and National legislators. In the consideration 

 of all important international fishery questions in recent years, in the enactment of 

 State and Federal laws affecting the fisheries, in gauging the effect of artificial 

 propagation and the necessity for resorting thereto, statistics have played a very 

 important part. 



