64 FIFTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



of the whole situation, all its features, its needs, I am confident that a 

 change permitting all of these necessary things can be safely made and 

 nothing but good come from it. 



In my opinion there should be authority given to the Highway Com- 

 mission to build a simple good-road system through our forests. The State 

 itself should have the power to utilize the water power where it could be 

 done and no injury accrue. This Commission should have the right to 

 lease small camp sites and obtain a large revenue for the State therefrom, 

 thereby giving an opportunity for many to go to the woods and live cheaply 

 who cannot now afford to go at all. This Commission should have the 

 right to remove down and dead timber and utilize it, obtaining a revenue 

 and bettering the conditions as to fire protection. There is enough dead 

 and down timber in the Adirondacks to supply all New York with wood 

 for years; as it is, it constitutes a deadly menace, through threat of fire, 

 to all the standing green timber and the entire forest. This Commission 

 should have the right to dispose of outlying, detached parcels of land and 

 with the proceeds or its equivalent acquire land within the blue line. 



These are some of the things that plainly should be done, and mere 

 sentiment and impractical things should not stand in the way of it. 



I offer for consideration the following form of a constitutional amend- 

 ment: 



Proposed amendment to article VII, section 7, of the Constitution of 

 the State of New York: 



Except as is in this section hereinafter provided the lands of the State, 

 now owned or hereinafter acquired, constituting the forest preserve as now 

 fixed by law, shall be forever kept as wild forest lands, [they] and shall 

 not be leased, sold or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, public 

 or private, nor shall the timber thereon be sold, removed or destroyed. 

 Upon first obtaining the approval of the Governor, the State Water Supply 

 Commission may erect and maintain dams upon said lands for impounding 

 water and other purposes, and flow with such water not to exceed . 

 acres of such land in the aggregate; providing that the dams so erected and 

 maintained and the waters so impounded and all lands so flowed shall be 

 forever owned, managed and controlled by the State. Such of the lands as are 



