8o THIRTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



The remaining cases are still in the hands of the attorneys awaiting 

 settlement. 



These trespasses were not all willful offenses. In six of them the parties 

 supposed they were cutting on their own property. Of the others, none cut 

 trees for firewood; two cut timber to repair their camps; five committed 

 trespasses in order to repair roads; two cut trees in surveying a route for 

 an electric transmission line; in two instances a tree or trees were cut to 

 make shingles, and one of the trespasses consisted in tearing down an old 

 barn without permission. In six cases, where the trees were felled for 

 commercial purposes, the timber was seized by the State protectors before 

 it could be removed from the place where it was cut, and the logs are still 

 on the ground. 



No lumbering operations have been carried on within the Preserve, 

 as no lumber company or sawmill operator was implicated in any of these 

 offenses. 



It might be that, with a sufficiently large number of forest rangers in 

 the employ of the State, the lands in the Forest Preserve could be watched 

 and guarded so closely that no trespass could be committed, that not one 

 tree could be cut. But it is doubtful if this can be done with the present 

 force. As the population of our forest counties includes the usual propor- 

 tion of careless or criminal men there will probably be more or less 

 violations of law in that region the same as in other parts of the 

 State. 



Forest Fires. 



The forest fires during the past year — 1907 — were, in extent of 

 areas burned over and damage to standing timber, about the same as 

 in the previous year. There were no fires on the Forest Preserve with 

 the exception of an area of 74 acres, where fires which started on private 

 property spread over some adjoining State land before the flames could 

 be controlled. This gratifving immunity from loss on the part of the 

 State was due largely to the fact that the lands in the Forest Preserve are 

 unoccupied, and are also free from the dead brush, limbs and tree tops 

 which too often encumber the woodlands of private owners where lumbering 

 operations are carried on. 



