398 FIFTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



Railroad Forest Fire Proceeding 



In September, 1908, James S.Whipple, Forest, Fish and Game Com- 

 missioner, made application to the Public Service Commission, Second 

 District, under section 72 of the Forest, Fish and Game Law, for an order 

 requiring the railroads in the Forest Preserve counties to change their 

 fuel from coal to oil or to electric power. 



The preliminary hearing was had upon this application by the Public 

 Service Commission on October 12, 1908, at which hearing all the railroads 

 cited to appear, the Forest, Fish and Game Commission and several large 

 forest property owners, as well as organized societies for forest protection, 

 were represented and a personal examination of the area burned by rail- 

 road fires during the season of 1908 was arranged. Upon this inspection, 

 which occurred October 15, 1908, the Public Service Commission was 

 represented by Commissioner Osborne, from whose report thereon we 

 quote the following: 



;< In order to protect the forests in the future some more efficient 

 measures must be taken by the railroads than those now in use. 



" I may say for my own part that I gravely question whether the 

 damage for this year may not prove to be greater than that of 1903. At 

 that time large tracts of timber were destroyed; but it was in the spring 

 of the year and the ground was not so dry as during these present fires,- 

 which have to a large extent burned over the same area, destroying a great 

 deal of the spongy, mossy earth, the floor of the forest, which nourishes the 

 vegetation and which would have enabled the trees to grow up again within 

 a generation or so. There are now large tracts burned down to the bare 

 rock; not only the forests but the foundation of the forest gone. That 

 can probably never be replaced. I do not mean to exaggerate the picture, 

 or to intimate that the whole or even the greater part of the Adirondacks is 

 wrecked; fortunately, it is not so bad as that. But it is undeniable that 

 a vast territory has been seriously and a great deal of it irretrievably 

 damaged." 



The railroads vigorously opposed the application and requested that 

 hearings be had at which testimony might be taken showing the causes and 



