36 EIGHTH REPORT OF THE 



Private Preserves. 



In the Adirondack region there are sixty preserves, with an aggregate of 791,208 

 acres, held as private property by sportsmen's clubs or individuals. The boundaries 

 of each preserve are posted at intervals of forty rods, with printed notices warning 

 people that it is private land on which no trespassing, fishing or hunting will be 

 permitted, the posting of such notices being required by the law authorizing the 

 establishment of private parks or preserves. The club or individual is not neces- 

 sarily the owner of the property; in some instances the land thus occupied and 

 posted is leased, the exclusive fishing, hunting and camping privilege having been 

 obtained through some such arrangement with the lumber company or person in 

 whom the title is vested. Some of these preserves are situated, wholly or partly, 

 outside the Adirondack park, and hence the acreage just mentioned exceeds that 

 given in the table showing the classification of lands within the park. 



Throughout all the private preserves the land is well wooded, and each contains 

 some lake, pond or fishing stream. The forest, on some of these holdings, is a 

 primeval one — untouched by axe or fire. On several of the larger preserves the 

 owners are conducting lumbering operations; but as the cutting is done under a 

 conservative and intelligent management, and is restricted to softwood species 

 of medium diameter, a large revenue is derived from the property without 

 impairing its capacity for future production. Then again there are clubs which 

 own large tracts that have been lumbered, but as the logging was done fifteen 

 years ago, or more, at a time when the lumbermen took the large timber of one 

 species only, these forests retain much of their primitive condition. 



The private preserves in the Adirondacks, with a slight exception, have been 

 established within the last sixteen years — most of them within eleven years — and 

 the comparatively sudden exclusion of the public from its old camping-grounds 

 has provoked a bitter hostility on the part of the hunters, fishermen and guides who 

 formerly ranged over this territory. The sportsman who returns to some favorite 

 haunt only to find himself confronted with the words, "No Thoroughfare," turns 

 back with a resentful feeling, while the guides, who were wont to conduct their 

 patrons wherever game was plentiful, view with threatening looks the hired game- 

 keepers that guard the forbidden lands. 



On the other hand, the owners of the preserves point to the protection of the 

 forests, fish and game afforded by them, and to the large number of guides and 

 woodsmen to whom they furnish constant and lucrative employment. In 1899, 

 the dry season in which forest fires were raging in the Adirondacks to an unusual 

 extent, it was noticed that there were no fires on the private preserves, aside 



