FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 23 



will naturally protest against its unnecessary destruction by fire. The observation 

 of the Department has been that in the towns where there are no firewardens 

 belonging to the organized force the forests are destroyed to an alarming extent. 

 In such towns the supervisor is firewarden ex officio, being invested with all the 

 powers and duties pertaining to that office elsewhere. But the supervisor too often 

 is unaware that he must act as firewarden; he is not in touch with the Chief 

 Firewarden of the State; he lacks the interest and efficiency displayed by the 

 firewardens in the organized force, and, as he holds an elective office, he must give 

 way in time to his successor instead of holding the position permanently like the 

 firewardens appointed by the Commission. 



It has been suggested that when a recalcitrant town board refuses to recognize 

 the firewarden appointed by the Commission, merely because the State owns little 

 or no land in the town, the Commission might in retaliation make no appointment 

 of a firewarden and thus deprive the town of the rebate of one half the expenses 

 incurred in fighting its forest fires. But this would not remedy the real evil — the 

 undue destruction of woodlands in that locality. 



As an instance of the lack of attention given to forest fires in towns outside 

 the counties containing the Forest Preserve, and in which there is no organized 

 force under the control of the Chief Firewarden, let me cite a representative case: 

 In 1899, in the town of Adams, Jefferson County, a forest fire was raging, where- 

 upon the residents in its vicinity notified the supervisor that he ought to give it 

 necessary attention. He neglected to do so, paying no heed to the danger aside 

 from asking some one to look after the fire and extinguish it. Ineffectual attempts 

 were made by a few of the people to check its progress, and from Tuesday to 

 Friday of the same week the supervisor was appealed to by interested parties 

 to protect their property. These people informed him that the men he had asked to 

 go to the fire were not accomplishing anything, and that the neighbors would not 

 turn out to fight the fire under the orders or direction of the men he had engaged 

 to attend to it. 



On Friday, after much had been said about his neglect of duty, he went to the 

 fire, ordered out a posse of citizens, assumed charge of the work and extinguished 

 the flames; but not until the woodlands of several people had been destroyed or 

 seriously damaged. One of the parties whose woods had been injured, Mrs. Lois 

 L. Garnett, sued the supervisor for neglect of duty. The case was finally disposed of 

 in the Supreme Court at Watertown, N. Y., in May, 1902, the plaintiff obtaining a 

 verdict for damages in the sum of $252. As others were ready to commence 

 similar actions as soon as the case was decided, an appeal was taken for the purpose 

 of effecting a settlement with the various claimants in order to save the supervisor 



