FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. IOJ 



be expensive, but it would be far cheaper than fighting the fires which otherwise 

 will occur. 



"With few exceptions the private preserves escaped damage, for the lands of 

 this description were thoroughly patroled by men in the employ of the owners. 

 A notable exception, however, was the Rockefeller Preserve, through which the 

 line of the New York and Ottawa Railroad runs for several miles, which was burned 

 extensively by fires started by locomotives before measures were taken to thoroughly 

 patrol the road. 



As in previous years, some of the burned area was due to farmers who kindled 

 their brush or fallows in violation of the law forbidding agricultural work of this 

 kind between April first and June first. But each offender of this class, as shown 

 farther on in this report, was arrested and punished.. 



Some conflagrations were started by incendiaries and degenerates, prompted by 

 malice, revenge, or criminal instincts. It has been alleged that some fires were set 

 by men in order to get employment, but no evidence whatever has been furnished 

 thus far in support of this theory. The rate of wages for fighting fire in each 

 town is fixed by the town board of auditors, not by the State. The price varies 

 in the different towns from one dollar and twenty-five cents to two dollars per day. 

 The work, when properly performed, is the hardest and most exhaustive that men 

 are ever called upon to do, and the wages paid are none too high for the services 

 rendered. In view of the scarcity of labor and high wages in the Adirondacks 

 there was little or no need of any one becoming an incendiary in order to get work. 

 A man who would set fire to the woods is a criminal in every sense of the word. 

 Now, a criminal will commit crime in order to evade work, but not to get 

 work. The arduous service required by the firewardens offers no inducement to 

 men of this character. It is granted that bad men will burn the woods through 

 motives of revenge, but hardly to get honest employment. In each case where a 

 man was convicted of incendiarism last spring it was noticed that he had not 

 applied to any firewarden for employment. Furthermore, the towns, as a rule, do 

 not pay immediately, but wait until the boards of supervisors meet in December 

 to apportion the money for the payment of their fire accounts and other expenses, 

 and these payments are delayed still further until the taxes then levied can be 

 collected. Every man in the Adirondacks knows this, for the delay is a matter 

 of common complaint. I am aware that some of the lumber companies paid cash 

 down to the men who protected their property at this time, but as these men were 

 called from other work for this purpose they did not have to light brush heaps 

 in order to get a job. Even if it should appear conclusively that some man had 

 kindled the woods in order to get work, it would be absurd to abandon the employ- 



