FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 1 37 



Mr. Eugene M. House, Big Moose, Herkimer County. — There is due me twenty- 

 three dollars for fighting fire on State land in Township 41. I was left there on 

 duty after all the other men had gone out of the woods. I agreed to pay twenty 

 dollars to any man who would find fire there after I left. This was not a political 

 job like tending a bridge or canal lock, where a man would not do enough for healthy 

 exercise, but good, solid, hard- work with axe and shovel. I think I have waited 

 long enough. Please send check by return mail. 



Mrs. Ella Flagg, Saranac Lake, Franklin County. — I would like to call your 

 attention to Messrs. Stratton & Lundstrom, contractors, engaged on construction 

 work along the Saranac and Lake Placid Railroad, in regard to their engines setting 

 fires. This morning the engine named " Grace " set a fire and ruined our private park. 

 It would have burned our cottage only for myself and daughter fighting fire until 

 the fire department arrived. The fire department of this place said that not one 

 engine had a screen. One of the engineers told me that he had put on the screens 

 to-day. They are setting forest fires from this place to Lake Placid.* 



Mr. Chester W. Chapin, President New England Railroad Company, 511 Bullitt 

 Building, Philadelphia, Pa. — They are making it very hot for me up in Sullivan 

 County. As soon as the wind blows towards my woods in goes the fire. The scamps 

 have made the boast that they would burn me, and they are doing their best. The 

 elements are in their favor, for we cannot get a drop of rain. I wish some of the 

 rascals could be caught, for they must have injured 6,000 or more acres of mine 

 already, and they have injured others even more. I am keeping a sharp watch, 

 having plenty of men, horses and wagons, with water barrels and pails. These same 

 fellows that fire the woods violate other laws. I would like to work with the Com- 

 mission to help catch them. 



Mr. W. K. Benedict, New York. City. — I was a passenger on the New York 

 Central train from Saranac Lake to New York last Saturday night, and happening 

 to stand in the rear vestibule of the last car of the train saw what I consider 

 a good demonstration of how most of the fires that have been devastating the 

 Adirondack forests recently are started. At very frequent intervals the tracks 

 in the rear of the train were strewn with live coals, dumped from the locomotive, 

 and in many instances these coals, dropping on the wooden ties, burned into 

 bright flames, which only required a slight breeze to spread to the side of the tracks 

 and to the forest. After seeing the miles upon miles of blackened ruin, caused 

 by the recent fires, this struck me as a piece of wanton carelessness on the 

 part of the railroad company that calls for investigation by the authorities, and 

 it should be stopped at once if we care to save what remains of our fast disappearing 

 Adirondack forests. 



* These are the small locomotives employed by the contractors on the construction of the new line ; 

 the contractors are in the employ of the Delaware and Hudson Railroad. The engines are the ones 

 referred to in my report. — W. F. F. 



