Conservation Commission. 25 



the beauty of the forest and hampers its growth, but is an actual 

 menace to its safety. It is known that the available ripe timber 

 on State lands has a very great monetary value. 



That the intent of the framers of the Constitution, when they 

 prohibited the removal, sale or destruction of timber within the 

 forest preserve, can have been to prevent the removal of dead and 

 down timber, is hard to believe; but at any rate in the nearly 

 twenty years since the Constitution was adopted many important 

 economic, industrial and administrative changes have occurred 

 and especially there has been a marked advance in the general 

 appreciation of the importance of scientific forestry. In all logic, 

 the fundamental law should be amended so as to permit the re- 

 moval of dead timber. 



The Mortgage Lands. 



There are in the Forest Preserve counties of the State more 

 than 8,000 acres of land to which the State acquired title through 

 the foreclosure of mortgages given to the United States Loan 

 Commissioners. Unless this was wild land when the mort- 

 gage was foreclosed it did not become part of the Forest Pre- 

 serve, and therefore does not come under the jurisdiction of 

 the Conservation Commission. We respectfully submit that all 

 such mortgage lands, lands acquired by the State in the construc- 

 tion of canals and not necessary to the maintenance and operation 

 thereof, and land which is a part of any abandoned canal system 

 — in short, any State lands not essential to the functions of any 

 other State department — ■ ought to be put under the jurisdiction 

 and control of this Commission. The result would be that all such 

 land which is adapted thereto might be reforested, and other land 

 could be judiciously leased, so as to produce a revenue for the 

 State. 



Fighting Forest Fires. 



The organization of the fire fighting force of the Conservation 

 Department has not been materially altered as the result of the 

 enactment of chapter 444. There are still five districts, of which 

 the Adirondack section has four and the Catskill section one, each 

 of which is under the immediate supervision of an official who 



