14 Report of the Forest Commission, 



Another important and wise provision of the Pennsylvania 

 law is the paragraph requiring that in woodland counties all 

 farmers who may want to start fires on their premises for the 

 purpose of clearing land shall notify a firewarden, and must not 

 start such fires without his written consent. Now we have the 

 same rule in New York, but it is one of the regulations imposed 

 by the Forest Commission and is not a part of the law. This 

 very important rule should be incorporated in our forestry law, 

 and its violation should be a misdemeanor punishable by a severe 

 penalty. 



In presenting here the reports of the firewardens we have 

 included all that were received, although some of them relate to 

 fallow fires or to fires on waste lands, in which little or no loss 

 occurred. Some of the reports are mere statements as to freedom 

 from fire, while in some the damages are estimated at an amount 

 which the facts, as recited, would hardly indicate. It was deemed 

 best, however, to submit them all, aLthough some of them are 

 omitted in the recapitulation. 



Each firewarden or supervisor in the 955 towns of this State 

 (not including cities or villages) was written to and supplied with 

 a blank form and stamped envelope with which to make report 

 of any and all woodland fires that occurred in his town. If 

 there had been no fire he was directed to return in the stamped 

 envelope a statement to that effect. By this plan information 

 was received from every town in the State. The statements 

 showing that a woodland fire had occurred are as follows: 



Essex County. 



Sylvester A. Reid, firewarden for the town of St. Armand, 

 Essex county, reports : 



I have five fires to report as happening during the past season. The 

 first was started by R. L. Hayes for the purpose of burning a piece of 

 dry grass about one rod square on Lot 123. It burned a few fence 

 rails and about three acres of second growth timber on Lots 142 and 

 143, but not bad enough to kill but a small portion of it. I saw the 

 smoke from my house when it first started and drove down there imme- 

 diately with two men. After a hard fight of two or three hours we 

 succeeded in stopping it. The damage was about $5. 



