WEST VIRGINIA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



463 



It is suggested that the state forester should be appointed 

 by and should act at the will of some existing board or of a 

 forestry board or commission to be created by law. (See list of 

 governing boards in other states near the end of Chapter VII.) 



It is recommended that the Forest, Game and Fish Laws of 

 1909 be amended so as to take the execution of that part of the 

 law relating to the suppression of forest fires from among the 

 duties of the Forest, Game and Fish Warden and transfer the 

 same to the duties of a state forester. 



In order to encourage the planting of land in forest trees, 

 it is recommended that a law be enacted exempting from taxa- 

 tion for a period of years such lands as may be planted accord- 

 ing to carefully prepared specifications, or a law providing for a 

 scale of rebates on lands so planted. (Connecticut, New Hamp- 

 shire, and other states, have made satisfactory tests of the laws 

 proposed.) 



It is recommended that West Virginia give its consent, by 

 the enactment of law, to the acquisition by the United States 

 Government by purchase or gift or condemnation according to 

 law such non-agricultural lands within the mountainous region 

 of the State as may be needed in the establishment of a National 

 Forest. 



It is recommended that the Governor of West Virginia be 

 empowered by law to accept in the name of the State any gifts 

 of land suitable for forestry purposes. 



Suggestions to Private Land Owners. 



To the owners of cut-over forest lands the course marked 

 out in the following communication from the West Virginia 

 Pulp and Paper Company, dated August 24th, 1910, is hereby 

 highly recommended : 



We planted on our lands on Shavers Fork 

 of Cheat river about 170,000 young spruces and 1,000 or 2,000 

 poplars this year. Last year we planted about 25,000 spruce 

 seedlings and our judgment is that about 80 per cent of them are 

 growing. Of course at the present time we cannot tell much 

 about the latest planting in spruce because of the excessive un- 



