Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

estation that cannot be well figured. An expenditure of more than $189,000 in fighting fires was entailed. The State and private property will not recover from the loss in tree growth in fifty years. These fires were not the first ones, nor the most disastrous from which the State and the whole country have suffered. Every year there are more or less fires, and the waste and damage is enormous. Experts claim that more timber has been destroyed by fire than has been cut and legitimately utilized. The loss by fire, insect disease and commercial use each year is four times greater than the natural production. That alone is enough to startle even the most thoughtless person.

Fires are started in many ways; more by sparks and coals from railroad engines than from any other source. Had not a better patrol system on the railroads been established last spring by this Department, it is doubtful if we would have much green timber standing. The truth of the foregoing suggestion is shown by the fact that many hundred fires were started along the railroad rights of way in this manner, and were promptly extinguished before damage was done. Any one of those fires might have resulted, if allowed to run, in a great conflagration and much destruction of property. Yet, in spite of every effort, eighty-six disastrous fires originated in that way. The loss of commercial timber is the smallest part of it. The destruction of new growth, burning up the soil where it thinly covers the rock formation, preventing reforestation for long periods of years, setting back Nature's work to again cover the ground and protect the water flow, is a resulting damage that cannot be estimated in dollars and cents.

The following comparative statement of forest fires during 1908 with those of 1903, when the forest fire loss reached its maximum, is interesting and instructive. The results attest the greater efficiency of this Department as now administered.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

These figures are very significant. The period of drought was more severe and considerably longer in 1908 than in 1903, thereby making the fire danger much greater and affording what was probably the most favorable condition for conflagrations ever known in the Adirondack region. Please note the larger number of fires in 1908, yet the acreage burned over was less than three-fourths of that of 1903 and the loss one-tenth less.

These results cannot be explained, in view of the infinitely worse conditions of the past year,— except by greater departmental activity, and volunteer work done by individuals. An important factor was, that for the first time we had established a thorough patrol on the railroads, whereby over 2,400 incipient fires were extinguished before serious damage was done. Many of these fires are not included in the above tabulation. Yet, as already said, there were eighty-nine fires started along railroad lines which resulted seriously. There seems to be no good reason for the provision of law that requires the State to pay one-half of the cost of patrolling railroads. The condition is created by railroad companies and should be cared for by railroad companies. In order to get them patrolled, the State should have the right to put the patrols on as necessity requires, and the railroad companies should pay for the work necessary to protect the forests from fire from this cause. Reasonable provision has never been made to protect our forests from fire. Fires are the one great danger. The cause and opportunity for fires, so far as possible, must be eliminated. That this may be done, a system of paid patrols should be established. For this work, only the best men will suffice. They ought to be well paid so that good men may be secured. The Commission should have a free hand in selecting them. They should have ample authority to enforce their orders. Danger from fire is so imminent, the necessity for preservation so great, that, at whatever cost it may entail,

railroad companies operating within the forest preserve of the State should be compelled to use some substitute for coal for fuel; something that will not create fire to be thrown from grates or stacks into the dry, powder-like growth that abounds along their rights of way. Plainly, it is a question of change in this respect or no forests. There ought to be no question about our choice, and no hesitancy about putting it into operation.

If the fuel question was eliminated, the problem would be much simplified. As in Vermont, a law should be enacted giving the Governor authority to suspend the hunting season in time of drought, prohibiting hunters and campers from going into the forests. One hundred fires were set by hunters, 27 by campers, 19 by fishermen; 136 in all from these causes. All of this danger should be eliminated and severe penalties imposed on those who carelessly or negligently set or cause fires to start. In fact, every instrumentality should be given and applied to prevent forest fires.

During the last year in the United States, more timber was cut for commercial purposes than ever before in a given year. The total cut amounts to more than 41,000,000,000 feet board measure. Following close upon the heels of this great destruction in tree growth is the constant decreasing supply of water in our streams, greatly reducing the availability of many mills and factories, lessening their productiveness, distressing the people in many municipalities of the State by the shortage of pure water supply, affecting agricultural land to a marked degree, and gradually reducing the available water horse-power in nearly every mountain stream in the country.

Coincident with this rapid destruction of natural resources our population in the nation is augmenting so rapidly that, in fifty years, we will number at least 200,000,000 souls. The demand for lumber is increasing faster than our population, and the supply is decreasing faster than the increase of population.

In our last report we called attention to some of these facts and urged upon the people the immediate necessity of doing all in their power to conserve and restore these resources, so bountifully bestowed and so prodigally used. We now renew those suggestions. We again urge the necessity for a change in our law that will permit of better management.

The avenues of escape from a condition that will surely confront and

menace near future generations, though few, are plain and easy to follow. This observation at present applies to private land. Timber on State land under the present Constitution,-unfortunately, cannot be cared for in a practical manner, nor cut or used. We can only protect it from trespass and let it rot. We cannot clean it out when burned, or down ripe and old. The public cannot have the use of timber that is fast depreciating in value, thereby shortening the supply, adding to the demand and increasing the price. We cannot utilize our enormous water power which should yield to the State a large annual revenue. We cannot, without great cost, reasonably protect our forests from fires, because of the thousands of fire traps left by lumbermen, by other fires and windfalls, ready for the spark from the locomotive, the carelessly left camp-fire, or cast-by lighted match. For these reasons, regulations suggested apply to private property and will so apply, until the State's property can be handled under an amended Constitution in a more sensible and business-like way.

It is the belief of this Department that the State has ample inherent power to control the use of private property in such a way that public interests may be best served and protected. The power in the State for this purpose should be invoked to prevent in certain localities the cutting of trees below ten inches in diameter, and to compel the clearing up of refuse. This is a matter of regulation and may be done for the public good without the confiscation of private property. If this right to control private property to some extent does exist, then no one should be allowed to cut trees at least in certain places where water sources would be affected - below ten inches in diameter, and individuals should be compelled to clean up the debris left after lumbering, thereby removing opportunity for fires. The law should permit State property to be protected in the same way, at least so far as to remove the danger from fires.

To encourage tree planting for commercial purposes, it should be made as attractive as possible by legislative acts, encouraging thereby each one to plant trees who has a waste acre of land fairly safe from fires. Trees should be furnished below cost, and land dedicated to tree growing and planted ought to be exempt from taxation. These are the lines to follow, and the only ones that seem to lead to safety.

The State owns many acres of land outside of the Blue Line in the

sixteen counties in which our forest preserve lies. These lands are detached, widely separated, small parcels surrounded by private holdings, difficult to protect, most, if not all of them having been lumbered. It would be wise to dispose of these parcels of land by sale, the proceeds to be used to purchase land within the Blue Line, or to exchange them for equally valuable lands inside the park limits, and thereby consolidate our holdings. Under the Constitution, this cannot now be done. To us there appears no good business reason why the Commission should not have this authority. To exchange or sell these lands would be that which any prudent man would do with his own property under like conditions.

Forests, if rightly used and managed, perform for the people certain definite and important offices. The more important ones may be enumerated as follows:

They constitute a home and breeding place for game animals and birds; they protect the source of water supply and regulate, to a great extent, the continued and even flow of water. By protecting the water supply, fish-life is sustained, pure water is insured, the soil better irrigated and made more productive. Woods help to regulate the temperature, and, it is believed, have an appreciable effect in increasing rainfall in certain localities. They act as wind-breaks; they add oxygen to the air and purify it. One of their most important offices is to furnish wood for all the thousands of purposes for which wood is used. For the health and enjoyment of man they form the most complete panacea for human ills and the most perfect place for recreation known. They are Nature's great sanitariums. These are some of their principal offices. For these purposes our forests should be managed and used. If we fail to use them for all these things, a loss to the people follows. If we fail to preserve them, according to history in such cases, disaster follows. In our case, both future and present generations would bear the loss, but the present would be disgraced. The State now has nearly 1,700,000 acres of woodland. How are we using it? The question is easily answered. We are using it better then ever before, because we are protecting it from man's rapacity. We are not protecting it sufficiently from fire. We are giving it such protection as we can under prevailing conditions and with means at hand, yet that is inadequate. No protection is good enough except perfect protection.

« ForrigeFortsett »