business reason why the Commission should not have this authority. To exchange or sell these lands would be to do 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 windbreaks; 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 than ever before, because we are protecting it from man's rapacity.

'As a whole people we are not using our preserves at all. Comparatively few people, under present conditions, can afford to use them. If the Constitution was literally enforced no one could cut a stick of wood for a camp fire; no one could cut a stick on which to hang a camp kettle. In many long reaches of the forest there would be no place where shelter could be found. A tent could not be staked down unless the stakes were carried in from other lands. The Constitution, with all good intentions of its builders, with all the needs at the time for a restrictive provision in this respect, established a park and forest preserve for the people, built it round

with a high wall, with a few excellent people inside, but left the great majority on the outside of the wall unable even to look in and see its great natural beauty and enjoy its manifold blessings.

"The present law will not permit putting State forest land on a safe business basis. Under a slightly amended constitutional provision leaving it absolutely safeguarded as to waste and improper use, it could be reasonably used by all, protected from fire, and made to yield an annual revenue through the utilization of the water, the removal of waste timber, and from rentals from those who tenant it. This arrangement would provide maintenance without further appropriation, and annually add large tracts of woodland. Why not? Should the few occupy it as against the many? Are not the rights of all equal in this respect? If it is to be held and used simply to protect water sources while the water runs away unemployed, except to sustain fish life and water the lowlands, then the present method is right. If our forest preserves are to be used as well for those other and more valuable purposes, then the present method of using, holding and managing our woodlands is all wrong.

"The water power developed in this State is about 27 per cent. of all that developed in the United States. That which is developed here, to wit, about 500,000 water horsepower, is, excluding Niagara and the St. Lawrence rivers, about half of all which we have. Why let more than 500,000 water horsepower, which money is waiting to develop, run to waste? Why not employ the money and labor necessary to apply this greater power? Why should not the assessable property of the State be increased by this amount? Why should not the State be receiving the large annual revenue this utilized water horsepower would produce? Why longer let it run away to the gray old sea, doing little or no good? It seems to this department that a change in the Constitution which would allow proper management and use of these great natural resources, safeguarding all the interests of the State, would commend itself to every thoughtful person."

The Legislature last winter very wisely amended and strengthened the forestry law in relation to fire protection, and the results worked out and hereinbefore set forth fully justify that legislative action.

The new provision of law to help protect the forests from fire by making the fire danger less, to wit, the top-lopping law, was put into operation all

over the Adirondack and Catskill forests and quite effectively carried out. Nearly all the lumber companies and those felling trees cheerfully complied with the provisions. In a few cases legal proceedings had to be commenced to enforce the law. It has taken much time of our men to inspect the work and thereby made considerable extra expense. But the end sought justifies the means. It needs no argument for a practical man or careful observer to understand its effectiveness. That would be so even did we not have marked examples of the results. Fortunately we have such examples. About ten years ago, on the Whitney preserve, for two years some logging jobs were handled as the law now prescribes; others were carried on in the old and ordinary way, leaving all the limbs on the unused tops. A careful inspection of those jobs, many of which we photographed, shows that where the limbs were all cut off they and the tops have entirely rotted and disappeared, while the tops on the other jobs not cut flat down are many of them there yet high and dry from the ground in a condition to add materially to great conflagrations if a fire once gets started among them.

The protests of the few who seem to think top-lopping of no account, in this respect must give way when confronted with these facts. Then, too, it has been found not to be expensive, as more timber is taken from many tops when the limbs are all cut off, and the greater ease and facility in skidding amply pays for the extra work. In view of the fact that in a large degree fires are local, that is, nearly always where lumbering has been done, this lessening of the danger and added preventative is important. Even though it does cost more, the expense is fully reimbursed in the greater security from loss by fire to the property, because what is left on the ground will cease to be a menace in two or three years, as against the old method when it extended from eight to ten years.

No one of sound mind desires to put any unnecessary hindrance in the way of legitimate business, yet when the general public welfare requires it, even legitimate business must give way.

The other provisions of the fire law were put into force. A paid patrol was established; great care was taken to select men of the broadest experience, good judgment, and those posssesed of a strong personal desire to protect our forests. The work required to be done in the short time given after the bill became a law was very great. To tear down a fire-fighting

force of 750 men and organize another, an entirely different one of new men, carefully and personally selecting them from within such a large wooded area; to build many miles of telephone line up steep mountain sides, over rough places and through the woods with these men; to establish and build nine observation stations on the tops of as many mountains, connect them up and equip them with new-made maps, range finders and all necessary things; to organize the whole force and give them proper instruction; to prepare payroll, report and other blanks and distribute them to all these men and to 281 supervisors; to meet the supervisors and endeavor to have them become familiar with the law and procedure under it, and do it all in forty days, taxed the whole executive force of the department to the utmost; yet it was done, and over 250 fires fought and extinguished so quickly that few, if any of them, attracted public notice.

The results and expense up to and including November 5th have been tabulated and are hereinbefore set forth in this report. The whole of it, the work, the scheme itself and the results, we feel are worthy of the attention and support of the public and the Legislature.

When the order of the Public Service Commission directing that all engines used on railroads running through the forests of the State be equipped for and burn oil for fuel is compiled with, and all lumber operations are thoroughly done in relation to top-lopping, as provided by law, our forests will be much safer from fire than they ever have been. It is fair to say that the railroad companies, with a few notable exceptions, patrolled their rights of way during the summer well and fairly cleaned the rights. of way of grass, briars and brush. It was so much better done than ever heretofore that it is very encouraging. The order of the Public Service Commission in relation to fuel, we feel, should be rigidly enforced and should finally apply to engines used nights as well as days. We believe, taking into consideration the companies' liability for damages for property destroyed, it will be much cheaper for them in the long run and much safer for our forests.

Another cause of fires from which great destruction has followed comes from the carelessness of campers, hunters and berry-pickers. What legislation can be had other than that which we now have fixing severe penalties for carelessly or willfully setting or causing forest fires is a question. Gen

eral public education along this line may be of greatest good. This year the department used every medium it could devise to call the attention of the public to the dangers, and to be careful. We stationed men at principal points of entrance to the forests to warn all going into the woods, to instruct them how, where and when to build fires and when not to build them at all; warning notices were distributed by the thousands through trains and to individuals. Newspapers gladly gave public notice and warnings. The most wanton of all fires were caused willfully by berry-pickers. Unless such people are more careful it may be necessary to exclude them from State land. Fire, the greatest danger to forests, must in some way be prevented, even though the method to prevent be made exceedingly drastic and arbitrary.

The next thing after being sure that we can save that which we have is to acquire more. The importance of very soon acquiring much more of the land in the forest preserve counties may well engage the earnest attention of the Legislature. Undoubtedly it may not strongly appeal to those who are not at all familiar with the whole situation. But to those of us whose duty it is to know, who are charged with the care and protection of the State's holdings of forested land, the situation seems very acute and important. To a very large degree the soft wood lumbering is nearly done in this State.

Naturally, hardwood lumbering will receive new impetus and hardwood become more valuable. New and heretofore unused methods in hardwood lumbering will be adopted. It cannot be floated; therefore, when it becomes valuable enough railroads will be built into the hardwood districts. If allowed, such lumbering will be prosecuted, and at the same time any soft woods left will be removed until not a stick will be left standing. More or less fires will, of necessity, follow until all forest land is denuded. That has been the history of all wooded countries where the government, state or nation has not taken control.

This is no time for a shilly-shally forest policy. There is little use in half doing it. It is uneconomic. A comprehensive, strong, broad policy by the State should be inaugurated immediately. As long as individuals or corporations own and hold woodlands they cannot be blamed for getting their investment out of them. In the long run they would realize much greater