A large playground and athletic fields, including base-ball diamonds and tennis courts, have been constructed. At Highland Lake, which has been cleaned and raised, a boathouse has been built and free row-boats are provided. Bear Mountain Inn has been erected to provide refreshments at a cost to meet all pocketbooks. Throughout other sections of the Highlands roads have been made, lakes have been improved, and new lakes have been created on the sites of old swamps. Spanning Popolopen creek at Bear Mountain, the Commission, working in conjunction with the State Highway Department, has constructed a six hundred foot steel arch bridge which links up the road system of the Interstate Park with other roads now under construction by the Highway Department. They will ultimately provide a wonderful motor highway along the river bank throughout the entire extent of the Highlands. (See plate 55.)

One hundred miles of fire trails have been cleared, and five fire patrol towers, connected by a telephone line of nineteen miles, have been erected. Two thousand acres of denuded land have been reforested with two million trees supplied without cost from the state nurseries of the Conservation Commission.

In the creation of this wonderful vacation ground the State of New York has appropriated, in money and lands, $3,150,000. The State of New Jersey has appropriated $400,000 for expenditure within the State of New Jersey. In addition the Commission has received private contributions in money and lands amounting to the grand total of $4,480,000, or more than the total investment of both the States of New York and New Jersey. No other park in the world has received similar support from private sources. No other park in the world fills a similar social need for so many people.

As before stated, the bond issue referendum provided that $2,500,000 should be expended for additional land for the Palisades Interstate Park, and before the last election the Park Commission obtained private subscriptions of $2,500,000, which is to be added to the State's bond issue for the further development of the property. Together they make a total of $5,000,000, which will carry the plans for the development of the Palisades Interstate Park to substantial completion.

With a portion of the State money, and with money privately subscribed, the work of preserving the scenic beauty of the Hudson River Highlands against spoilation by private quarries will be forever completed. Other lands reaching back into the Ramapo Mountains, and forming a logical part in the great park system stretching between New York City and the State Park in the Catskill Mountains, will be purchased. The funds privately subscribed will then be used for the development of this vast property by a comprehensive system of roads, trails, camp sites, playgrounds and other improvements.

NEW YORK STATE FOREST PRESERVE.

Definition

While they possess great material advantages as conservers of the water supply of the State and as future sources of timber supply, the two largest reservations of natural scenery in the State of New York are the lands of State in the Adirondack and Catskill mountain regions forming the Forest Preserve. (A history of the origin and development of the Forest Preserve will be found in our Annual Report for 1913 at pages 224-243.)

The Forest Preserve, as defined by law, includes the land owned by the State in Clinton county (except in the towns of Altona and Dannemora), and in Delaware, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Hamilton, Herkimer, Lewis, Oneida, Saratoga, St. Lawrence, Warren, Washington, Green, Ulster and Sullivan counties, except lands within the limits of cities and villages, and lands not wild lands acquired by the State on foreclosure of mortgages made to Loan Commissioners.

The Adirondack Forest Preserve is the term popularly applied to the lands above described in the first thirteen counties named. The Catskill Forest Preserve is the term popularly applied to the lands owned by the State in Greene, Ulster and Sullivan counties.

In the heart of the Adirondack counties, an area of approximately 6,000 square miles has been defined by law as the Adirondack Park, and the line defining it on the State map, printed in blue, is called the Blue Line. The terms Adirondack Forest Preserve and Adirondack Park are not synonymous. The former comprises only land owned by the State in the before-mentioned

counties both inside and outside of the Blue Line. The term Adirondack Park applies to all the land, State and private, within the Blue Line.

In a similar way, an area in the heart of the Catskill Forest Preserve has been defined by law as the Catskill Park; and the distinction between the Catskill Forest Preserve and the Catskill Park is relatively the same as that between the Adirondack Forest Preserve and the Adirondack Park.

The object of defining the bounds of the two areas known as the Adirondack Park and Catskill Park was to establish limits within which the State might concentrate its future efforts for the further acqusition of Forest Preserve land, and for convenient reference in drafting laws relating to the area described. The private lands within those areas are not affected by the establishment of the Blue Lines. The comparatively small holdings of State lands in the Adirondack and Catskill Preserves outside of Blue Lines are not particularly needed for the purposes for which the Forest Preserve was created, and it has been proposed several times to sell them.

The State Forest Preserve is protected by an iron-clad provision of the State Constitution, section 7 of article VII, which provides that the lands shall not be sold, leased or exchanged, and that the trees thereon shall not be sold, removed or destroyed.

Area of the Forest Preserve

The apparent area of the Forest Preserve on January 1, 1917, was smaller than on January 1, 1916, because during the year it was ascertained that the State's title to certain lands carried on the land list as belonging to the State was not valid. The comparative areas are as follows, omitting fractions:

In explanation of this apparent diminution, it may be said that about 800,000 acres of the Forest Preserve were acquired by the State through tax sales. That is to say, they were sold for unpaid taxes, and bought in by the State. They have been carried on the Land List, therefore, as owned by the State. But some of these lands were claimed from the State by adverse possession, and others were claimed on the ground that the tax-sale proceedings were irregular and illegal. To settle these conflicting claims, suits were begun. In many cases, the State confirmed its title. In others, the courts decided that the State acquired no title under the tax deeds. The parcels which the State thus lost were generally small detached areas outside the Blue Line and were of very little importance to the State as parts of he Forest Preserve.

General Administration

The State Forest Preserve is under the jurisdiction of the State Conservation Commissioner, Hon. George D. Pratt. Mr. Clifford R. Pettis, who has been connected with the Forest, Fish and Game Commission and its successor, the Conservation Commission, for he past 15 years, is head of the Division of Lands and Forests.*

The administration of the Forest Preserve under Commissioner Pratt has been a source of much gratification to lovers of the forests. The Commissioner has not contented himself with the perfunctory discharge of his official duties, but has applied himself in season and out of season to the task of enforcing the law and improving the forest policy of the State. It is a well-known fact, which will not appear in any of the official reports of the Conservation Commission and which, therefore, we take the liberty of recording here, that in one year he spent more than his salary, in his enthusiasm for educational work in connection with his department.

*Mr. Pettis graduated from the Forestry School of Cornell University in 1901, and his first position was in Chautauqua. In April, 1902, he was engaged by the Forest, Fish and Game Commission as a forester, and in June, 1910, became Superintendent of State Forests. Referring to the nurseries established by Mr. Pettis in the Adirondacks, "Biltmore Doings, 1909-1916," says: "Nowhere in Germany, the home of forestry, have we seen nurseries superior to or even so good as these 'Pettis nurseries.'" In 1909 the U. S. Department of Agriculture published Forest Service Bulletin 76, entitled 'How to Grow

and Plant Conifers in the Northwestern States," by Mr. Pettis.

counties both inside and outside of the Blue Line. The term Adirondack Park applies to all the land, State and private, within the Blue Line.

In a similar way, an area in the heart of the Catskill Forest Preserve has been defined by law as the Catskill Park; and the distinction between the Catskill Forest Preserve and the Catskill Park is relatively the same as that between the Adirondack Forest Preserve and the Adirondack Park.

The object of defining the bounds of the two areas known as the Adirondack Park and Catskill Park was to establish limits within which the State might concentrate its future efforts for the further acqusition of Forest Preserve land, and for convenient reference in drafting laws relating to the area described. The private lands within those areas are not affected by the establishment of the Blue Lines. The comparatively small holdings of State lands in the Adirondack and Catskill Preserves outside of Blue Lines are not particularly needed for the purposes for which the Forest Preserve was created, and it has been proposed several times to sell them.

The State Forest Preserve is protected by an iron-clad provision of the State Constitution, section 7 of article VII, which provides that the lands shall not be sold, leased or exchanged, and that the trees thereon shall not be sold, removed or destroyed.

Area of the Forest Preserve

The apparent area of the Forest Preserve on January 1, 1917, was smaller than on January 1, 1916, because during the year it was ascertained that the State's title to certain lands carried on the land list as belonging to the State was not valid. The comparative areas are as follows, omitting fractions: