In New York, concern in the water supply for the Erie Canal, had led such a far sighted statesman as Horatio Seymour, twice Governor of the State and once running for the Presidency, to conceive the need of preserving the Adirondack watershed in State hands. Accordingly a law was passed, in 1872, naming seven citizens, with Horatio Seymour chairman, as State park commission, instructed to make inquiries with the view of reserving or appropriating the wild lands lying northward of the Mohawk, or so much thereof as might be deemed expedient, for a State park. The commission, finding that the State then owned only 40,000 acres in that region, and that there was a tendency on the part of the owners of the rest to combine for the enhancement of values should the State want to buy, recommended a law forbidding further sales of State lands, and their retention when forfeited for the non-payment of taxes. It was not until eleven years later, in 1883, that this recommendation was acted upon, when the State through the non-payment of taxes by the owners of cut-over lands had become possessed of 600,000 acres. In 1884, the comptroller was authorized to employ “such experts as he may deem necessary to investigate and report a system of forest preservation.” The report of a commission of four members was made in 1885, but the legislation proposed was antagonized by the lumbermen’s interests. The legislature finally passed a compromise bill, which the writer had drafted at the request of Senator Lowe, entitled “An act establishing a forest commission, and to define its powers, and for the preservation of forests,” the most comprehensive legislation at that time. The original forest commission, appointed under the act of 1885, was superseded in 1895, by the commission of fisheries, game, and forests, which brought allied interests under the control of a single board of five members appointed by the Governor for a term of five years. In 1903, the commission was changed to a single commissioner, and another backward step was taken in 1911 by handing over the work of this commissioner to the newly created State Conservation Commission, consolidating with it several other commissions.