This first period of desultory efforts to create public opinion on
behalf of a more conservative use of forest resources was followed by a
more systematic propaganda, in which the Division of Forestry, growing
out of the agency in the Department of Agriculture, took the lead. This
it did officially as well as by assisting the American Forestry
Association, soon after organized with a view of educating public
opinion. For 15 years, the chief of the Division acted either as
Secretary or Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Association.
The first forestry association had been formed on January 12, 1876, in
St. Paul, Minn., largely through the efforts of Leonard B. Hodges, who
was the first to make plantations in the prairies for the St. Paul and
Pacific Railroad. This association was aided by State appropriations,
which enabled it to offer premiums for the setting out of plantations,
to distribute plant material, and also to publish and distribute widely
a Tree Planters’ Manual, revised editions of which were issued from time
to time.
In 1875, Dr. John A. Warder issued a call for a convention in Chicago
to form a national forestry association. This association was completed,
in 1876, at Philadelphia, but never showed any life or growth.
In 1882, a number of patriotic citizens at Cincinnati called together a
forestry congress, incited thereto by the visit and representations of
Baron von Steuben, a Prussian forest official, when visiting this
country on the occasion of the centennial celebration of the surrender
of Yorktown.
A very enthusiastic and representative gathering, on April 25, was the
result, lasting through the week, which led to the formation of the
American Forestry Congress. In the same year, in August, a second
meeting was held in Montreal, under the patronage of the Canadian
government, and the name was changed to the American Forestry
Association. In 1898, it began the publication of a propagandist
journal, The Forester (later changed to Forestry and Irrigation then to
Conservation, and now again to American Forestry). It has now a
member-ship of over 5,000. Much of the early educational propaganda was
done through this association. Indeed, this association, holding yearly
and intermediate meetings in different parts of the States, became the
center of all private efforts to advance the forestry movement. Twelve
volumes of its proceedings contain not only the history of progress in
establishing a forest policy, but also much other information of value
on forestry subjects.
Other local or State forestry associations were formed from time to
time, more or less under the lead of the national association, and exist
now in almost every State, while several other societies, like the
Sierra Nevada Club and the Mazamas of the Pacific coast, and State
horticultural societies in various States, made the subject one to be
discussed and to be fostered. The most active of these associations,
since it was formed in 1886, publishing also a bi-monthly journal,
Forest Leaves (at first less frequently), is the Pennsylvania State
Forestry Association, which has succeeded in thoroughly committing its
State to a proper forest policy, as far as official recognition is
concerned.
Usually as a result of this associated private effort, the States
appointed forestry commissions or commissioners. These commissions were
at first for the most part instituted for inquiry and to make reports,
upon which a forest policy for the State might be framed. Others have
become permanent parts of the State organization, with executive, or
merely educational functions. Such commissioners of inquiry were
appointed at various times, in Connecticut (1877), New Hampshire (1881
and 1889), Vermont (1882), New York (1884), Maine (1891), New Jersey (in
Geological Survey 1894), Pennsylvania (1893), North Carolina (in
Geological Survey 1891), Ohio (1885), Michigan (1899), Wisconsin (1897),
Minnesota (1899), North Dakota (1891), Colorado (1885), California
(1885).
It was but natural in a democratic country that these movements
sometimes became the play balls of self-seeking men, political wire
pullers, and grafters, or more often of ignorant amateurs and shallow
sentimentalists, aided by half-informed newspaper writers. Infinite
patience was required to steer through these rocks the ship of true
economic reform, and to educate legislators and constituents to its true
needs. The very first forestry congress was really conceived with a view
of advancing political preferment of one of its organizers, and many
another “forestry” meeting was utilized for a similar purpose, the new,
catchy title attracting the gullible.
One of the first State forest commissions, well endowed to do its work,
soon fell into the hands of grafters, and created such scandals that
they led to its abolishment, and to a set-back in the movement
everywhere. Arbor day sentimentalism discredited and clouded the issue
before the business world; the movement was in constant danger at the
hands of its friends. Antagonism of the lumber world was aroused by the
false idea of what the reform contemplated, and, in the absence of
technically trained foresters to instruct the public and the amateur
reformers, and to convince legislators of the absolute need of
discontinuing old established habits, progress was naturally slow, and
experienced many setbacks.
It was a hard field to plow, grown up with the weed growth of prejudice
and custom, and means and tools for the work were inadequate.
The federal government was naturally looked to to take the lead. The
first two agents, employed in the Department of Agriculture to “report
on forestry”, unfortunately lacked all technical knowledge of the
subject, the first, a most assiduous worker, being a writer of local
histories and gatherer of statistics, the second a preacher. The third,
the writer himself, had at least the advantage of this technical
training, but, at the same time, the disadvantage of being a foreigner,
who had first to learn the limitations of democratic government. Only
the paltry sum of $8,000 was at his disposal for plowing the ground, and
even after the agency had been raised to the dignity of a Division in
1886, for years no adequate appropriations could be secured, and hence
the scope and usefulness of the work of the Division was hampered.
The Forestry Association, inaugurated with such a flourish of trumpets
and with such a large membership at the start, had in the first two
years dwindled to a small number of faithful ones, and was without funds
when the writer became its secretary.
In spite of these drawbacks, the propaganda had progressed so far in
1891, that, through the earnest insistence of the then Secretary of the
Interior, John W. Noble, who had been won over to the views for which
the Division and the Association stood, a clause was enacted by Congress
in “An act to repeal timber-culture laws and for other purposes,” giving
authority to the President to set aside forest reservations from the
public domain. Again, this important legislation, which changed the
entire land policy and all previous notions of the government’s
functions concerning the Public Domain, was not deliberately enacted,
but slipped in as a “rider”, at the last hour, in Conference Committee.
In this connection the name of Edward A. Bowers, in 1887 Special Agent
in the Department of the Interior, and later Assistant Commissioner of
the General Land Office, deserves mention as most active in securing
this reservation policy.
Acting under this authority, Presidents Harrison and Cleveland
proclaimed, previous to 1894, seventeen forest reservations, with a
total estimated area of 17,500,000 acres.
The reservations were established usually upon the petition of citizens
residing in the respective States and after due examination, the
Forestry Association acting both as instigator and as intermediary.
Meanwhile no provision for the administration of the reserves existed,
and the comprehensive legislation devised by the Chief of the Division
of Forestry, which included withdrawal and administration of all public
timberlands, failed to be enacted, although in the Fifty-third Congress
it was passed by both Houses, but failed to become a law merely for lack
of time to secure a conference report. But the purpose of the advocates
of forestry was to create such a condition as would compel Congress to
act, by continually withdrawing forested lands that would lie useless
until authority was given for their proper use and administration.
In order to secure influential support from outside, a committee of the
Forestry Association induced the then Secretary of the Interior, Hoke
Smith, in 1896, to request the National Academy of Sciences, the legally
constituted adviser of the government in scientific matters, to
investigate and report “upon the inauguration of a rational forest
policy for the forested lands of the United States.” After an
unnecessary so-called “junket” of a committee of the Academy to
investigate the public timberlands, a preliminary report was submitted
recommending the creation of thirteen additional reservations, with an
area of over 20 million acres, and later a complete report was made
with practically the same recommendations which had been urged by the
Forestry Association.
President Cleveland, heroically, proclaimed the desired reserves all on
one day, Washington’s birthday, 1897, without the usual preliminary
ascertainment of local interests, and immediately a storm broke loose in
the United States Senate, which threatened the overthrow of the entire,
toilsomely achieved reservation policy; and impeachment of the President
was strongly argued in a two-day (Sunday) session. Congress, however,
came to an end on March 4, before it had taken any action, but, as it
had also failed to pass the annual Sundry Civil Appropriation Bill, it
was immediately recalled in extra session.
Then, again, by a clever trick and in an indirect and surreptitious
manner, instead of by open, direct and straightforward consideration and
deliberation of a proper policy, most important legislation was secured
in the Sundry Civil Appropriation Bill, which provided for the temporary
suspension of the reservations lately set aside until they could be more
definitely delimited, private claims adjusted, and agricultural lands
excluded, by a survey, for which $150,000 was appropriated to the United
States Geological Survey. The agricultural lands were then to be
returned to the public domain for disposal. At the same time, provisions
for the administration of the remaining reservations, much in the sense
of the legislation advocated by the Division of Forestry and by the
Forestry Association, and especially for the sale of timber, were hung
on to this appropriation clause. Under this act the reserves were
administered until 1904.
If the interior history of this bit of legislation were revealed, it
would probably appear that, not conception of the importance of the
subject, but the need for the employment of a certain organized survey
party in the Geological Survey was at the bottom of it.
While this law had set aside one year and a limited sum to accomplish
the survey, this could not, of course, be done, and hence appropriations
were continued, and the date for the segregation of the lands was
deferred _sine die_. For years this forest survey continued, giving rise
to magnificent volumes, issued from the Geological Survey, describing
the forest reservations--a very useful, educational piece of work, not
at all contemplated by the legislation--for which not less than $1.5
million have been expended. By 1905 some 110,000 square miles had been
examined when this work was handed over to the Forestry Bureau.
Thus it happened, almost by accident, that finally the aims of the
reformers were realized, the appointment of forest superintendents,
rangers, etc., to take charge of the forest reservations was secured,
and rules and regulations for their administration were formulated by
the Commissioner of the General Land Office, marking the beginning of a
settled policy on the part of the United States government to take care
of its long neglected forest lands. In this work of first organization
the name of Filibert Roth, a German-born forester, deserves mention.
Meanwhile, the Division of Forestry had continued to bring together and
distribute in the shape of reports, bulletins, circulars, addresses and
letters, such information useful for the education of the public, of
wood consumers, and timberland owners, as its limited appropriations
permitted, undertaking also some scientific investigations, especially
in the line of timber physics.
Soon after, in July, 1898, when the writer resigned his position as
Chief of the Division of Forestry, to organize the first professional
forest school, the New York State College of Forestry, Mr. Gifford
Pinchot, took charge of the division. Young, ambitious, aggressive, with
some knowledge of forestry acquired in Europe and with influential
connections and a large fortune, he easily secured the first need for
effective sowing on the well-plowed field before him--appropriations.
Whatever had been feebly begun could be broadly, sometimes lavishly,
extended, and the new idea of making “working plans” for private
timberland owners could be developed--a great educational work, which,
earlier, when even co-operation with State institutions was considered a
questionable proposition, would have been turned down as too paternal.
In five years the appropriations had increased tenfold, to over
$250,000; and in the first decade of the new regime, around $3,000,000
had been spent on forestry investigations, not counting expenditures on
forest reservation account.
A further strong support came into the field, when Mr. Roosevelt became
President of the United States, in 1901, and unreservedly threw his
overpowering influence into the balance, to advance forest policies.
Owing to his interest, the withdrawal of public timberlands from entry
proceeded at a rapid rate: by 1902, the reservations had grown to 65
million acres; in 1905, there were over 100 million acres included; and
by the end of his administration, 175 million acres had been placed in
reservation.
The anomalous condition, which placed the survey of the forest reserves
in the Geological Survey, their administration in the Land Office, and
the scientific or technical development of forestry in the Department of
Agriculture, was finally ended in 1904, when, on February 1st, the whole
matter was placed in the hands of the Department of Agriculture, with
its Forestry Division, which had been changed into a Bureau of Forestry,
and then changed its name again to Forest Service.
With this transfer, it may be said, the federal forest policy was fully
established, at least for its own lands, and all that remains to be done
is the perfection of details in their administration and the development
of silvicultural methods.
With appropriations which now (1907) exceed $950,000 for investigating
work alone, limitless opportunity seems to be open to extend the many
directions of inquiry and solve the silvicultural problems, and satisfy
the educational function of this government agency.
But, besides the administration of the federal timberlands and the
educational and other assistance of private owners, a further expansion
of the Forest Service is developing under the paternalistic and
socialistic tendencies referred to before, which may ultimately lead to
the purchase and federal control of forest reserves in the Eastern
States. Such expansion, was, indeed, proposed in the establishment of
reserves in the White Mountains and the Southern Appalachians,
propositions which have been resisted by Congress for the last seven
years, but with ever weakening resistance. Finally in 1910, success was
attained, and the federal government placed in position to acquire these
forest areas, to the amount of $10,000,000.
Meanwhile the single states have begun to develop their own policies.
Outside of legislation aiming at protection against forest fires--which
nearly every State possessed from early times, ineffective for lack of
machinery to carry it into effect--and outside of the futile attempts to
encourage timber planting referred to, no interest in timberlands was
evinced by State authorities for the first two-thirds of the century,
since practically all these lands had been disposed of to private
owners, and the authorities did not see any further duties regarding
them.
The first State to institute a commission of inquiry was Wisconsin, in
1867; but with the rendering of the report, prepared by I. A. Lapham,
one of the active early propagandists--the matter was allowed to mature
for thirty years.
The next State to move, in a feeble way, in 1876, was Minnesota, the
legislature making an annual grant of money to its forestry
association.
The appointment of commissions of inquiry then became fashionable.
New Hampshire appointed such a commission in 1881, which reported in
1885, without result, and another commission in 1889, whose report, in
1893, led to the establishment of a permanent commission of inquiry and
advice, with a partial supervision of forest fire laws. Vermont followed
suit with a commission of inquiry, in 1882, whose report made in 1884,
remained without consequences.
In Michigan the expedient was resorted to of constituting the State
Board of Agriculture a commission of inquiry, whose report, published in
1888, had also no consequences except those of an educational character.
Similarly, the State of Massachusetts ordered the State Board of
Agriculture in 1890, to inquire “into the consideration of the forests
of the State, the need and methods of their protection,” with similar
results, or lack of result.
In New Jersey, the matter was referred to the State Geologist, who,
since 1894, has made reports on forest conditions and needs. Similar
reference of the subject was made in the State of North Carolina, in
1891, and in West Virginia.
The first more permanent State institution deliberately established as
an educational and advisory agent was the Forestry Bureau of Ohio, in
1885, which published a number of annual reports, but eventually
collapsed for lack of support.
In the same year, three important States, New York in the East, Colorado
in the Middle States, and California in the West, seemed simultaneously
to have awakened to their duty, largely as a result of the propaganda of
the American Forestry Association.
In California, a State Board of Forestry was instituted, with
considerable power and ample appropriations, which, however, eventually
fell into the hands of unscrupulous politicians and grafters, the
resulting scandals leading to its abolishment in 1889.
In Colorado, which when admitted to Statehood in 1876, had, in its
Constitution, directed the general assembly to legislate on behalf of
the forestry interests of the State, these interests were rather tardily
committed to a forest commissioner, who was charged to organize county
commissioners and road overseers throughout the State as forest officers
in their respective localities, to act as a police force in preventing
depredations on timbered school lands and in enforcing the fire laws.
Col. E.T. Ensign, who had been most instrumental in bringing about this
legislation, was appointed commissioner, and, with singular devotion, in
spite of the enmity aroused by his activity, which eventually led to a
discontinuance of appropriations, tried, for a number of years to
execute this law. With his resignation from the office, this legislation
also fell into innocuous desuetude.
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.
Here, then, for the first time on the American continent, had the idea
of State forestry, management of State lands on forestry principles,
taken shape; a new doctrine of State functions had gained the day. Not
only was the commission charged to organize a service, with a “chief
forester” and “underforesters,” to administer the existing reserve
according to forestry principles, but also from the incomes to lay aside
a fund for the purchase of more lands to constitute the State forest
preserve. Unfortunately, instability of purpose, the characteristic of
democracy, spoiled the dream of the forester. Both, commission and chief
forester were, of course, political appointees, and, rightly or wrongly,
fell under the suspicion, when proposing the sale of stumpage, that they
were working into the hands of lumbermen. A set of well-meaning but
ill-advised civic reformers succeeded, in 1893, in securing the
insertion into the Constitution, then being revised, of a clause
preventing the cutting of trees, dead or alive, on State lands,
declaring that they shall forever be kept as “wild lands.” Later, this
constitutional provision was deliberately set aside by the commission,
which began to plant up some of the fire-wasted areas, the legislature
appropriating money for this breach of the Constitution because it was
popular: and lately permission has also been granted by the legislature
to remove trees from burnt areas in order to reduce the fire danger--the
foolish objection of a Constitution notwithstanding.
In 1897, new legislation was passed to authorize the State to purchase
additional forest lands within a prescribed limit, to round off the
State’s holdings, a special agency, the Forest Preserve Board, being
constituted for that purpose. Under this law, some $3,500,000 have been
spent, and by 1907, over one and a half million acres had been added to
the State Forest Preserve. This large area is withdrawn from rational
economic use, reserved for a pleasure ground of wealthy New Yorkers, who
have located their camps in the “wilderness” under the avowed assumption
that the State can be forced to maintain forever this anomalous
condition.
In later years, private planting has been encouraged by the Commission
selling plant material from the State nurseries at low rates.
The most important administrative function of the Commission has been
the reduction of forest fires, in which, also owing to political
conditions, only partial success has been attained. The legislation of
1885 for the first time attacked this problem in a more thorough manner,
providing for the organization of a service, and this served as an
example to other States who copied and improved on it. Notably the
forest fire legislation of Maine (1891), of Wisconsin (1895), and of
Minnesota (1895) was based on this model.
Another of the large States to start upon and, differently from New
York, to develop consistently a proper forest policy, was the State of
Pennsylvania. As a result of a persistent propaganda by the Pennsylvania
Forestry Association, formed in 1886, and especially by its active
secretary, Dr. J. T. Rothrock, a commission of inquiry was instituted in
1893. Before its report was established, the legislature of 1895
provided for an executive Department of Agriculture, and included in its
organization a provision for a Division of Forestry, the botanist member
of the previous commission, Dr. Rothrock, being appointed Commissioner
of Forestry at the head of the Division. Two years later, the final
legislation, which firmly established a forest policy for the State, was
passed namely for the purchase of State forest reservations. All later
legislation was simply an expansion of these propositions. By 1910, the
State had acquired by purchase, wild, mostly culled lands to the extent
of over 900,000 acres, and the Commission had progressed far towards
providing for their management and recuperation.
The unusually disastrous conflagrations of 1894; the growing conviction
that the pleaders of the exhaustibility of timber supplies were right,
accentuated by a rapid decline in White Pine production and a rapid,
and, indeed, almost sudden, rise in stumpage prices; the example which
the federal government had set in withdrawing public timberlands from
spoliation; together with an increasing number, not only of advocates of
saner methods, but of technically educated men, who came from the
schools lately organized--all these influences had worked as a leaven in
all parts of the country so as to bring in the new century with a
realization of the seriousness of the situation. And, within the first
seven years of the century, the change of attitude, at least, was almost
completed in all parts of the country, and among all classes, the
lumbermen and others depending directly on wood supplies becoming
especially prominent in recognizing the need and value of forestry.
State after State came into line in recognizing that it had a duty to
perform, and in some way gave expression to this recognition, so that,
by 1908, hardly a State was without at least a germ of a forest policy.
Two principles had been recognized as correct and were brought into
practice, namely, that the forest interests of the State called for
direct State activity, and that eventually the State must own and manage
at least portions of the forest area. The first principle took shape in
appointing single State foresters, [as in Maine (1891 and 1903); in
Massachusetts (1904); in Connecticut (1903); in Vermont (1906); in Rhode
Island (1906)]; or Commissions or Boards [as in New York (1885), changed
to a single commissioner with Superintendent and State foresters in
1903; in Pennsylvania (1901); in New Hampshire (1893); Maryland with a
State forester (1905); Wisconsin, with a State forester (1905); Indiana
(1901-03); Louisiana, with a State forester (1904); Michigan (1899);
Minnesota (1899); California (revived, with a State forester, in 1905);
Washington, with a State forester (1905); Kentucky (1906); in New
Jersey, with a State forester (1904); Alabama (1907).]
A very important feature in these appointments was the fact, that, more
and more professional or technically educated men displaced the merely
political appointees, or were at least added to the commissions.
The idea of State forests found expression, more or less definitely, in
setting aside forest reservations or else in enabling the State to
accept and administer donations of forest lands. Among the States
recognizing this principle were New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey,
Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, California.
Where neither of these two principles had as yet found application, at
least some agency was established to give advice and investigate or
experiment in matters of forest interests, and sometimes to offer
assistance to private woodland owners or planters, as in Delaware, Ohio,
North Carolina, etc.
Meanwhile, largely through the influence and with the co-operation of
the federal Bureau of Forestry, private owners had begun, if not to
apply, at least to study the possibility of the application of forestry
to their holdings. The Bureau prepared “working plans” which were now
and then followed in part, or at least led to attempts at a more
conservative method of logging. Notably, various paper and pulp
manufacturers realized the usefulness of more systematic attention and
conservative methods in the use of their properties. In this connection
the object lesson furnished by Mr. G. K. Vanderbilt on his Biltmore
Estate in North Carolina, which was begun by Mr. Pinchot and conducted
by Dr. C. A. Schenck, a German forester, requires special mention as the
first, and for nearly 20 years continued experiment in applying forestry
methods systematically in America. At present writing the continuance
of this experiment is in doubt.
With the second decade of the century, we shall enter upon the flood
tide of development, when no more need of argument for its necessity,
and only the question of practicable methods, will occupy us.
* * * * *
So far, silviculturally, the selection forest, i.e., culling the best
and the stoutest, practiced hitherto by the lumberman, without reference
to reproduction, but carried on somewhat more conservatively, is still
the method advocated in most cases by the Forest Service. This so-called
conservative lumbering is, to be sure, the transition to better methods.
According to reports of the federal Forest Service in 1907, some million
acres of private timberland were under forest management or
conservatively lumbered.
Planting of waste or logged lands, as distinguished from planting in the
prairies, which had, sporadically and in a small way, been done by
individuals here and there for many years, is practised in ever
increasing amount, both by State administrations and by private owners;
the New York State College of Forestry starting such planting in its
College Forest on a larger scale and systematically, in 1899. At present
writing, the forestry department of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company is
perhaps the largest single planter in the country, having set out over
four million trees (by 1910), with the avowed purpose of growing
railroad ties.
By 1908, popular interest in forest conservation had become so keen, and
at the same time paternalistic tendencies so fully developed by the
Roosevelt administration--the federal government having entered upon
extensive plans of reclaiming lands by irrigation, and preparing to
develop water powers, and inland waterways,--that the time seemed ripe
to bring all these conservative forces into unity.
The President called together in conference the governors of all the
States with their advisers, together with the presidents of the various
national societies interested, and others, to discuss the broad question
of the conservation of natural resources.
As a consequence national and State Conservation Associations and
Commissions were formed in all parts of the Union, and a new era of
active interest in economic development seems to have arrived.