 | Economics of forestry; a reference book for students of political economy and professional and lay students of forestry, by Bernhard E. Fernow source ref: forest.html |
 |
|
Chapter XII. The Forestry Movement in The United States
Economics of forestry; a reference book for students of political economy and professional and lay students of forestry, by Bernhard E. Fernow
CHAPTER XII. THE FORESTRY MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES.
Page 369
From the very beginning of the settlement of the country some wise heads recognized that attention to satisfactory forest conditions is as necessary as attention to other economic conditions. William Penn, the founder and first legislator of Pennsylvania, as early as 1682, stipulated in his ordinances, regarding the disposal of lands, that for every five acres cleared of forest growth one acre should be left to forest. In 1640, only two years after its settlement, the inhabitants of Exeter, N. H., adopted a general order for the regulation of the cutting of oak timber, then a most valuable export material, a precaution which other towns followed. In 1701, the governor of New York reports 40 mills in the province of New York, and referring to one working with 12 saws, he adds, "A few such mills quickly destroy all the woods in the Province at a reasonable distance from them." And he recommended that each person who removed a tree should pay for planting four or five young trees, as the Russians do to-day.1
[Note 1: 1 See "History of the Lumber Industry in the State of New York," by Colonel W. T. Fox, 6th Rept. of F. F. G. Com., 1901.]
Page 370
In 1708, the provincial assembly of New Hampshire forbade the cutting of mast trees on ungranted lands under a penalty of £100, and at that early time the province had a surveyor-general of forests, appointed by royal authority, for the purpose of preventing depredations upon the timber. No doubt this early regard to the timber supplies in the face of plenty came largely through the momentum of education, suggested by the usages and methods of the mother countries, where forest protection had already become an established policy, and even forestry practices existed.
A century later, real want seems to have appeared, or at least anticipation of it. For, in 1795, the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Arts, and Manufactures published a report on the best mode of preserving and increasing growth of timbers, an outcome of an inquiry by circular letter issued in 1791; and in 1804, the Massachusetts Society for the Promotion of Agriculture offered prizes for successful forest plantations; while the federal government, between the years 1799 and 1831, appropriated money for the purchase and passed legislation for the protection of live-oak timber, suitable for navy purposes, under which acts it acquire some 250,000 acres in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi,--not as a matter of general forest policy, but to secure sufficient supplies of a special material, restricted
Page 371
in amount, and supposed to be a continued necessity for building war ships.1
[Note 1: 1 Laws to punish malicious and wilful incendiarism and sometimes also careless firing of the woods were about this period enacted in almost every state.]
We can now smile at the concern expressed so early by writers in public prints, with regard to the threatened exhaustion of forest supplies. But it must be understood that the extent of our forest domain was then entirely unknown, the population was confined mainly to the Eastern coast country, and in the absence of railroad communication, only the supplies adjacent to rivers and sea were available, and, just as in Europe, the fuel question was uppermost, as long as coal had not yet been developed; hence location of supplies close to centres of civilization was of more moment.
With the rapid development of the country, and the opening up of means of transportation, such as the Erie Canal, the apprehensions regarding supplies seem to have vanished. During the active period of expansion, from 1820 to 1860, when the population more than quadrupled, over one and a half million farms were established, mainly hewn from the forest, the timber in the absence of a ready market being largely burned in the log pile; and with the necessity of constantly having to subdue tree growth, not only a feeling of inexhaustible resources and hence of carelessness, but almost a real pleasure in destruction
Page 372
seems to have been inculcated in the early settlers. Then came the period of railroad building and the settling of the Western prairies and plains, after 1860, and then only the enormous lumber business, as we know it to-day, came into existence.
The difference in the volume and character of the business of forest exploitation is most readily seen by comparing the census figures at different periods. In 1840, there were reported 31,560 lumber mills, with a total product valued at $12,943,507, or a little over $400 per mill. Small country mills, run like gristmills and often in connection with such, sawed to order for home consumption, or sent material to the mouth of the river, to be carried by vessel to home and foreign markets. By 1870, a change had already become apparent, when the product per mill was $6500, which in 1890 had grown to $19,000, or about three times the value of 1870 with only 21,011 mills reported.
In 1865, the state of New York still furnished more lumber than any other state; it now is seventeenth in the list with less than one billion feet. In 1868, the golden age of lumbering had arrived in Michigan, and this state is still second with over three billion feet; in 1871, rafts filled the Wisconsin River, and the state of Wisconsin is now the largest producer; yet the 30 mills of Eau Claire, 20 mills at Marathon, 20 mills at Fond du Lac, which in 1875 cut millions of feet, are now all gone.
Page 373
Besides the concentration of the lumber business into large establishments which these figures show, there are other interesting changes indicated in the census figures, which have a bearing upon the question of the need of a forest policy and the cause for its development. While in 1890 the efficiency of the single mill establishments had increased to three times what it was in 1870, and to nearly fifty times that of 1840, the total product had also increased in the last twenty years nearly three times, but the capital employed in the lumber industry had increased four and one-third times; and while capital became less efficient with concentration, the unit product of labor also became less efficient in spite of the improvement of machinery, every dollar of capital producing less result by over 40 per cent in 1890, in the value of the product, and every dollar of wages producing less result by over 12 per cent, but the cost of raw material had increased over 16 per cent,--all these are signs pointing to the deterioration and exhaustion of supplies at least in the principal producing regions. The census of 1900 is, at present writing, not accessible in a form permitting such comparisons, except that we can note an apparent increase in value of product of nearly 30 per cent over that of 1890. (See Appendix for further details.)
It would be difficult to set a date or mark an event from which the change in the methods of the lumber industry, now such a stupendous factor
Page 374
in forest decimation, might be reckoned; it came as gradually or as fast as railway systems developed, and made accessible the vast fields of supply in the northwestern Lake states just as the supplies of the Eastern states began to weaken.
[Note : 1 See "American Lumber," by B. E. Fernow, in "One Hundred Years of American Commerce," D. O. Haynes & Co., 1895.]
By 1882 the Saginaw Valley had reached the climax of its production, and the lumber industry of the great Northwest, with a cut of eight billion feet of white pine alone, was in full blast. Southern development began much later to assume large proportions, but by the present time the lumber product of the Southern states has grown to proportions equal, if not superior, to those of the Northern states.
No wonder that those observing this rapid decimation of our forest supplies and the incredible wastefulness and additional destruction by fire, with no attention to the aftergrowth, began again to sound the note of alarm. Besides the writings in the daily press and other non-official publications, we find the reports of the United States Department of Agriculture more and more frequently calling attention to the subject.
In thee report issued by the Patent Office as early as 1849, we find the following
significant language in a discussion on the influence of forests on waterflow and their
rapid destruction:--
"The waste of valuable timber in the United
Page 375
States, to say nothing of firewood, will hardly begin to be appreciated until our population reaches 50,000,000. Then the folly and shortsightedness of this age will meet with a degree of censure and reproach not pleasant to contemplate."
The report of the Department of Agriculture for 1860 contains a long article by J. G. Cooper on "The forests and trees of norther America as connected with climate and agriculture."
In 1865, the Rev. Frederic Starr discussed fully and forcibly the "American
forests, their destruction and preservation," and in which, with truly prophetic
vision, he says:--
"It is feared it will be long, perhaps a fully century, before the results at which
we ought to aim as a nation will be realized by our whole country, to wit, that we should
raise an adequate supply of wood and timber for all our wants. The evils which are
anticipated will probably increase upon us for thirty years to come with tenfold the
rapidity with which restoring or ameliorating measures shall be adopted."
And again:--
"Like a cloud no bigger than man's hand just rising from the sea, awakening interest
begins to come in sight on this subject, which as a question of political economy will
placed the interests of cotton, wool, coal, iron, meat, and even grain beneath its feet.
Some of these, accordance to the demand, can be produced in a few days, others in
Page 376
a few months or in a few years, but timber in not less than one generation. The nation has slept because the gnawing of want has not awakened her. She had plenty and to spare, but within thirty years she will be conscious that not only individual want is present, but that it comes to each from permanent national famine of wood."
The article is full of interesting detail, and may be said to be the starting basis for the campaign for better methods which followed.
Another and unquestionably most influential official report was that upon "Forests and Forestry of Germany," by Dr. John A. Warder, United States commissioner to the World's Fair at Vienna in 1873. Dr. Warder set forth clearly and correctly the methods employed abroad in the use of forests, and became himself one of the most prominent propagandists for their adoption in his own country. About the same time appeared the classical work of George P. Marsh, our minister to Italy, "The Earth as Modified by Human Action," in which the evil effects of forest destruction on cultural conditions were ably and forcibly pointed out.
The census for 1870 for the first time attempted a canvass of our forest resources, and the relatively small area of forest became known. All these publications had their influence in educating a larger number to a conception and consideration of the importance of the subject, so that
Page 377
when, in 1873, a committee on forestry of the American Association for the Advancement of Science was formed, and its memorial calling for the creation of a commissioner of forestry to gather information was presented to Congress, there existed already an intelligent audience; and, though a considerable amount of lethargy and lack of interest was exhibited, Congress could be persuaded, in 1876, to establish the agency in the United States Department of Agriculture out of which grew the Division of Forestry now designated as Bureau of Forestry.
While these were the beginnings of an official recognition of the subject by the federal government, private enterprise and the separate states started also about the same time to forward the movement. In 1867, the agricultural and horticultural societies of Wisconsin appointed a committee to report on the disastrous effects of forest destruction. In 1869, the Maine Board of Agriculture appointed a committee to report on a forest policy for the state, leading to the act of 1872 "for the encouragement of the growth of trees," exempting from taxation for twenty years lands planted to trees, which law, as far as we know, remained without result. About the same time a real wave of enthusiasm with regard to planting to timber seems to have pervaded the country, and especially the Western prairie states. In addition to laws regarding the planting of trees on highways,
Page 378
there were enacted laws for the encouragement of timber planting, either under bounty or exemption from taxation, in Iowa, Kansas, and Wisconsin in 1868, in Nebraska and in New York in 1869, in Missouri in 1870, in Minnesota in 1871, in Iowa in 1872, in Illinois in 1874, in Nevada, Dakota, and Connecticut in 1877, and finally the federal government joined in this kind of legislation by the so-called culture acts of 1873 and 1874, amended in 1876 and 1877.
For th most part these laws remained a dead letter. The encouragement by release from taxes, except in the case of the federal government, was not much of an inducement, nor does the bounty provision seem to have had greater success, except in taking money out of the treasuries. Finally these laws were in most states repealed.
The timber culture act was passed by Congress on March 3, 1873; by this act the planting of timber on 40 acres of land, or a proportionate area in the treeless territory, conferred the title to 160 acres or a proportionate amount of the public domain. This law had not been in existence ten years when its repeal was demanded, and this was finally secured in 1891, the reason being that, party owing to the crude provisions of the law and partly to the lack of proper supervision, it had been abused and had given rise to much fraud in obtaining title to lands under false pretences. It is difficult to say how much impetus the law gave to bonafide
Page 379
forest-planting and how much timber growth has resulted from it. Unfavorable climate, lack of satisfactory plant material, and lack of knowledge as to proper methods led to many failures, and on the whole the expected results were not realized. Private interest of homesteaders and settlers without these aids has probably been more effective. In this direction the establishment of arbor days throughout the states has been a stimulating influence. From its inception by Governor J. Sterling Morton and first inauguration by the State Board of Agriculture of Nebraska in 1872, it has been become a day of observation in nearly every state, and its adoption as a national holiday may be shortly expected.
While, with the exception of the so-called treeless states, perhaps not much planting of economic value is done, the observance of the day in schools as one set apart for the discussion of the importance of trees, forests, and forestry, has been productive of an increased interest in the subject.
Nevertheless, arbor days have had also a retarding influence upon the practical forestry movement in leading people into the misconception that forestry consists in tree-planting, in diverting attention from the economic question of the proper use of existing forest areas, in bringing into the discussion poetry and emotions, which have clouded the hardheaded practical issues and delayed the earnest attention of practical business men.
Page 380
The amount of tree-planting performed on the prairies, plains, and Western valleys, although aggregating thousands of acres, is infinitesimal, if compared with what is necessary for climatic amelioration; and it may be admitted, now as well as later, that the reforestation of the plains must be a matter of coöperative, if not of national, enterprise.
Indeed, as a result of an experiment instituted by the writer in 1890 to prove that the sand-hills of Nebraska could and should be planted to conifers, the federal government has lately reserved 200,000 acres for such planting, out of the 15,000,000 acres comprised in this sand-hill region.
Private efforts in the East in the way of fostering and carrying on economic timber-planting should not be forgotten, such as the prizes offered by the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, the planting done by the private landholders at Cape Cod, in Rhode Island, Virginia, and elsewhere.
There have also been, here and there, farmers bestowing care on the manner of cutting their woodlots; lumbermen and other forest owners have, now and then, not only made special efforts to protect their forest properties against fire, but have done their cutting conservatively and with care for the existing young growth.
Yet, altogether, these efforts have been sporadic, unsystematic, and not on any scale commensurate with the destruction of virgin resources, as may be
Page 381
learned from an article in the Year-book of the United States Department of Agriculture, for 1899, in which an attempt is made to collect the facts regarding these efforts and place them in the most favorable light. While perhaps conservative culling has been practised by lumbermen in more cases than is known, actual forestry practice with a view to securing reproduction has been rare and only very lately introduced in a few conspicuous cases, the Forestry Bureau of the United States Department of Agriculture being instrumental in most of them; this bureau offering to prepare so-called "working plans" for private owners, in which some rules for the cutting of mature timber are laid down, intended to insure a succession of young growth. It is stated, that owners of nearly 2,000,000 acres have asked for such advice. With the increase of educated foresters able to make and carry out such working plans, and with the appreciation by the forest owners of the possibility of securing continuous revenues by a conservative treatment of their properties under such plans, these small beginnings promise to bring about the much-needed reform, especially with the owners of extensive tracts, who are financially able to forego the present revenue from closer cutting for the sake of better future returns, which may be derived from more conservative lumbering.
Most of the efforts to engage state governments in establishing forest policies originated in associations
Page 382
formed for the purpose of making the necessary propaganda.
The first forestry association organized for the purpose of advancing forestry interests was formed on January 12, 1876, in St. Paul, Minn., largely through the efforts of Leonard B. Hodges. This association was aided by state appropriations, which enabled it to offer premiums for the setting out of plantations, and also to publish and distribute widely a Tree Planter's Manual. Revised editions are issued from time to time, and a distribution of plant material is also occasionally attempted, the state aiding to the extent of $1000 to $2000 annually.
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 attending the centennial celebration of the surrender of Yorktown.
A very enthusiastic and representative gathering, on April 25, lasting through the week, led to the formation of the American Forestry Association. This association, holding yearly and intermediate meetings in different parts of the states, has
Page 383
become the centre 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. It now publishes a monthly journal, The Forester, (since 1902 called Forestry and Irrigation). It is unaided by government, its efforts being entirely borne by private means and the annual dues of its membership, its officers doing gratuitous work. It has been especially instrumental in bringing about the establishment of the federal forest reservation policy, which we will note further on in detail.
Other local or state forestry associations were formed more or less under the lead of the national association, and exist now in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota, North Dakota, Colorado, Utah, and Washington, while several other societies, like the Sierra Club, the Water and Forest Association, and the Mazamas of the Pacific coast, and state horticultural societies in various states, make the subject one to be discussed and to be fostered.
The most active of these associations, publishing also, since its formation in 1886, a bimonthly journal, Forest Leaves, 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.
Page 384
Usually, as a result of this associated private effort, various states have appointed forestry commissions or commissioners. These commissions were at first for the most part instituted for inquiry and to make a report, upon which a forest policy for the state might be framed. Others have become permanent parts of the state organization with executive or educational functions. Such commissions of inquiry were appointed at various times in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Colorado, California; while commissioners or commissions with executive duties exist now or did exist for a time in Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, Kansas, North Dakota, Colorado, and California.
Maine has an efficient forest fire law (chap. 26 of Revised Statutes) based on that of the state of New York, and a forest commissioner (created in 1891, Public Laws, chap. 100)--the state land agent of the state being ex officio designated as such--to look to its execution. He is also to create an interest in forestry and furnish useful information on the subject.
Two very interesting and instructive reports on the growth of the spruce and on allied subjects are the result.
New Hampshire had a temporary commission of
Page 385
inquiry, appointed in 1881 and reporting in 1885; and another such commission in 1889, reporting in 1893, when the permanent forestry commission was created (March 29, 1893) with a paid secretary, who publishes an annual report. The main function of the commission is one of inquiry and suggestion, besides partial supervision of the forest fire law. The acquisition of public parks, if private munificence should be found willing to furnish the necessary funds, is also made a part of the function of the commission. Two small areas have been donated for this purpose. Within the last year (1901) the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests was formed, which, through the employment of a forester, attempts to secure increased practical interest.
In Massachusetts no special public officers are charged with the care of forestry interests, and hence the otherwise useful existing legislation in the interest of forestry is probably of only partial effect. Its best feature is perhaps that of encouraging communities to become owners of forest tracts (chap. 255, acts of 1882). The city of Boston has made special efforts in this direction, having set aside more than 7000 acres for forest parks. The State Board of Agriculture was, in 1890, ordered to inquire "into the condition of the forests of the state, the need and methods of their protection," and report thereon, which order did not produce anything of value. A bill to secure
Page 386
such forest survey, introduced into the legislature in the year 1897, failed of passage.
In Vermont a commission of inquiry was instituted in 1882, reporting in 1884 without any practical result, the proposed legislation remaining unconsidered.
In New York a law was passed in 1872 naming seven citizens, with Horatio Seymour, chairman, as a 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 holders 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 nonpayment of taxes.
It was eleven years later, in 1883, that this recommendation was acted upon, when the state through the nonpayment of taxes by the owners had become possessed of 600,000 acres--the nucleus of the later state forest preserve.
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
Page 387
proposed was antagonized by the lumbering interests. The legislature finally passed a compromise bill formulated in part by the writer, entitled "An act establishing a forest commission, and to define its powers, and for the preservation of forests."
This legislation, afterward amended, is the most comprehensive of that of any state in the Union.
The original forest commission, appointed under the act of May 15, 1885, was superseded in 1895 by the Commission of Fisheries, Game, and Forests (now designated "Forest, Fish, and Game Commission") under the law of April 25, 1 895. This law is a comprehensive measure in which allied interests are brought under the control of a single board. Under this law commission consisted of five members appointed by the governor with consent of the senate, the term of office being five years.
By later changes, the number of commissioners was reduced to three, two of whom are to discontinue with the year 1903, so that then a single commissioner will be in charge. The commission has full control of the Adirondack Preserve, with a staff of officials which includes a superintendent of forests, three expert foresters (since 1900) who are graduates of the State College of Forestry, and some forty "fish and game protectors and foresters," i.e. not technically educated guards.
The duties of the commission besides publishing
Page 388
annual reports are described in the laws of 1895, namely, to (1) have the care, custody, control, and superintendence of the forest preserve; (2) maintain, protect, and promote the growth of the forests in the preserve; (3) have charge of the public interests of the state in regard to forestry and tree-planting, and especially with reference to forest fires in every part of the state; (4) possess all the powers relating to the preserve which were vested in the commissioners of the land office and in the comptroller on May 15, 1885; (5) prescribe rules and regulations affecting the whole or any part of the preserve for its use, care, and administration, and alter or amend the same; but neither such rules or regulations nor anything contained in this article shall prevent or operate to prevent the free use of any road, stream, or water as the same may have been heretofore used, or as may be reasonably required in the prosecution of any lawful business; (6) take measures for the awakening of an interest in forestry in the schools and the imparting of elementary instruction on such subject therein, and issue tracts and circulars for the care of private woodlands, etc., (7) print and post rules for the prevention and suppression of forest fires.
In singular antagonism to these duties, especially that which calls for the promotion of the growth of forests in the preserve, stands a provision in the state constitution, which was inserted in 1893,
Page 389
after the commission had existed for 8 years, barring the rational use and the application of any forest management in the preserve in the following language:--
Article VII: "The lands of the State constituting the forest preserve now fixed by law shall be forever kept as wild lands. They shall not be leased, sold or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, public or private, nor shall the timber thereon be sold or removed or destroyed."
This certainly forbids the practice of forestry as explained in the chapter on "Silviculture," and would seemingly exclude even the planting of waste lands, although the commission during the present year, stimulated by the example of the College of Forestry, has set out a large number of trees on such lands. Repeated efforts to remove this constitutional bar to forestry practice on state lands have been made, but the people have so far refused to reconsider the injunction, partly because of mistrust of the commission's technical ability, partly because of ignorance or misconception of what forestry means, partly because of the influence of wealthy property owners, who desire to keep these woods in the wild condition for their pleasure; and there are perhaps good reasons why this economic loss should be endured until more education in forestry matters is secured and the forest preserve in its entirety is established and a comprehensive plan can be formulated.
Page 390
In 1897, legislation, providing for an increase of the state forest preserve, was passed by instituting the Forest Preserve Board, whose function it is to purchase lands with appropriations made from time to time. Nearly $2,000,000 have been spent on such purchases, and the preserve now contains over 1,250,000 acres, which, if properly administered under forest management, should at least produce the amount of about $150,000 annually for supporting the Forest, Fish, and Game Commission.
The state of New York was the first to inaugurate this forest reservation policy (even before the federal government), as well as the first comprehensive effective forest fire law, with an organization for its execution, and furthermore took the first steps to provide for the technical education of foresters, by establishing in 1898 the New York State College of Forestry, to be administered by Cornell University, together with a demonstration forest of 30,000 acres, located in the Adirondacks. The demonstration area was designed to give a practical object lesson of the manner in which a forest may be managed for reproduction and for profit; the college, to educate the foresters, who may eventually become the technical advisers for the management of the forest preserve. A four years' course, leading to the degree of Forest Engineer, as full and complete as any of the European forestry schools, is offered. During the first four years of its existence, the number of
Page 391
students has increased to 65 (fall, 1902), and the 18 graduates and special students, who have been sent out from this first professional school, have found ready employment in the federal and state service or with private employers.
Joseph TrimbleThe state which, next to New York, has most progressed in the direction of a forest policy is Pennsylvania. Through the efforts of the State Forestry Association, a commission of inquiry was first created in 1893, and before its report was published, in 1895, provision was also made for a commissioner of forestry as an organic division of the newly created department of agriculture. Through the effort of the commissioner, Dr. Rothrock, important legislation was had in 1897, and in 1901 the division became a separate department of forestry, and a state forest reservation commission was created.
The most important legislation of 1897, besides improving the forest fire laws, and relieving forest-lands under certain conditions from taxation (see p. 247), is that "authorizing the purchase by the Commonwealth of unseated lands for the nonpayment of taxes, for the purpose of creating a state forest reservation," and another act, providing for the immediate establishment of three definite reservations in the three large drainage areas of the state. Under these acts, some 400,000 acres have been reserved. A second state had recognized the propriety of state forests.
Page 392
The third state falling in line isMichigan. It began in 1887 by constituting the State Board of Agriculture a forestry commission of inquiry, but the report of the commission, published in 1888, remained without immediate effect. In 1989, a permanent forestry commission of three was appointed, whose duty was in the first place also merely one of inquiry, with the requirement to submit in 1901 a bill "to carry out the objects for which the commission is appointed," but also empowering the commission to have withdrawn from sale, temporarily, 200,000 acres of "state tax homestead lands and swamplands belonging to the state," and to receive from private owners donations of land. The commission presented a most admirable bill to carry out the forest reservation policy, but the bill was defeated, largely through the farming element. Nevertheless, the commission secured a forest reservation of 70,000 acres, and the progress of this policy is well assured, although the progress will probably be slow on account of ignorant or selfish obstructionists.
In Minnesota a law was enacted in 1901, setting aside as a state forest reserve all lands unfit for agriculture that reverted to the state through delinquent taxes before 1891; but legislation, having in view the creation of forest board and forest reserve areas under rather unique conditions, which was introduced in the legislature in 1897, failed to become law.
Page 393
In consequence of the terrible warning by the forest fires of 1894, which destroyed nearly three quarter million dollars' worth of property, and several hundred lives, Minnesota created the office of chief fire warden, acting under the state auditor as forest commissioner, in charge of an organized service to combat forest fires. The chief fire warden is also required to furnish annual reports, with suggestions relative to the preservation of forests and the prevention of forest fires. The four or five records issued, how that the protective service is tolerably effective in spite of deficient appropriations, and the fact that the questions of forestry are systematically kept before the public is bound to result sooner or later in more comprehensive action.
The third of the three great lumber states, Wisconsin, was also scared by the forest fires of 1894 into enacting a forest fire law, similar to the Minnesota law, which followed the principles of organization first inaugurated in the New York law of 1885. Here the chief of the state land office, and his deputy, were made forest wardens without additional salary. Towns are limited to $100 per year expenditure in extinguishing fires. It is easy to judge what the efficiency of such service may be. An attempt, through a commission of inquiry created in 1897, to commit the state further has so far failed.
In the first year of the new century, two other
Page 394
states recognized their responsibility, namely Indiana and Connecticut. Indiana entered the list of states with a forest policy by the establishment of a state board of forestry and the enactment of a law exempting certain forest lands from taxation (see p. 246). Connecticut appointed a state forester under the board of control of the Agricultural Experiment Station, and enacted a law "concerning reforestation of barren lands," making a small appropriation for the purchase and planting of such lands.
A few other states show feeble beginnings, some dating back a long time, without visible progress.
In New Jersey, North Carolina, and West Virginia the state geological surveys have had the forestry interests in charge for several years, publishing from time to time useful information. A well-devised bill providing for a forest commission and state forest reserve failed of passage in the legislature of West Virginia in 1897.
In Ohio a forestry bureau was instituted in 1885, its function being of educational and advisory nature. It published four or five annual reports containing information on a variety of subjects, but for a number of years these reports, and probably the bureau, have been discontinued.
In North Dakota the office of commissioner of irrigation and forestry was created in 1890, seemingly mainly for educational purposes. In Kansas for some time the educational campaign for timber-planting
Page 395
of the State Horticultural Society was supplemented by the state in the establishment of two experimental tree stations, from which plant material is distributed to intending planters through a forest commissioner.
The state of Colorado was the first to recognize in her constitution the existence of a duty on the part of the government with regard to her forestry interests.
Article XVIII of the constitution, adopted in convention March 14, 1876, contains the
following clauses:--
"Sec. 6. The general assembly shall enact laws in order to prevent the destruction of
and to keep in good preservation the forests upon the lands of the State or upon lands of
the public domain, the control of which shall be conferred by Congress upon the State.
"Sec. 7. The general assembly may provide that the increase in the value of private lands caused by the planting of hedges, orchards, and forests thereon shall not, for a limited time, to be fixed by law, be taken into account in assessing such lands for taxation."
The constitutional convention also presented a memorial to congress asking for the transfer of the public timber lands in the them territory to the care and custody of the state, which remained, however, without attention.
The intentions of the constitution to take care
Page 396
of the forestry interests of the state were, however, not carried into effect until 1885, when a law was passed creating the office of a forest commissioner and constituting the county commissioners and road overseers throughout the state, forest officers in their respective localities, to act as a police force in preventing depredation and fire, and to encourage and promote forest culture. But the provisions to carry out this laudable work were from the start insufficient, and the office of forest commissioner finally remaining without a salary became vacant, the law ineffective. A new departure, however, was made in 1897. In that year a department of forestry, game, and fish was created. The salaried officers provided are a commissioner and three wardens, and the commissioner may appoint deputy wardens without pay. Section 9 of the law provides that--
"Said commissioner shall, as much as possible, promote the growth and extension of the forest areas of the state, and encourage the planting of trees and the preservation of the sources of water supply, but nothing in this act contained shall authorize the commissioner to interfere with the use of timber for domestic, mining, or agricultural purposes, in accordance with existing laws. He shall have the care of all woodlands and forests which may at any time be controlled by the state, and shall cause all such lands to be located and recorded in a book to be kept for the purpose."
Page 397
Section 10 prohibits the appointment to any office created by this act of any person directly or indirectly engaged in the manufacture of lumber, railroad ties, telegraph poles, or any business requiring a large use of wood. The law makes it a misdemeanor to cause fires to be set without a guard, or to cut coniferous timber from public or state lands for shipment outside the state. The remainder of the law provides for the protection of fish and game.
California began its course for the establishment of a forest policy in the most promising manner in 1885 by creating a state board of forestry. At first it was mainly a commission of inquiry with educational functions; police powers were conferred upon it in 1887 "for the purpose of making arrests for any violation of any law applying to forest and brush lands within the State, or prohibiting the destruction thereof," with an appropriation of $30,000 for two years following, but by 1891 political complications and perversion of the moneys appropriated undid the good work of the first board, and the office, as well as the functions, were abolished. Besides three valuable reports on the forest conditions and forest trees of the state, the board left as an inheritance two experiment stations, where exotic trees are being tested, now under charge of the University of California. Lately the state appropriated $250,000 to purchase the remnant of the great Redwood
Page 398
forest in the Santa Cruz Mountains for a public park; such reservation, however, is only distantly and indirectly a part of forest policy.
We have again and again referred it the first and foremost obligation of the state and the most urgent and important need of reform in the treatment of our woodlands, namely protection against fires. There is so far no state as yet fully doing its duty in this direction, although tolerably effective beginnings have been in several states. The first comprehensive forest fire law, drafted by the writer, was enacted in New York in 1885 in connection with the establishment of a forest commission. This law for the first the recognized the need of officers responsible for the execution of the law and of a well-organized army of fire wardens throughout the state. The states of Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Minnesota followed, with some modifications, this example of New York. The most complete forest fire law is probably that of Minnesota, enacted in 1805, which is,like the others, however, only partially effective on account of deficient appropriations and limited functions of the commissioner or fire warden.1
[Note 1: 1 For a full discussion of this phase of forest policy, with reprint of the Minnesota law, see H. R. Doc No. 181, 55th Cong. 3d sees. pp. 183-189.]
It would appear from all experience now accumulated by the officers in charge of the execution
Page 399
of this law, that the reduction in forest fires is largely a matter of education and the development of morals, which must come in time. Moreover, when real forestry is begun, when waste lands are not any more abandoned as useless, but planted to valuable timber, when forest properties are really managed for continuity, in short, when forestry is practised, both the necessity and the desire for careful protection of a valuable piece of property will bring about a cessation of incendiarism; and the practice of forestry will soon come, when educated foresters can be had to practice it.
For the education of such, provision is being rapidly made by the establishment of special forestry schools or of courses in forestry in existing institutions. Here again the state of New York recognized its educational function by establishing, in 1898, the State College of Forestry at Cornell University. With the establishment of this first professional forestry school, we may say that the art of forestry was removed from the mere field of discussion, and engrafted on our educational system, insuring a new era for rational forestry methods.
In the following year, Yale University established such a school, and a private school was established about the same time on the Vanderbilt estate at Baltimore, N.C. Before this time and since, the land-grant colleges of several states had introduced at least courses on subjects touching
Page 400
on forestry, without attempting professional training, the object being mainly to give a general idea of the natural history of forest growth and the meaning and importance of forestry, and promoting public interest in forest protection and silviculture. Within a few years, however, it is to be expected that professional courses will exist in many of these institutions, and the flood of education will pour its beneficent influence over our neglected woodlands.
A sufficient number of professionally educated foresters, it appears, have gone forth from these schools and are now at work in the United States (including Philippines) to justify the publication of the first professional journal, the Forestry Quarterly, which made its appearance in the fall of 1902, published by students, alumni, and faculty of the New York State College of Forestry.
In this connection we should perhaps make also special mention of the effort of Berea College in Kentucky to furnish instruction in forestry to a class of rangers. Indeed, there is now more need to provide for this class of instruction, to rangers, logging bosses, under-foresters, etc., than for a multiplication of higher grade schools, nevertheless the latter is evidently contemplated by a number of colleges.
In all these movements throughout the states, the efforts of the American Forestry Association and of the state associations may be recognized,
Page 401
and the actions of the federal government no doubt had also an indirect education influence.
With the establishment of the Division of Forestry in the United States Department of Agriculture (1876-1885) an official centre was created for supporting the forestry movement, and through the organization of the American Forestry Congress (changed later to American Forestry Association), in which the of the Division of Forestry naturally took a leading part, the sphere of influence was greatly enlarged. These two agencies have moulded public opinion through the past twenty or twenty-five years and brought about the interest now taken in forestry matters. The history of the establishment of these two agencies may be read in the repeatedly cited public document (H. R. Doc. No. 181, 55th Cong. 3d sess.) and in the publications of the American Forestry Association.
The main tangible result of the educational campaign of these agencies for a federal policy was the inauguration of the forest reservation policy.
The first suggestion of such a policy appeared in 1876 with a bill (H. R. No. 2075) "for the preservation of the forests adjacent to the sources of navigable rivers and other streams," which never progressed farther than the pigeonhole of the Public Lands Committee.
Similar bills, introduced from time to time, experienced the same fate in the same or other
Page 402
committees, until more definite reservations were called for. An act to establish a forest reservation on the head waters of the Missouri and Columbia rivers passed the Senate in 1884, and again in 1885, but died in the House Committee; in the same year a general act providing for forest reservations was reported favorably in the House. After this, hardly a year passed without a number of legislative propositions to the same effect being introduced, the titles of the bills filling several quarto pages of the above-cited document.
Hardly any kind of legislation which could be suggested was overlooked, from the creation of forest commissions to investigate the subject to providing for fully organized forest administrations and the establishment of forestry schools.
The American Forestry Association presented a comprehensive bill drawn by the Chief of the Forestry Division in 1888, providing for the withdrawal from entry or sale of all public timber lands not fit for agricultural use, and for their proper administration under technical advice. (S. 1476 and S. 1779, 50th Cong. 1st sess.)
Modifications of this bill were introduced from year to year, and their enactment urged with small success.
Finally, in the Fifty-first Congress, through the earnest insistence of Secretary of the Interior John W. Noble, who was fully imbued with the necessity of some action such as was advocated by the association,
Page 403
the following section was added to the act entitled "An Act to repeal timber
culture laws, and for other purposes," approved March 3, 1891:--
"Sec. 24. That the President of the United States may, from time to time, set apart
and reserve, in any State or Territory having public lands bearing forests, any part of
the public lands wholly or in part covered with timber or undergrowth, whether of
commercial value or not, as public reservations, and the President shall, by public
proclamation, declare the establishment of such reservations and the limits thereof."
It is upon this feeble "rider," attached to a bill hardly germane to the subject, that the forest reservation policy of the federal government is based, that the federal land policy, which before considered only disposal of the public domain, was changed, the government becoming a landowner of continuity.
Acting upon this authority, Presidents Cleveland and Harrison established seventeen forest reservations, with a total estimated area of 17,500,000 acres previous to 1894.
The reservations were established usually upon the petition of citizens residing in the respective states and after due examination, the forestry association acting as intermediary.
Meanwhile the legislation devised for the administration of the forest reserves, existing or to be established (H. R. 119), specially urged by
Page 404
Representative McRae, chairman of Public Lands Committee, failed to be enacted, although in the Fifty-third Congress it was passed by both Houses, but failed in conference. Forest reservation without forest administration threatened to make the whole policy unpopular.
Urged by the committee of the Forestry Association, which hoped to secure thereby potent influence for the proposed legislation, Secretary Hoke Smith, of the Department of the Interior, impressed with the importance of devising some adequate system of protection and management of the forests, both within the reserves and in the public domain, under date of February 15, 1896, requested 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."
Under date of February 1, 1897, the academy submitted to Secretary Francis a preliminary report recommending the creation of thirteen additional forest reserves with a total area of 21,379,840 acres. These reserves were proclaimed as recommended, without examination, by President Cleveland, February 22, 1897. On May 1, 1897, the president of the academy submitted his complete report (Senate Doc. No. 105), recommending substantially the legislation so long urged by the Forestry Association.
Page 405
A storm of indignation broke out in Congress over the precipitate action of the President, the repeal of the entire forest reservation policy was demanded by the Western senators and representatives, who felt insulted by the lack of consideration, and the laboriously achieved first step threatened to be lost. A compromise was, however, effected.
The sundry civil appropriation bill passed June 4, 1897 (see Senate Doc. No. 102), set aside only the proclamations of February 22, 1897, suspending the reservations which were made upon the recommendation of the committee of the academy until March 1, 1898, presumably to give time for the adjustment of private claims and to more carefully delimit the reservations. For this purpose an appropriation of $150,000 to survey the reservations under the supervision of the Director of the Geological Survey was made. The provisos attached to this appropriation embody the most important forestry legislation thus far enacted by Congress. These provisos had been in the main formulated in the above-cited bill known as the McRae Bill, which was passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate of the Fifty-third Congress--without, however, becoming a law; and again had passed the House in the Fifty-fourth Congress, it being the legislation advocated by the American Forestry Association as a first step toward a more elaborate forest administration of the public timber
Page 406
lands. Excluding minor items, the law provides that--
"All public lands heretofore designated and reserved by the President of the United States under the provisions of the act approved March third, eighteen hundred and ninety-one, the orders for which shall be and remain in force and effect, unsuspended and unrevoked, and all public lands that may hereafter be set aside and reserved as public forest reserves under said act, shall be as far as practicable controlled and administered in accordance with the following provisions:--
"'No public forest reservation shall be established, except to improve and protect the forest within the reservation, or for the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flow, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of citizens of the United States; but it is not the purpose or intent of these provisions or of the act providing for such reservations to authorize the inclusion therein of lands more valuable for the mineral therein or for agricultural purposes than for forest purposes.
"'For the purpose of preserving the living and growing timber and promoting the younger growth on forest reservations, the Secretary of the Interior, under such rules and regulations as he shall prescribe, may cause to be designated and appraised so much of the dead, matured, or large growth of trees found on such forest reservations as may be
Page 407
compatible with the proper utilization of the forests thereon, and may sell the same for not less than the appraised value in such quantities to each purchaser as he shall prescribe, to be used in the State or Territory in which such timber reservation may be situated, respectively, but not for export therefrom. Before such sale shall take place, notice thereof shall be given by the Commissioner of the General Land Office for not less than sixty days, by publication in a newspaper of general circulation, published in the county in which the timber is situated, if any is therein published, and if not, then in a newspaper of general circulation published nearest to the reservation, and also in a newspaper of general circulation published at the capital of the State or Territory where such reservation exists; payments for such timber to be made to the receiver of the local land office of the district wherein said timber may be sold, under such rules and regulations as the Secretary of the Interior may prescribe; and the moneys arising therefrom shall be accounted for by the receiver of such land office to the Commissioner of the General Land Office in a separate account, and shall be covered into the Treasury. Such timber, before being sold, shall be marked and designated, and shall be cut and removed under the supervision of some person appointed for that purpose by the Secretary of the Interior, not interested in the purchase or removal of such
Page 408
timber nor in the employment of the purchaser thereof. Such supervisor shall make a report in writing to the Commissioner of the General Land Office and to the receiver in the land office in which such reservation shall be located of his doings in the premises.
"'Upon the recommendation of the Secretary of the Interior, with the approval of the President, after sixty days' notice thereof, published in two papers of general circulation in the State or Territory wherein any forest reservation is situated and near the said reservation, any public lands embraced within the limits of any forest reservation which, after due examination by personal inspection of a competent person appointed for that purpose by the Secretary of the Interior, shall be found better adapted for mining or for agricultural purposes than for forest usage, may be restored to the public domain. And any mineral lands in any forest reservation which have been or which may be shown to be such, and subject to entry under the existing mining laws of the United States and the rules and regulations applying thereto, shall continue to be subject to such location and entry, notwithstanding any provisions herein contained.'"
The law authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to permit the use of timber and stone by bona-fide settlers, miners, etc., for fire wood, fencing, buildings, mining, prospecting, and other domestic purposes. It protects the rights of actual settlers
Page 409
within the reservations, empowers them to build wagon-roads to their holdings, enables them to build schools and churches, and provides for the exchange of such for allotments outside the reservation limits. The state within which a reservation is located maintains its jurisdiction over all persons within the boundaries of the reserve.
Under the above enactment, the commissioner of the General Land Office has formulated rules and regulations for the forest reservations, and a survey of the reserves is being made by the United States Geological Survey, the appropriations for such a survey having been continued from year to year, and the date for the segregation of agricultural lands and their return to the public domain open for entry having been deferred.
The appointment of forest superintendents, rangers, etc., although not with technical knowledge, to take charge of the reservations marks the beginning of a settled policy of the United States Government to take care of its long-neglected forest lands.
Gradually the people of the Western states, who were opposed to the reservation policy, believing it an interference of their rights and an impediment to settlement, have learned to appreciate the wisdom and the object of the reservations, especially in the irrigation districts. Annually new areas are being reserved and the administrative features developed. At present writing there are set aside 58,850,000 acres in 56 reservations, including
Page 410
two in Alaska, varying in size from a few thousand to several million acres.
The administration of these reserves is still of the crudest kind, and forestry practice is as yet hardly attempted. In fact, the organization of the forestry service is still in embryonic condition. The administration of the reserves lies with the Department of the Interior, through a Forestry Division, under the Commissioner of the General Land Office. Meanwhile the technical knowledge is gradually developed in the Department of Agriculture.
The Forestry Division of the Department of Agriculture, dignified by being elevated to a bureau in 1901, is still without administrative function and occupies only an advisory position. But by an increase in appropriations ($146,280 for the year 1902) it has been able to extend its field considerably. It makes so-called working plans for the timber lands of private forest owners and planting plans, and investigates forest conditions, rates of growth, and other matters of interest, as before, only on an extended scale. It should, of course, be in charge of the public forest reservations, and introduce such technical management of the same as the case may permit.
To add to the curiosities and incongruities of the situation a third agency, the Geological Survey, has in charge the survey and description of the forest reservations with a view of delimiting the areas to
Page 411
be kept permanently as such. We have, then, three government offices, organically disconnected, albeit working in harmony as far as possible, intrusted with the forestry interests of the federal government. It is hoped that only a short time will elapse before logic will have its day, unity will be established, and a forest administration under the Bureau of Forestry will be inaugurated.
Curiously, too, we find that in one of our outlying possessions, the Philippine Islands, we are farther progressed in establishing a proper forest policy than at home. Here the Spanish Government had long ago established a forestry bureau to superintend the exploitation of the public timber lands. The United States fell heir to the lands, some 20 or 30 million acres, and to the bureau. By good fortune the administration of this bureau came into the hands of an army officer who had for some years interested himself in the forestry question, and under his efficient guidance the management of this part of the public domain promises soon to be on a rational basis.
We see then that the Federal Government has made a fair beginning toward establishing a definite forest policy, that a few states have also entered upon more or less definite plans to advance a state policy or secure private interest, and that the number of private owners who contemplate the advisability of practising forestry on their properties is rapidly growing.
|