CHAPTER XXVIII.

UNITED STATES-FORESTRY AND FOREST reserves.

From a time practically contemporaneous with the first colonial settlement the problem of forest economics has been recognized and debated on the American continent. The idea at first took the form of forest preservation rather than of reafforestation and progress was slow, because it combated the commercial instinct. In more recent years the forestry idea has not sought to prevent the cutting of timber, but to regulate it so that the timber crop may be continuous. It has sought not only to bring about sensible methods of timber cutting, but also to promote timber culture.

Among the early settlers of the United States the sentiment for forest protection was strong. As early as 1640 Exeter, New Hampshire, sought to regulate the cutting of oak, and in 1682 it was provided in Pennsylvania that "the grantee must keep one-sixth part of the land granted in Pennsylvania in forest." In New Jersey laws against forest fires early appeared on the statute books.

In 1701 it was reported that there were forty sawmills in the Province of New York, and, referring to one equipped with twelve saws, the Governor remarked, "A few such mills will quickly destroy all the woods in the Province at a reasonable distance from them."

The provincial assembly of New Hampshire recognized the forestry cause in 1708, by forbidding the cutting of mast trees on ungranted lands, under penalty of £100. Further, the Province had a surveyor general of forests, appointed by the Crown, for the purpose of preventing depredations upon the timber. In 1770, Adolphus Benzel, son of Archbishop Benzel, of Sweden, was appointed inspector of His Majesty's forests in the vicinity of Lake Champlain, with a salary of £300 a year.

In the days when all transportation had to be carried on by water or by wagon load, the cutting away of supplies in the immediate vicinity of settlements was a serious matter. The Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Arts and Manufactures, of New York, made an inquiry as to modes of preserving and increasing the timber growth, and in 1795 published a report on the subject. In the first years of the Nineteenth Century, the Massachusetts Society for the Promotion of Agri

culture took action, in the desire to promote the growth of forests, and offered premiums for forest plantations.

Gifford Pinchot, Chief of the United States Forest Service, says: "The conspicuous care of the forest in regions where at first it was a hindrance rather than a help in the gaining of a livelihood is explained by the early associations of the settlers. They came from a country where wood was comparatively scarce and where the penalties for its destruction were severe and strictly enforced. The respect for the forest which had been bred in their ancestors by the early English game laws and continued in themselves by enactments of extreme rigor was brought over almost without change to the new land, but it was not destined to last. A growing realization of the vast resources at their command, together with the bitter struggle of the farmer against the forest in the early days, gradually replaced care with carelessness and respect with a desire for destruction. The feeling bred by the battle against the forest began to take a dominant place in the minds of the people and to prepare that mental attitude which is still responsible for the greater part of the forest destruction even yet in undiminished progress over by far the larger part of the United States."

With the formation of the Republic the thirteen original states adopted laws for the prevention of forest fires. These were patterned after European models, but omitted the important feature of police. Some impetus was given to the consideration of forest problems in the new republic by the travels of André Michaux and his son, between 1785 and 1807, and the publication of their "North American Silva." The younger Michaux, F. André, testified to his interest in his life work and in the United States in his will, made in 1855, by which he left two legacies, in the following terms:

Wishing to recognize the services and good reception which my father and myself, together and separately, have received during our long and often perilous travels in all the extent of the United States, as a mark of my lively gratitude, and also to contribute in that country to the extension and progress of agriculture, and more especially of sylviculture in the United States, I give and bequeath to the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, of which I have the honor to be a member, the sum of $12,000; I give and bequeath to the Society of Agriculture and Arts in the State of Massachusetts, of which I have the honor to be a member, the sum of $8,000; these two sums making 180,000 francs, or, again, $20,000. I give and bequeath the sole ownership to these two abovesaid societies, and the usufruct to my wife for her life.

These bequests became available in 1870, and, while small from

present-day standards, have been, under intelligent administration, helpful along their intended lines.

PRIVATE FORESTRY.

Conditions in the United States concerning timber supplies and prices of forest products have been such that until within a few years the private practice of forestry methods has been well nigh impossible from a commercial standpoint. What has been done by private timber owners has been experimental and largely a labor of love. Even now there is a wide difference between the accepted methods of forest preservation or reafforestation in the United States and those which have been practiced for centuries in Europe. There have been occasional attempts to follow literally the methods employed by European foresters, but it is becoming progressively clearer that the conditions existing in America are quite different from those to be found on the other side of the water. A history of the forestry movement in the United States, therefore, is not merely a continuation of the story of forestry with the scene of its early chapters laid in the woods of Germany and other foreign lands. It is American forestry in the strictest sense, because it is based on American conditions. The foresters of this country are working out their own salvation to a large degree; and, while the experiences of European foresters have been of great benefit to them, the conclusion has been reached that successful forestry in America must be American forestry-an invention, not an imitation.

In Germany, for example, the forest has been as carefully cultivated as would be a flower garden by a gardener, and undesirable growth has been eliminated, to the end that every tree should produce saw timber. This method has been feasible, not only when practiced by European governments, but by individual timber holders, because sale can be found for every scrap of material, while in the United States, up to a recent time, only the better quality of body timber was available. In Europe, therefore, the practice has prevailed of absolutely denuding the land and then replanting, while in the United States another plan is dictated by commercial conditions. In the case of the average American natural forest, at the utmost a quantity not exceeding one-third of the forest growth is worth removing, because of the size, character and kind of growth, or for other reasons. When, therefore, approximately only one-third of the forest is removed, there remains, under proper cutting methods, a vast quantity of valuable young growth which it would take from ten to seventy-five years to replace by the artificial

planting of trees or seed. The American method, or rather, the method most generally adopted by the foremost American foresters, is not the planting of trees in an open field as one would plant turnips, but rather a continuous selection and cutting of only mature timber, thus permitting the immature timber-which includes two-thirds of the ordinary American forest-to attain its growth.

The time will come when the European method will prevail in the United States, but it is not yet feasible on any large scale for the practice of individual owners.

However, the country has not been without those who have attempted with greater or less success the growing of timber. Perhaps the earliest attempt at conservative forestry was made by a private citizen. In Connecticut, in 1730, Jared Elliott, of Guilford, in partnership with Governor Bulkley and Mr. Livingston, of New York, started a small blast furnace at old Salisbury. The wood used in making the charcoal for the furnace was secured from the neighboring woodlands. Henry S. Graves, in telling of the efforts of these pioneers, who created a system of conservative forestry and of subsequent private forestry, says: "Instead of clearing the forests, as was usually done, a careful system of thinning was adopted. Only the large trees were cut, while the small specimens were left standing to shade the ground and to grow to a larger size. Tradition states that under this system the owners returned for successive crops every twenty years, and it is reported that timber is still being cut periodically from this same land."

A similar system of careful cutting is said to have been used by a large number of farmers in New England early in the last century, and the practice was, without doubt, inaugurated very soon after the country became thickly settled. Some farmers went further than simply to select with care the trees which they wished to use or sell, and made thinnings with the sole view of improving the remaining trees. Thus, it appears that, in 1840, B. F. Cutter introduced on his land at Pelham, New Hampshire, a system of improvement cuttings.

The planting of forest trees on waste lands was begun in Massachusetts at a very early period. It is said that between 1740 and 1750 an experiment in planting trees for ship timber was made at Pembroke, Massachusetts. Tradition relates that the plantation was a complete success, and that timber was cut from it about 1810. Another early plantation was made in Bristol County, Massachusetts, in 1790, where a farmer stocked a field with young oak by sowing it with acorns.

One of the first experiments in planting, of which there is record, was made in 1819 at Chelmsford, Massachusetts, where Rev. J. L. Russell transplanted a large number of pitch pine seedlings from a field, which he wished to cultivate, to a stretch of barren drift sand. He was much laughed at by his neighbors, but to their astonishment the trees flourished, and in twenty years he had a fine growth of pine, six to eight inches in diameter. Of still greater interest and value as an illustration is the plantation of Zacharias Allen, at Smithfield, Rhode Island, who planted about forty acres of waste land, in 1820, to oak, hickory and locust. The seed was sowed in plowed furrows on the smooth ground, and in rough places was dropped in holes made with a hoe or a similar implement. A careful account of all expenditures and receipts was kept, and at the end of fifty-seven years the books showed a profit of 6.92 percent on the capital invested.

Priestford farm, Harford County, Maryland, was the scene of an experiment in tree planting in 1822 which was eminently successful. Many similar plantations were made in early days, but in comparatively few cases have definite records been made and preserved. Among the best known of Massachusetts plantations are those of Richard Fay, at Linn, who planted about two hundred acres with oak, ash, maple, Scotch pine and larch, and of John F. Fay, who stocked about one hundred and twenty-five acres with trees.

The history of the prairie regions of the United States and of the earlier settled and cleared regions east of the Mississippi abounds with efforts at tree planting, mostly, however, for ornamental or protective purposes. The face of the country west of the Mississippi River, as far as the one hundredth meridian, has been changed by these plantings, which, for the most part, have had no definite commercial object in view. Within the last quarter of a century, however, successful experiments have been made in growing commercial timber in the West, by which it has been demonstrated that tree growing is not only theoretically possible but commercially practicable. Among the favorite trees are black walnut and hardy catalpa. Extensive experiments are being made by railroads, both east and west, in growing ca. talpa and locust as tie timber.

FORESTRY ASSOCIATIONS.

The public interest in the question of forestry, which at first was fostered by a comparatively few far-seeing men, was strengthened and stimulated by the manifest decrease in standing timber supply and the