enhanced value of forest products, so that for about thirty years there has been an accelerating movement under private auspices designed to awaken and educate the public in regard to forestry methods, and to further the cause of forestry as a national policy expressed through Congress, and for the proper protection of the timbered portion of the public domain. In this connection due credit should not fail to be given to the late J. Sterling Morton, Secretary of Agriculture from 1893 to 1897, who instituted in Nebraska in 1872 the annual Arbor Day, which institution has now come to be recognized by every state and territory. The tree planting which is a feature of Arbor Day has, perhaps, amounted to little, but the educative value of the observance of the day has been great, particularly in planting in the minds of the school children of the country the seed of ideas which will bear fruit as they come to citizenship.

The propaganda in favor of forest preservation for a long time made slow progress. Perhaps the first movement toward a national forestry association was in 1875 when a call was issued for a convention in Chicago. This association was organized in the following year at Philadelphia, but there its history practically ends. This attempt at organization doubtless grew out of the first effort to ascertain the forest resources of the United States, which was made by Professor F. W. Brewer in connection with the Ninth Census. In 1873 the American Society for the Advancement of Science had memorialized Congress and the state legislatures to "promote the cultivation of timber and preserve the forests" by proper legislation.

The American Forestry Congress, which afterward became the American Forestry Association, was organized at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1882 through the influence of Baron von Steuben, chief forester of Germany. Doctor B. E. Fernow, subsequently Chief of the Forestry Division of the Department of Agriculture, was made secretary.

The subsequent fifteen years were largely years of preparation and education. The American Forestry Association, holding regular meetings annually and special meetings at other times in different parts of the country, has centered and organized all private efforts to advance the forestry movement. Its public proceedings form a library of technical and practical value to all students, not only of forestry but of the forestry movement. It publishes also a monthly journal called Forestry and Irrigation. The Association, which was incorporated in January, 1897, now has nearly 3,000 members, representing every state in the Union, Canada and foreign countries.

The objects of this Association are to promote:

1. A business-like and conservative use and treatment of the forest resources of this country;

2. The advancement of legislation tending to this end, both in the states and the Congress of the United States, the inauguration of forest administration by the Federal government and by the states; and the extension of sound forestry by all proper methods;

3. The diffusion of knowledge regarding the conservation, management and renewal of forests, the proper utilization of their products, methods of reafforestation of waste lands, and the planting of trees.

The annual dues of the Association for regular members are $2, which includes its official organ; for sustaining members, $25. A life membership is secured on payment of $100, requiring no further dues; while any person contributing $1,000 to the funds of the Association is called a patron.

The officers of the American Forestry Association, chosen at the annual meeting held in Washington, District of Columbia, in 1905, are as follows:

President, Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture; first vice president, James W. Pinchot, Washington, District of Columbia; recording secretary, Edward A. Bowers, New Haven, Connecticut; corresponding secretary, H. M. Suter, Washington, District of Columbia; treasurer, Otto Luebkert, Washington, District of Columbia. Directors, James Wilson, William L. Hall, Otto Luebkert, George P. Whittlesey, Henry S. Graves, B. E. Fernow, F. H. Newell, Gifford Pinchot, Edward A. Bowers, George K. Smith, William S. Harvey. Vice presidents, Sir Henri Joly de Lotbinière, Victoria, British Columbia; Charles C. Georgeson, Sitka, Alaska; John L. Kaul, Birmingham, Alabama; B. A. Fowler, Phoenix, Arizona; T. P. Lukens, Pasadena, California; W. G. M. Stone, Denver, Colorado; Austin F. Hawes, New Haven, Connecticut; Henry M. Canby, Wilmington, Delaware; John Joy Edson, Washington, District of Columbia; Elihu Stewart, Ottawa, Ontario; Charles H. Herty, Greencove Springs, Florida; R. B. Reppard, Savannah, Georgia; J. T. Pence, Boise, Idaho; Charles Deering, Chicago, Illinois; W. H. Freeman, Indianapolis, Indiana; Hugh P. Baker, Ames, Iowa; George W. Tincher, Topeka, Kansas; S. C. Mason, Berea, Kentucky; Lewis Johnson, New Orleans, Louisiana; John E. Hobbs, North Berwick, Maine; Edward L. Mellus, Baltimore, Maryland; Alfred Akerman, Boston, Massachusetts; Filibert Roth, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Samuel B. Green, St. Anthony Park, Minnesota; William Trelease, St. Louis, Missouri; Charles E. Bessey, Lincoln, Nebraska; Frank W. Rollins, Concord, New Hampshire; John Gifford, Princeton, New Jersey; William F. Fox, Albany, New York; C. A. Schenck, Biltmore, North Carolina; William R. Lazenby, Columbus, Ohio; S. C. Bartrum, Roseburg, Oregon; William T. Little, Perry, Oklahoma; J. T. Rothrock, Westchester, Pennsylvania; George Peabody Wetmore, Newport, Rhode Island; George H. Whiting, Yankton, South Dakota ; William L. Bray, Austin, Texas; Luke Lea, Nashville, Tennessee; George L.

Swendsen, Salt Lake City, Utah; George Aitken, Woodstock, Vermont; D. O. Nourse, Blacksburg, Virginia; Thomas L. Burke, Seattle, Washington; A. D. Hopkins, Morgantown, West Virginia; E. M. Griffith, Madison, Wisconsin; Joseph M. Carey, Cheyenne, Wyoming; William Little, Montreal, Quebec; George P. Ahern, Manila, Philippine Islands; William R. Castle, Hawaii; J. H. McLeary, San Juan, Porto Rico.

A notable development is the active interest taken by operating lumbermen in the affairs of the American Forestry Association and in the practical working out of the problems involved. For many years American lumbermen, for the most part, held aloof from the movement, largely owing to the impracticable theories promulgated by many of those most prominent in public discussion of the forestry question; but with the entrance into the work of men of education and practical ideas, and with the approach of the time when it will be possible to apply the principles of forestry to individual timber holdings, the forestry movement has come to have the support of multitudes of individual lumbermen and of organizations of lumber producers and timber owners.

Among the other societies concerned in the promotion of forestry are the International Society of Arboriculture, of which General William J. Palmer, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, is president; Henry John Elwes, F. R. S., of Colesborne, Cheltenham, England, vice president, and J. P. Brown, of Connersville, Indiana, secretary; and the Society of American Foresters, of which Gifford Pinchot, of Washington, District of Columbia, is president and George B. Sudworth, of Washington, District of Columbia, is secretary.

STATE FORESTRY WORK.

In the development of a forestry policy the general Government has had the moral assistance of nearly all of the states, and has profited by their successes and mistakes.

To Wisconsin belongs the honor of having created the first forest commission ever appointed by any of the states; but the first forestry association organized for the purpose of advancing state forestry interests was formed on January 12, 1876, in St. Paul, Minnesota, 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 the "Tree Planters' Manual." Revised editions are issued from time to time, the State aiding in the promotion of this missionary work.

MINNESOTA.

The great Hinckley forest fire of 1894 aroused the people of Minnesota to the necessity of forest protection and resulted in the enactment

of an excellent forest fire warden law which was approved in April, 1895. By its provisions township officials are ex-officio fire wardens. There is a chief fire warden who superintends the fire warden system and issues annual reports. Two-thirds of the expenses are borne by the county in which they are incurred, and the State pays the other onethird; but no county can expend under this law more than $500.

This law has worked excellently. Notwithstanding some very dry and hazardous seasons, in which forest fires were numerous, the damage has been insignificant. The loss by forest fires in Minnesota, according to the reports of the fire wardens, has averaged only $35,000 a year, while Minnesota forests, at a conservative estimate, are worth $100,000,000. An estimate of the chief fire warden, based on reports, figures that, subsequent to settlement and previous to 1895, there was destroyed within the State $4,232,000 worth of timber. It is estimated that there are in Minnesota 5,000,000 acres of land suitable only for growing timber. Minnesota has the Itasca State Park, of 19,000 acres (200 miles north of St. Paul), of which 7,600 acres were given by Congress on condition that the State would protect the timber, and 2,452 acres bought of the Northern Pacific Railway Company for fifty cents an acre. The park is well wooded with pine and other varieties of trees.

An act, approved April 28, 1904, was passed by Congress granting 20,000 acres of land to Minnesota for experimental forestry purposes. The lands selected are in a body a few miles north of Ely, in St. Louis County.

Wisconsin's first forest commission was appointed in 1867, but the results were not important. In 1893, however, a state forestry association was organized, which procured the passage of bills in the legislature providing for foresters in charge and giving the forest fire protection, and also issued circulars of instruction for settlers and farmers within the forest area of the State. In 1895 a fire law modeled on the Minnesota statute, but less effective in character, was passed. In 1897 a commission of inquiry, coöperating with the chief of forestry, did some work in this State, and in 1898 a new fire warden law was passed.

Maine appointed a board of commissioners in 1869, and in 1872 an act was passed encouraging tree-planting by granting a twenty-year tax exemption. In 1891 the state land agent was made forest commissioner. Since the enactment of the Maine forestry law in March, 1891,

Maine has suffered less from forest fires. An organization called the Maine Lumbermen & Land Owners' Association was formed at Bangor in February, 1896, with former Governor Davis, of Bangor, as president and Wilson Crosby, of Bangor, as treasurer.

NEW YORK.

New York has made more rapid and important progress in the solution of the forest problem than any other of the commonwealths of the Union. In 1872, by legislative enactment, there was instituted a state park commission, consisting of seven citizens with Horatio Seymour as chairman, which was instructed to make inquiries with the view to reserving or appropriating the wild lands lying northward of the Mohawk River, or so much thereof as might be deemed expedient for a state park. Finding that the State then owned only 40,000 acres in that region, the commission recommended a law forbidding further sales of state lands, and the retention of lands forfeited for the nonpayment of

taxes.

In 1883 this recommendation was acted upon, at which time the State, through reversion of private lands by the nonpayment of taxes, The following year the State Comphad secured title to 600,000 acres.

troller was authorized to employ experts to investigate and report a This commission of experts was comsystem of forest preservation. But the lumber interests of There was finally

posed of four and made a report in 1885. the State antagonized the proposed legislation. passed, however, a compromise bill entitled "An Act Establishing a Forest Commission, and to Define its Power, and for the Preservation of Forests."

The original forest commission was superseded in 1895 by the Commission of Fisheries, Game and Forests under a law passed April 25, of that year. Under this law the commission consisted of five members, and among its duties were the protection and preservation of forest This law of 1895 was a comprehensive measure, which proved extremely valuable in its workings.

reserves.

In 1897 was passed an important act, which provided for a forest preserve board which was given power to secure for the State, by purchase or otherwise, such lands as it deemed advisable for the interests of the State, and giving it the power to exercise the right of eminent domain. Large amounts of land were purchased under this provision, so that at the present time the Adirondack Forest Preserve contains about 1,350,000 acres and the Catskill Preserve nearly 85,000 acres.