EDITORIAL 



FORESTRY LAWS AND LEGISLATION 



A 



T THIS season, during the sessions 

 of the National Congress and 

 of the legislatures of the differ- 

 ent States, many measures of 

 vital importance to forestry are being 

 considered, some of which are good 

 and some bad. The beneficial legisla- 

 tion should pass; the injurious measures 

 must be vigorously opposed. But how 

 are congressmen and legislators to 

 distinguish good forestry laws from bad '' 

 The American Forestry Association 

 assumes that forestry itself is good — 

 that its necessity is proved and its 

 benefits demonstrated. Good laws, on 

 this basis, are laws which promote 

 forestry and make it possible to grow 

 trees successfully, whether under Na- 

 tional, State or private management. 



The experience of a century in Europe 

 and of two decades in this country has 

 indicated the conditions demanded for 

 successful forest production. Two req- 

 uisites are fundamental — forest land 

 set aside for tree growth and a body of 

 foresters independent of party politics, 

 trained in their profession, and em- 

 ployed permanently to develop the 

 forest and bring the work to a successful 

 conclusion. The development of the 

 actual practice of forestry on the 

 National Forests is due wholly to the 

 personal ability and training of the men 

 who compose the present Forest Service. 

 In the fourteen years preceding 1905, 

 when these lands were under the United 

 States Land Office, practically no 

 development took place. Whatever has 

 been accomplished since then is due to 



their transfer to the Department of 

 Agriculture, under the management of 

 Gifford Pinchot and Henry S. Graves, 

 trained foresters. 



Any measure w^hich proposes to 

 remove these National Forests from the 

 control of the trained organization of 

 the Forest Service, whether by transfer 

 to some other Government bureau or 

 by grants of additional lands to Western 

 States, strikes at the fundamental 

 condition which promises efficient forest 

 management. 



This is a defect in Secretary of Interior 

 Lane's proposed plan for a local com- 

 mission to govern Alaska which may be 

 overcome by the aiDpointment of a for- 

 ester or a man capable of efficient forest 

 management as a member of the com- 

 mission, as well as the understanding 

 that the forests shall be administered in 

 the same efficient manner as under the 

 Forest Service, and with the Forest 

 Service acting in a close advisory 

 capacity. 



Reprehensible is H. R. Bill 1602, which 

 proposes to throw open for homestead 

 settlement all lands now protected by 

 National ownership which have especial 

 value for recreation. Under the guise 

 of "summer homesteads" this bill 

 permits the private acquisition of camp- 

 ing sites, lake shores and other lands of 

 inestimable future value to the public. 



In the class of good legislation before 

 Congress falls the appropriation to 

 continue the work undertaken through 

 the Weeks Law — the purchase of addi- 

 tional lands in the Appalachians and 



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