No. 7. DEPARTMEINT OF AGRICULTURE. 465 



petuation is surprising. One can hardly pick up a newspaper or a 

 magazine to-day without finding numerous news and notes and often 

 splendidly illustrated articles on the development of forestry in the 

 different states and throughout the country. 



FORESTRY OF ANCIENT ORIGIN. 



Because the present forestry movement is of recent origin in this 

 country does not argue that it is a new practice or profession. 

 Japan has practiced forestry for the past twelve hundred years, and 

 Germany and other countries of Europe have had well developed 

 systems of forestry for the past one hundred years or more. Even 

 in this country during our Colonial period those who made our 

 laws and considered the future of our country kept the protection 

 of our forests constantly in mind and many regulations were passed 

 in the behalf of the forest. Exeter, which is now in the State of 

 New Hampshire, as early as 1640 made regulations as to the protec- 

 tion of forests and the planting of oak. William Penn, in 1682, or- 

 dained that "the grantee must keep one-sixth of his land in forest." 

 As early as 1780 all of the thirteen colonies had forest fire laws. Be- 

 fore 1820 our government had appropriated considerable sums for 

 the purchase of forest lands to provide for future supplies of ship- 

 building timber, and even went so far as to begin the planting of 

 live oak forests. It is somewhat surprising, in view of the early 

 efforts of our thirteen colonies and later of the United States, that 

 our Congress during the past year could find no precedent for the 

 purchase of lands in the Appalachian and White Mountains to be 

 reserved for the protection of the head waters of navigable streams. 

 But all the early laws regarding the protection and perpetuation of 

 forests soon became obsolete, because of the vastness of the forests 

 and the tremendous struggle which our forefathers had in subduing 

 the forests for agricultural purposes. The forests harbored the 

 marauding Indian, and as the early settlers pushed west, they 

 cleared the forests, not only for the development of agriculture, but 

 to protect their homes against wi.d animals and wilder Indians. 

 In one sense the forest was an enemy to be overcome and the past 

 two or three generations have actually thought in terms of forest 

 destruction, with no ideas as to forest conservation. The tremend- 

 ous commercial development of this country during the past 30 

 years has produced a type of business men with an unnatural and 

 feverish desire for the accumulation of money, and to satisfy this 

 desire our forests — the grandest and most extensive the world has 

 ever seen — have disappeared like snow before a warm spring sun. 



WHAT FORESTRY MEANS. 



By forestry we mean the business-like management of forests. 

 The meaning of forestry varies somewhat in this country according 

 to the section in which it is considered. Throughout the prairie sec- 

 tion the people understand forestry as tree planting; in other sec- 

 tions it is understood to be the protection of forests from fire; and 

 in still others we are glad to say that it is getting to be considered as 

 the careful lumbering of our forests with the idea of insuring future 

 forests on the same ground. During the early days of interest in 

 forestry in this country the whole matter was looked at largely from 

 a sentimental standpoint, which might be illustrated by the first line 

 of the poem "Woodman spare that tree." In some instances the 

 30—7—1908. 



