EEPORT OF THE SECEETARY. 23 Y 



lished State reservations in the Adirondack and Catskill Mountains 

 and had inau^irated a system of fire protection for them, but along 

 lines incapable of yielding effective results. In Ma}^ 1897, Penn- 

 sylvania enacted the law under which a policy of forest reservations 

 was inaugurated for that State. Unlike New York, Pennsylvania 

 did not adopt restrictions which closed these reservations against any 

 actual practice of forestry upon them, but it had neither field work 

 nor field force. There was no professional forester in the employ of 

 any State in the Union. There are now 20 such State foresters. 

 Thirty-three States have enacted laws shaped in the light of the 

 knowledge made available by the work of the Department of Agri- 

 culture. Thirty-one States have sought and received the assistance 

 of the department in the study of their forest problems. The entire 

 movement for State forestry is the outgrowth of the work done by 

 this department in the last 16 years, with the single exception of the 

 movement in the State of Pennsylvania; and even there, though 

 independently and ably led, most of the progi-ess made could hardly 

 have come about had there been no national movement to help it 

 along. 



Hand in hand with the creation of the science and development of 

 the practice of American forestry, the awakening of the country at 

 large to the issues involved and the crystallizing of sentiment into 

 definitely formulated public policy, went the promotion of more 

 economical use of the material drawn from our forests. To make 

 what we have go further was equivalent to an augmentation of the 

 supply. Study of the whole problem of utilization was pressed into 

 varied fields. 



PRESERVATIVE TREATMENT OF WOOD. 



The preservative treatment of wood against decay was in 1897 

 practically unknown in the United States. Investigations to show 

 what would be the money gain to the railroads through lowered costs 

 of maintenance if ties were treated to prolong their life, and what 

 form of treatment would prove most advantageous, were begun in 

 1903. To-day one-fourth of the ties used in the United States are 

 given treatment and the number treated increases j^early, while 

 another large fraction gain greater durability through recognition 

 of the value of proper seasoning, as developed by our investigations. 

 Methods of preservative treatment suitable for the use of farmers, 

 whose fence post needs create in the aggregate an immense demand 

 for material, have been devised. Telephone and telegraph companies 

 are beginning to treat their poles and mine operators their timbers. 

 This is but a single example of the way in which economies have 

 been made possible. One or two others may be briefly mentioned; 

 but an exhaustive list even of the leading achievements in this general 

 field can not be entered upon here. 



