266 Nebraska State Horticultural Society. 



With the act of 1850, making "free grants of public lands to aid 

 in the construction of railroads" came a period of wide open exploita- 

 tion. A little later a curious movement sprang up — a movement to 

 plant new forests and let the old ones go. This idea was given 

 expression in the law of 187 3, known as the Timber Culture Act. 

 It gave a citizen a chance to acquire 160 acres of land, if he in turn 

 should plant a certain per cent of it to forest trees. Here then was 

 an offer on the part of the government to give away millions of 

 acres of public land in order to create new forests, while scarcely 

 a dollar was spent to protect the natural forests which we already 

 had. So far, however, as the law had for its object the bringing about 

 of tree culture in the treeless region it was in theory highly commend- 

 able, but in practice it proved to be very bad. Under this act thirty- 

 seven million acres were entered, however, but eight and one-baJf 

 millions were finally proved up. Had the law been strictly complied 

 with even on this amount, it would have meant that one million 

 acres had been added to our forest area. But it is very probable 

 that nine-tenths of these filings were fraudulent, hence were ac- 

 companied by no attempt at tree planting. With the remaining 

 one-tenth an honest attempt was made to comply with the law. Yet 

 this effort was largely a failure, owing to the lack of knowledge 

 as to the best trees to plant and how to plant them. On the whole 

 there is little in the way of additional forest land left to the credit of 

 the Timber Culture Act. So futile had it been and so flagrantly had 

 it been violated that in 1891 it was finally repealed. 



Section 24 of the bill passed by congress, repealing the timber 

 claim law, gave the President of the United States power to "set 

 apart and reserve in any state or territory having public lands, 

 wholly or in part covered with timber or undergrowth, whether of 

 commercial value of not, public reservations." Reserves followed 

 but no provision was made for their protection. Indeed the idea 

 of taking care of the forest reserves was a matter of very slow growth. 

 At length, however, due in large measure to the able work of Hon. 

 Hoke Smith, a law was enacted in 1897, giving the Secretary of 

 Interior power to establish a first class forest service, which was put 

 into execution so far as the means at hand would permit. 



Up to the present time more than one hundred million acres have 

 been set aside as national forest reserves. These reserves are all in 

 the west and are selected mainly with a view to protecting the head 

 waters of streams. The United States government should add to these 

 holdings in the west wherever it is feasible. Besides this the govern- 

 ment should acquire large forest areas In the east, including some In 



