THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 155 



forest legislation — Governor Hartranft — met with no 

 response from the people. A dozen years passed away 

 before the matter came up again, and a report to 

 Governor Beaver was authorized, paving the way for 

 legislation ; but nothing came of it. Governor Patti- 

 son (1891-4) succeeded in getting favorable legisla- 

 tion for 3 preserves, of 40,000 acres each, from lands 

 sold for taxes. Governor Stone, (1899), found that 

 the state owned less than 20,000 acres of forest land, 

 and in 1901, he succeeded in getting a favoring law, 

 under which half a million acres were purchased, before 

 his administration closed, in 1903. Under that law 

 we soon had about a million acres of forest preserves. 

 But recent additions have been of slight importance. 



Hereafter no administration should be approved of, 

 that has failed to add to our forests a hundred thou- 

 sand acres, by purchase and planting trees, until a mag- 

 nificent total of ten million acres are under state con- 

 trol. In various counties, such unreasonable valuations 

 for taxation have been made by the assessors and con- 

 firmed by the county commissioners, supported by the 

 people, that owners of forest lands have been forced to 

 cut and market the timber to avoid total confiscation of 

 their estates. This did not tend toward the preserva- 

 tion of the forests, in private ownership, nor invite 

 capital to reinvestment in renewing forests for another 

 generation ; but it did compel the investors to liquidate, 

 as fast as possible, and to allow the denuded lands to 

 be sold for taxes, or to the Commonwealth for forest 

 renewal. 



