FORESTRY AND THE MUSEUM 



THE MU.-SKL.M A I'OWKK FOH TIIK EDUCATION OF TIIK PUBLIC KKGAUDING 

 IMl'OUTANT OUESTIONS OF TIIK rK.UIOl) 



Bi/ J. W. Toumcy 



(Acting directok ok the yai.e forest school and morris k. jescp professor of 

 silviculture, member of the appointive committee of woods and forestry of the 

 american mcsedm of natural history] 



AT 11(1 jKTuxl of our national life has tin.- j)ui)li(.- been so keenly alive 

 to the importance of our forests and what they mean to the future 

 welfare of the nation. We have in comparatively recent years 

 segregated more than 19(),()( 10,000 acres from our iiational domain and with- 

 drawn it from settlement that it might remain forever the forest property 

 of the nation. \Vc are asking in the Weeks Bill ' now before Congress 

 that large areas in the Appalachian and White Mountains be purchased 

 outright by the national government to form a part of the forest property 

 of the nation. Many of the states, as is the case with Xew York and 

 PennsyKania have already purchased large tracts of forest property and 

 set them aside as forest jireserves. The present outlook appears to indicate 

 that many such reserxes will be established in the states east of the Great 

 Plains in the near future. As a nation we are demanding the conservation 

 of our forest property and asking private owners of forest property to manage 

 it in accordance with the ideas of scientific forestry. Although the public 

 is fully in accord with the idea of national and state forests and fully realizes 

 the need for a better utilization of our forest property, it is yet woefully 

 ignorant regarding the forest as a li\ing thing and has l)ut little informatioTi 



1 The Weeks Bill is sclieduled to come up for Senate vote on February 1.5, lltll. It is 

 as follows: 



"To enable any state to cooperate with any other state or states, or with the Unitetl 

 .Stati>s for the protection of the watersheds of navigable streams, and to appoint a 

 commission for the acquisition of lands for the i)urpose of conservinfj the naviga- 

 bility of navigable rivers." 



This bill, the product of the combined study of some of the ablest men in ('(mgress, is a 

 general coaservation bill for the c-reation of natioiuil forests. Tlie immediate interest, how- 

 ever, lies in the Ai)palachian and White Mountain region controlling the watersheds of the 

 most imi)ortant rivers of the East and the South and containing a great jiart of the timber 

 supply. 



The qu(>siion of reserves for the East has been under discussion for ten years. The 

 Week.s Bill itself has previously pa.ssed the Senate three times and the House once. In the 

 sixty-flrsl Congress it again passed the House, .Tune 24. 191(); it was filibustered in the Senate, 

 however, so that Congrc^ss adjourned without a pa.ssage of the bill. 



From Tree-i and Forenlr;/ \\n press]. Department of Woods and Forestry 



of the American Mu.seum. 39 



