174 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



witliout serious influence upon th.e climate and water supply of the 

 State and its river systems. The horrors of the last flood, still in our 

 memory, may with good reason be connected with the rapid denuda- 

 tion of the tributary hillsides.* 



The State of Colorado, too, ordered the appointment of a forest com- 

 missioner, but omitted to make any appropriation for him. Therefore 

 the authority conferred upon him, giving him "the care of the wood 

 lands of the State, and requiring him to make and publish reasonable 

 rules and regulations for the prevention and extinguishment of fires 

 thereon and for the conservation of forest growth," &c., could not 

 be of much avail. In this emergency this Department enabled th@ 

 commissioner appointed by the governor of Cfolorado to devote his 

 time and energy, at least to some extent, to the interests of forestry, 

 by employing him to report upon the forest conditions of the Rocky 

 Mountain region. His valuable report is just completed, f 



FORESTRY DIVISION. 



The attention of Congress having been called repeatedly to the ne- 

 cessity for a definite forest policy for the United States, the Commis- 

 sioner of Agriculture was required by an act of August 15, 1876, to 

 appoint — 



"some man of approved attainments, and practically well acquainted with the 

 methods of statistical inquiry, with a view of ascertaining the annual amount of 

 consumption, importation, and exportation of timber and other forest products; the 

 probable supply for future wants; the means best adapted to the preservation and re- 

 newal of forests; the influence of forest vipon climate; the measures that have been 

 successfully applied in various countries for the preservation and restoration or 

 planting of forests; and to report vipon the same to the Commissioner of Agriculture, 

 to be by him transmitted in a special report to Congress." 



After two reports had been prepared upon the subject by the late 

 Dr. F. B. Hough, the work became in 1881 the object of a Forestry 

 Division, as part of the organization of the Department, for the pur- 

 pose of "investigating and reporting upon tiie subject of forestry." 

 In 188-1, without increasing the appropriation, the duty of making 

 experiments was added to the functions of the Division ; and in 1885 

 "the collection and distribution of valuable economic tree seeds" was 

 also required, to which ' ' plants " has been added for the present year. X 

 No record of experiments is at hand, and the distribuLtion of seeds 

 has been very limited. On account of our large extent of country and 

 its differences of requirement as to kinds of trees, this provision must 



* The value of the property in the Ohio Valley destroyed by the flood of 1883 has 

 been estimated at $60,000,000. Nor will this seem an unwarranted estimate, large 

 as it is, when we consider that the area drained by the Ohio River is not less than 

 214,000 square miles, or twenty-two times as large as that drained by the Connecti- 

 cut! The Ohio Valley drains portions of thhteen States. 



f The reappointment of Col. E. T. Ensign as forest commissioner, with enlarged, 

 powers and suitable appropriation of means, places the forestry interests of Colorado 

 on a safer basis. 



X It is worthy of note that this mode of encouraging forest growing is quite ex- 

 tensively i»racticed on the Continent and elsewhere. 



During the last year the Bohemian Forest' Department and forestry associations 

 distributed 4,000,000 seedlings, of which nearly 4,000,000 were coniferous. Double 

 the amount is prepared for distribution next year. Tlie same is done in Styria. The 

 Hungarian Department of Commerce distributes plant material free on board cars. 

 In 1884 the Prussian Forest Department distributed over 25,000,000 seedlings. The 

 large subventions in material and in money granted by the French Government 

 for reforestation have been often pointed out in former reports. 



