FOREST PRESERVATION. 



[With 7 plates.] 



By Henry S. Graves, 

 Forester and Chief of Forest Service, Department of Agriculture. 



Ten years ago, in the Smithsonian Report for 1901, Gifford 

 Pinchot, then Chief of the Division of Forestry, discussed the subject 

 of forest destruction. He pointed out that the attitude of the public 

 in the United States on the forest question showed two sharply con- 

 flicting opinions. One of these regarded forest destruction as an end 

 to be sought in the interest of development. The other regarded 

 forest preservation as an unmixed good and an end in itself always 

 and everywhere desirable. Contrasted with both these views there 

 was set forth another, in words pregnant with the spirit of the un- 

 born conservation movement : 



From the point of view of national progress the one opinion is as mistaken 

 as the other. Both are likely to be survived by that phase of thought which 

 regards forest protection as a means, not an end ; which contends that every 

 part of the land surface should be given that use under which it will con- 

 tribute most to the general prosperity, and the purpose of whose action is best 

 phrased, in the language of President Roosevelt, as " the perpetuation of forests 

 by use." 



The progress in practical forest preservation which has been made 

 in the 10-year interval since Mr. Pinchot's article on forest destruc- 

 tion was written may fairly be called startling. In 1901, of the 

 relatively few persons who were alive to the fact that some kind of 

 action must be taken to offset the effects of forest destruction, nearly 

 all either lacked any definite program for the solution of the forest 

 problem or favored remedies which were incapable of meeting the 

 situation. The two remedies commonly proposed were the provision 

 of new supplies through tree planting, largely by farmers, and the 

 reservation of existing supplies through the prohibition of use. As 

 early as 1873 Congress had attempted to promote tree planting as a 

 means of providing timber supplies in the naturally treeless regions, 

 by passing the timber-culture act, which granted homesteads to set- 

 tlers on condition that one-fourth of the entries should be planted 

 with trees; and the idea that forestation could be developed on a 

 97578°— SM 1910 28 433 



