1 6 Main Lines of Thought and Action 



ciples of local contributions and maintenance. The Norris-Doxey Act 

 of 1937 expanded technical advisory services to privately owned for- 

 ests and also encouraged tree planting, especially in shelter belts. 



Nonmaterial values also emerged in the general national awaken- 

 ing of these recovery years. The Civilian Conservation Corps and 

 the Tennessee Valley Authority had evangelical overtones among 

 their economic objectives; but other moves, chiefly administrative, 

 were more clearly inspired by the recreation needs of the present and 

 future, and even by a nostalgia for the age of the hunter and pioneer. 

 Wildlife and game refuges had begun to appear soon after the turn of 

 the century. The first Federal Wildlife Conference was held in 1936, 

 to be followed by the institution of a national system of wildlife refuges 

 in 1937. The Pitman-Robertson Act, the Duck Stamp Act, the inter- 

 national migratory bird treaties were all products of this strand. 

 Stimulated by Aldo Leopold, the Gila Wilderness Area had been es- 

 tablished as early as 1924. In 1935, Robert Marshall and others 

 launched The Wilderness Society."* This was designed to salvage for 

 future generations some at least of the few remaining primitive wilder- 

 ness areas. The United States Forest Service instituted protective 

 regulations on its wilderness and wild areas in 1929. Meanwhile the 

 National Park System surged forward, with its acreage growing from 

 4,821,760 acres in 1916 to 15,253,535 acres in 1936 and to 24,- 

 397,985 acres in 1956. Some of this growth was by legislation; some 

 (in the shape of "national monuments") by executive orders. Con- 

 servation consciously and rationally was acquiring a new dimension 

 — actually one which it had never been without, at least emotionally, 

 from the days of that great naturalist John Muir. It was given new 



*Aldo Leopold and Robert Marshall were both active in organizing The 

 Wilderness Society. Both for many years had served with the United States 

 Forest Service. Leopold joined the Service in 1909, and in 1924, when Assist- 

 ant District Forester in Charge of Operations, entered private consultancy 

 practice; from 1933 to 1948, when he died, he was Professor of Wildlife Man- 

 agement at the University of Wisconsin, and it was during this period that he 

 produced most of his writings on wilderness areas. Marshall had joined the 

 staff of the Forest Service in 1924: from 1933 to 1937 he was Director of For- 

 estry of the Office of Indian Affairs, and from 1937 to 1939, when he died, 

 he was again with the Forest Service as Chief of the Division of Recreation and 

 Lands. It was under his leadership that the system of wilderness areas in 

 Indian reserves and national forests was created. 



