182 OUR USE OF THE LAND 



pattern through all the American settlements from the At 

 lantic Coast to the Mississippi. The first settlers naturally 

 looked on the forests as something which had to be removed if 

 they were to plant crops. In many cases the trees were simply 

 killed by girdling, and burned. The settler used the timber 

 for fuel, housing, and fencing. 



He cleared only the better land and left the timber on the 

 poor and rocky soils. Though a good deal of poor land has 

 been unwisely cleared for farming, the bulk of the clearing for 

 agriculture was necessary. The real forest problem has come 

 chiefly from the destruction of forests by commercial lumber 

 ing on the vast area of remaining forest land that was not 

 suitable for farming. 



This rapid destruction really started when the American 

 people began to gather in towns and cities. By the early 1 SCO's 

 these cities and towns became a market for timber. At the same 

 time, the canals, the Cumberland Road, and, later, the rail 

 roads, were able to carry lumber from distant forests to the 

 market. 



These two factors, markets and transportation, combined to 

 start a period of tremendous timber cutting. Depleted forest 

 land sped like a rash westward through New England, New 

 York, Pennsylvania, and the Lake states, then south through 

 the southern pine country and finally to the virgin forests of 

 the Far West. 



The attitude of the federal government toward the use of 

 forest land was originally the same as that of the farmer. From 

 the system of land grants under the Northwest Ordinance to 

 the Timber and Stone Act of 1878, the forest resources were 

 ignored. The original land grants to the western railroads had 

 not recognized the value of timberland. The railroads were per 

 mitted to take the government land grants whether they had 

 timber on them or not. The government felt that this was fair 



