THE AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 57 



THE AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 

 By Ovid M. Butler, Secretary 



The American Forestry Association is the oldest forestry associa- 

 tion in America. It was first organized in 1875, and through a 

 reorganization in 1882 it became the national forestry association of 

 the United States, a place which it has since occupied. The Association 

 sprang from the early recognition that the forests of the United States 

 were being destroyed under a policy which reaped with wasteful 

 rapacity and sowed with seeds of fire. It was founded on the sound 

 principle that a permanent and sufficient supply of home-grown 

 forests is essential to the Nation ; that the forest bears an important 

 and direct relation to stream flow and favorable soil conditions, and 

 that a certain portion of our soil is chiefly adaptable to the growing 

 of forests and must be used for that purpose if permanent national 

 prosperity is to be achieved. It recognized that fire is the great enemy 

 of forests, present and future. 



Beginning with a small membership of men who foresaw the 

 danger of an aimless and destructive policy of lumbering and forest 

 depletion, the Association has grown steadily year by year, drawing to 

 it great numbers of patriotic citizens who, alarmed at the rapidity 

 with which the forests are being destroyed, have welcomed the 

 opportunity of allying themselves with the national organization 

 representing the public's interest in forest conservation. 



The Association espoused, with vigorous leadership, the cause of 

 forest conservation by wise use. To it more than to any other agency 

 belongs the credit for having brought together the forest sentiment 

 of the country and given life to the early forest movement of 

 America. The American Forestry Association stands today with a 

 long record of efficient public service back of it. The establishment of 

 the Bureau of Forestry of the United States, which later became the 

 present Forest Service, was largely due to its early influence. In the 

 nineties, many of our National Forests in the West, then known as 

 Forest Reserves, were saved to the people of the United States by its 

 persistent efforts. During the days when the present Weeks Law, 

 under which the National Forests are being acquired in the East, was 

 being urged upon Congress, the Association was the rallying centre 

 of leadership and was an influential factor in making that law possible. 



