PENNSYLVANIA FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 81 



larly issued. Circulars were also prepared and issued on various 

 forestry topics. In the year 1892, the late Dr. J. T. Rothrock was 

 secured as Secretary, and he made successful lecturing tours through- 

 out the State to arouse citizens to the importance of the subject. In 

 1893 the Association prepared a bill advocating the formation of a 

 Forestry Commission to study the subject of forestry in Pennsylvania, 

 and to report in 1895. This bill was passed by the Legislature and the 

 Governor appointed Doctor Rothrock the botanist member. 



When this report was presented in 1895, a bill was introduced in 

 the Legislature creating a Bureau of Forestry in the proposed new 

 Department of Agriculture, which was established in the same year. 

 This, in turn, was followed by the creation of a Department of 

 Forestry in the year 1901. In 1897 the Association prepared a bill 

 and presented it to the Legislature, which passed it, authorizing the 

 creation of three forest reservations of not less than 40,000 acres 

 each, one in the drainage basin of the Delaware River, one in the basin 

 of the Susquehanna River and the third in the basin of the Ohio River. 

 Another act authorized the purchase of unseated lands for the purpose 

 of creating State Forest Reservations. 



Laws looking to protection from forest fires were sponsored, and 

 in 1915 the State passed an act forming a Bureau of Protection. In 

 1920 the Association aided effectively in securing an appropriation of 

 $1,000,000 from the State for forest fire protection. This was utilized 

 in forming a comprehensive system of protection. 



Realizing that necessarily the larger amount of forested land in 

 the Commonwealth must remain in private hands, the Association 

 sought for a term of years to have passed laws that would lighten the 

 burden of taxation while lands are being reforested. Such legislation 

 was secured in 1913. Numerous other allied activities have been 

 sponsored by the Association. 



The Pennsylvania Forestry Association is said to be the oldest 

 of its kind in the country which has maintained its name unchanged. 

 Its office is at 130 South I5th Street, Philadelphia. The officers are: 

 Dr. Henry S. Drinker, president; Robert S. Conklin, J. F. Hendricks, 

 Albert Lewis and Samuel Smedley, vice-presidents ; Samuel Marshall, 

 general secretary ; F. L. Bitler, recording secretary and treasurer. 



