98 FORESTS AND MANKIND 



Yet even in those early days it was not long before timber 

 shortage became a troublesome problem. It was not a general 

 shortage, affecting entire regions, but local scarcity, centering 

 about the thickly populated districts. In those days when all 

 wood for fences, timber or fuel had to be slowly hauled by 

 oxen over almost impassable roads, it was necessary that sources 

 of wood supply should be near at hand. Transportation of 

 wood over long distances was then undreamed of. 



So far as the early settlers in Connecticut or Massachusetts 

 were concerned, the great pine forests of the south, or the un- 

 touched white pine in the Lake States might just as well not 

 exist. They were as remote from their economic scheme as the 

 forests of the Amazon Valley. 



Even in those youthful days of our nation's life, forestry laws 

 were passed in one colony after another, providing for the 

 perpetuation of the forests. William Penn imposed simple for- 

 estry laws on his colony and New England's early statute books 

 contain a number of forest conservation regulations. Supplies 

 for naval construction had already become a concern of the 

 mother country and later of the new Confederation of States. 

 Unsuccessful and half-hearted attempts were made to protect 

 by law the live oak from which the best of these naval sup- 

 plies came and as early as 1828 the Federal Government set 

 aside a reservation of live oak and made a feeble effort at 

 planting and caring for trees of this species. 



But in spite of these sporadic and largely ineffectual attempts 

 at forest protection, we had not yet conceived any idea of a 

 nation-wide policy of forestry. We had not yet awakened to 

 any real need for giving thought to the perpetuation of this vital 

 heritage on anything approaching a national scale. As with 



