CHAPTER II 

 HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT 



1. EARLY BEGINNINGS 



Nowhere in the world have the forests more fully met the varied 

 requirements of mankind nor have they proved more beneficial in 

 their utility than in North America. The early colonial settlers along 

 the Atlantic seaboard found a most magnificent forest, rich in variety 

 of both hardwoods and softwoods. Qualities of strength, durability, 

 workability, beauty, and fitness were present in this native timber to 

 meet the needs of either a primitive or advanced type of civilization. 

 During a period of about two hundred years the more fertile and 

 accessible valleys were cleared of timber by an exceedingly slow and 

 extremely laborious process. The early settlers of Virginia, the Caro- 

 linas, Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania used the forest 

 first for shelter and fuel. It harbored the hostile Indian and the 

 savage beast, yet provided game for sustenance, and furs and timber 

 for the first export business. Generally the forest was a deterrent 

 to settlement. The dense primeval forest had to be cleared for agri- 

 culture, and yet forest conservation was initiated even in colonial 

 days. William Penn required that one acre of forest be left for every 

 five acres cleared in Penn's Woods. Regulations were early passed in 

 Massachusetts to safeguard the future of the forests. To insure ade- 

 quate facilities for national defense, Congress appropriated $200,000 

 in 1799 to purchase a timber reserve for shipbuilding purposes, and in 

 1827 an attempt was made to grow live-oak in the Southeast for the 

 same reason. Sentiment in various states began to crystallize in the 

 direction of forest conservation. In 1873, Congress passed the Timber 

 Culture Act. This sought to encourage forestation in the treeless 

 prairie region of the Great Plains by issuing a deed for 160 acres of 

 public domain to any settler who planted and retained 40 acres in 

 timber. 



Arbor Day and Its Influence. Arbor Day was conceived and first 

 promoted by J. Sterling Morton, and it was first observed in Nebraska 

 in 1872. Morton was then a member of the State Board of Agri- 



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