32 HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT 



5. LEADERS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Any constructive movement determining national development and 

 policies naturally revolves around a relatively few men of thought and 

 action. The development of forestry has been remarkably rapid, con- 

 sidering the nation-wide scope of the work to be done and the great 

 variety of objectives in each locality and region. Many men with 

 botanical, geological, or other scientific training and many public- 

 spirited citizens were active in the early days of the movement. These 

 men contributed very materially to the development of thought, the 

 inspiring of general interest in the subject, and the crystallization of 

 this sentiment in the form of laws. Among those who were chiefly 

 responsible for the development of American forestry in the early 

 days were Franklin B. Hough, first Chief Forester, and Gifford Pinchot, 

 first professionally trained forester in this country, who after serving 

 on the Biltmore estate in North Carolina, became Chief Forester in 

 1898 and later served under President Theodore Roosevelt. He was 

 very influential in the organization and tremendous expansion of the 

 work of the Forest Service. He was also instrumental in the forma- 

 tion of the Yale School of Forestry in 1900, the first permanently 

 established professional school in the country. He later served two 

 terms as governor of Pennsylvania. 



Dr. B. E. Fernow was one of the early chief foresters of the old 

 Division of Forestry, and in later years he served at the forestry 

 schools at Cornell, Penn State, and Toronto. Professor Filibert Roth 

 was an active and able leader in the government service and for many 

 years was at the head of the forestry school at the University of 

 Michigan. Dr. Carl Schenck, one of the first professional foresters, 

 also served on the Biltmore estate in North Carolina; later, in 1898, 

 he organized the Biltmore Forestry School, continuing as a lecturer at 

 several American forestry schools. 



The last three foresters received their professional training and 

 preparation in Germany. They introduced into this country many of 

 the ideals and standards and much of the inspiration of German for- 

 estry, and they contributed a marked influence on the early develop- 

 ment of forestry as practiced in the United States. 



Two presidents, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt, 

 have been outstanding in their contributions to the development of 

 American forestry. The first was responsible" for arousing real in- 

 terest in forestry throughout the country, and provided for an enor- 

 mous expansion of our areas in National Forests by setting aside a 



