REORGANIZATION OF FEDERAL AGENCIES 149 



Long before this time, in 1876 to be exact, a Forestry 

 Bureau had been established in the Department of Agricul- 

 ture to do research work in forestry. 11 It has been suggested 

 that the undoubted interest of the Grange and other far- 

 mers' organizations of the period in the relation of forestry 

 to climate was responsible for placing the work in Agricul- 

 ture. 12 However that may be, it resulted in a division be- 

 tween forestry research under the Forestry Bureau in the 

 Department of Agriculture and the administration of timber 

 lands under the General Land Office in the Department of 

 the Interior. 



This division continued until 1905 when, due to certain 

 scandals that came to light in the Land Office relative to the 

 forest reserves, the forestry work of the national govern- 

 ment was all concentrated under the Bureau of Forestry, 

 which in the year following became the Forest Service. 13 

 Gifford Pinchot, who had been chief of the Bureau of For- 

 estry since 1898, became the first head of the new Forest 

 Service with the title of United States Forester. 



Administratively the Forest Service is set up on a regional 

 basis. The East constitutes one region, the states adjacent 

 to the Great Lakes another, while that portion of the coun- 

 try west of the Mississippi, where most of the forests are 

 located, make up six more, and Alaska, the last region. 

 There are a number of forests in a region. A supervisor is 

 in charge of each forest, subject to the direction of a re- 

 gional forester. 



11 19 Stat. L. 167. 



12 Cameron, Jenks, Development of Governmental Forest Control in 

 the United States, p. 189, Institute for Government Research (1923). 

 Mr. Cameron's discussion of the history of the whole problem of for- 

 estry control in the United States is excellent. Mr. Darrell H. Smith's 

 monograph on the Forest Service in the series of the Service Monographs 

 of the Institute for Government Research is also of help in forming a 

 background for the consideration of the Service as it exists today. 



i 33 Stat. L. 628. 



