A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 747 



forest policy at a singularly unpropitious time. Its immediate 

 adoption could only have been followed by disastrous failure. Gov- 

 ernment was unprepared to assume the responsibilities involved and 

 would have been incapable of discharging them acceptably. Nor 

 was the proposal of State ownership and administration of the forests 

 of the public domain much more promising. In the long run, the 

 Colorado plan would have failed had it been adopted; and as the 

 matter finally turned out, would have failed irretrievably. Inaction 

 for a time finally saved the day. 



Some of the reasons why permanent public retention and adminis- 

 tration of the public-domain timber-lands could not be expected to 

 work were pointed out in the opening pages of the first Report upon 

 Forestry published by the Agricultural Department. Under the 

 spoils system of political appointments the civil service of the Federal 

 Government was made up of a changing body of officeholders selected 

 on other grounds than merit and special qualifications for the duties 

 to be assumed, and dependent for their term of office tenure, as for 

 their original appointment, upon their political backing. Each 

 change of administration brought into office a new horde of untrained, 

 inexperienced men to supplant those already filling the positions 

 regarded as the reward of victory and the plums of the political tree. 

 There were no trained foresters in the United States, and no educa- 

 tional institutions which could provide even the most elementary 

 training in the profession of forestry. There was no knowledge of 

 the technique and practice of forestry, and the beginning of the 

 necessary basis of scientific knowledge were not in sight. 



We have no inducements 

 the 1877 Report upon Forestry set forth 



to offer a young man who might aspire to a position for which he might have great 

 native ability, and for which he would be willing to undertake the most thorough 

 special education if he felt assured that employment would depend alone upon 

 the most thoroughly approved preparation, or the most rigid examination. 

 Hence it cannot, at least at present, be expected that pur governments can 

 undertake the practical management of forests, as is done in Europe, by officials 

 specially trained for this pursuit, with the view of deriving a benefit from the 

 cultivation. They can scarcely do more than prevent depredations upon the 

 timber already growing, if, indeed, they can succeed in this, * * *. 



The Federal Department of Agriculture, which had been giving 

 more or less attention to the subject of forestry in its publications 

 prior to the time when Congress, in 1876, inaugurated the work as a 

 permanent activity of the Department, bad brought out a paper in 

 1866 which presented in strong terms the urgent necessity for prompt 

 action to conserve and renew the forests of the country, and advanced 

 a plan for systematic experiment and research to find out how to 

 manage forests and how to establish successful and paying planta- 

 tions. The author held that this 



should receive the immediate attention of our Government, and enjoy its fos- 

 tering care. 



But 



the experiments, to be of any value, must be continued through several Presiden- 

 tial terms; and in the continual changes * * * no one person would be per- 

 mitted to control these experiments, to carry out to completeness thoroughly 

 digested theories and test them in actual practice, and to avail himself of his own 

 experiences. * * The liability would be a defeat, through incompetence or 



lack of interest in the men appointed to the work, from the short periods with 



