750 A NATIONAL PLAN FOB AMERICAN FORESTRY 



shade, protection, and wood; and as their homes and villages multi- 

 plied the bare aspect of the prairie was broken and gradually trans- 

 formed. Planted woodlots, shelterbelts, and shade trees marking the 

 farmsteads and the villages now so plentifully dot the landscape of 

 the eastern prairie region that it no longer appears to the passing 

 traveler like a naturally treeless country, and seems not greatly 

 different from the originally wooded East. Not only has the early 

 desire of those who sought to promote tree planting throughout this 

 region been largely realized; the planted timber growth is of appre- 

 ciable economic importance as a source of wood supply for local 

 requirements. But the afforestation movement in the West owes 

 very little to the laws in aid of timber culture through bounties, tax 

 exemptions, and land bestowal passed under the impulse of the early 

 forestry movement. In fact, the laws soon proved valueless and un- 

 satisfactory in their actual working, and most of them were eventually 

 repealed. 



In 1885, however, the forestry problem began to be attacked from 

 a new angle. In that year four States New York, Ohio, Colorado, 

 and California created forestry organizations charged with the 

 conduct of specific functional activities on behalf of the States. 

 This was the beginning of State forestry administration. 



Only in New York did the initial forestry organization prove per- 

 manent. In Ohio a promising start lost headway after a few years, 

 with the result that the work was discontinued in 1890. In Cali- 

 fornia an originally energetic organization got into political hot water 

 and, after an existence of 8 years, was abolished. In Colorado the new 

 venture in State government had a still more ignominous history. 

 Practically it was a still-born thing. Although for a few years it 

 functioned to some extent as an agency to promote interest in forest 



E reservation, the administrative responsibilities contemplated by the 

 iw could not be discharged, partly because the law itself was unwork- 

 able, partly because of lack of appropriations to sustain the organi- 

 zation theoretically created. 



The failures in Colorado and California are instructive. They are 

 the two Western States in which there existed at that time a definitely 

 crystallized and fairly vigorous State movement for forestry. In 

 both States the principal ground of interest was the value of water 

 for irrigation and fear of the results of forest destruction in the moun- 

 tains though in both States also the question of permanent timber 

 supplies and the terrific wastefulness and destructiveness with which 

 the forests were being assailed entered in considerably. Further, in 

 both States the crux of the difficulty in trying to formulate a program 

 of public action to preserve the forests was the fact that they were 

 principally a part of the public domain. 



The difficulty thus created was not merely the lack of authority 

 of the State over Federal holdings. It was the powerful antagonistic 

 interests adverse to forestry which stood to benefit from Federal in- 

 attention, indifference, liberality of the laws relating to the disposal 

 of public lands and the use of timber from them, and laxity in the 

 administration of these liberal laws. 



Both the strength of the conservationists in Colorado and the 

 insuperable difficulties confronting them when they attempted to 

 bring about the actual adoption and application of constructive 

 measures are evidenced by the bare facts. That the deep solicitude 



