762 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Second. A strict requirement in the law that the administrative head of each 

 department should be a trained expert. 



Third. A strict requirement in the law that all of the important subordinates 

 shall be trained experts, appointed in accordance with the provisions of the civil 

 service law. 



The resulting law, passed April 16 of the same year, provided for a 

 single conservation commissioner to be appointed by the governor 

 for a period of 6 years, at a salary of $8,000 a ^year. The commis- 

 sioner had power to appoint a deputy commissioner, also a superin- 

 tendent of forests, who would become chief of the division of lands 

 and forests; a chief game protector, who would become chief of the 

 division of fish and game; a division engineer, who would become chief 

 of the division of waters, and various other subordinates. 



THE ORIGIN OF THE "CONSERVATION DEPARTMENT" IDEA 



New York was not the first State to place its forestry work in a 

 "conservation department", nor did the law of 1915 provide the first 

 set-up in New York of a department designated by this title the 

 conservation law of 1911 had combined the forest, fish, and game 

 commission, forest purchasing board, State water supply commission, 

 and the commissioner of water power on the Black River into a new 

 department, headed by a State conservation commission of three 

 members. During President Roosevelt's administration the con- 

 servation movement had swept the country, and one of its conse- 

 quences was a strong trend toward bringing together various more or 

 less related State activities in conservation departments of various 

 types. Two distinct and somewhat conflicting conceptions of the 

 field and objectives of conservation manifested themselves in the form 

 of set-up, and largely explained the divergence in their types. 



The Roosevelt conservation movement had had to do with, pri- 

 marily, the great basic natural resources of the country. Its concern 

 was for the main foundations underlying and supporting the economic 

 life and material welfare of the Nation. To the end that the Nation 

 might long endure as a great power in the family of nations and as a 

 happy and prosperous people, the conservation movement sought to 

 assure the perpetuation, through wise and farsighted use, of the 

 natural resources capable of perpetuation, and the husbanding 

 through wise use of the wasting resources. In the White House 

 conference of 1908 and the work of the Roosevelt Conservation Com- 

 mission which grew out of it, a classification of natural resources was 

 made under the four heads of minerals, lands, waters, and forests. 

 Some of the State conservation departments tended to follow along 

 the line suggested by this general conception. 



In a way this was a revival of a trend which had appeared in some 

 States in the very earliest stages of the forestry movement. It was 

 exemplified in North Carolina, New Jersey, and several other States 

 in which the Geological Survey was made the agency of the State to 

 undertake the gathering of information on the forest resources. De- 



Sartments of " conservation and development" expressed this idea, 

 ut in the popular mind conservation rapidly drifted away from the 

 basic conception of the Roosevelt movement and associated itself 

 with such things as the protection of wild life, landscape, scenic and 

 natural wonders, and outdoor recreational opportunities ; not rational 

 and farsighted development of the best economic potentialities of ma- 



