A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 775 



devised the method of uniting for the maintenance of protective asso- 

 ciations. The first timberland owners' protective association was 

 formed in Idaho in 1906. The idea was quickly taken up in Wash- 

 ington and Oregon. These associations obtained funds for maintain- 

 ing their several protective organizations by assessing their members, 

 on an acreage basis. But there was no way to bring in owners who 

 did not wish to share in the expense, although to protect the property 

 of their members the associations were compelled also to protect 

 intermingled or adjoining lands. 



To meet this situation, the four northwestern States of Montana, 

 Idaho, Washington, and Oregon eventually enacted laws which, while 

 varying considerably in detail, embodied as their fundamental prin- 

 ciple the requirement of contributions, in proportion to acreages, to 

 support the protective organizations, from all the owners whose 

 properties received the benefit. Where the State had land of its own 

 to be protected, the State paid its share just like any other owner. 

 Virtually, the associations became recognized agencies of the State for 

 performing the protective function. They selected and employed the 

 personnel of the organization, and managed it. Thus it came about 

 that in the Northwest most of the cost of fire protection was met by 

 the landowner, as such. 



In developing their protective systems the associations were aided 

 greatly by the progress in building up efficient systems of protection 

 on the national forests dating from early in 1905, when the present 

 Forest Service took charge of them. In place of the idea of wardens 

 with the duty primarily of calling out forces of fire fighters and acting 

 as leaders to bring the fire under control, came the idea of the ranger, 

 with duties of patrol and functions of detection and prevention as well 

 as of suppression. In place of the primitive, catch-as-catch-can fire 

 fighting of the early days came the methodical development of pro- 

 cedure and organization that was to evolve into the modern highly 

 specialized technique of large-scale operations in suppression. Not 

 only were the protective associations assisted by being able to make 

 use of methods developed by the Forest Service; where association 

 lands were intermingled with or adjoined Government lands within 

 the national forests, direct cooperation became possible, and mutually 

 advantageous. Prior to 1911, the Northwest was the section of the 

 country in which real progress was made in providing organized 

 protection against fire as a State activity. 



When the second decade of the century opened (that is, at the 

 beginning of 1911), 25 States had forestry organizations of some kind, 

 though in only a minor fraction of this number were trained foresters 

 in charge. As a rule, the function of the State forester, where there 

 was a trained man, was still mainly to give advice to forest owners, 

 gather information on the forest resources of the State, their utiliza- 

 tion, State timber requirements, and kindred matters, and carry on 

 a campaign of general education concerning forestry. Except in 

 New York and Pennsylvania, the financial provision for the work of 

 the State forestry department was everywhere very meager and the 

 organization for carrying on the work too small-scale to function in 

 a really important way, beyond laying the foundations for more 

 substantial activities as State forestry really found itself, in the next 

 decade. 



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