NATURE 



321 



THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 1919. 



FOREST POLICY AND LAW IN THE 

 UNITED STATES. 



(1) The Development of Forest Law in America: A 

 Historical Presentation of the Successive Enact- 

 ments, by the Legislatures of the Forty-eight 

 States of the American Union and by the 

 Federal Congress, Directed to the Conservation 

 and Adtninistration of Forest Resources. By 

 J. P. Kinney. Pp. xviii + 254 + xxi. (New 

 York : John Wiley and Sons, Inc. ; London : 

 Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1917.) Price ii5. 6d. 

 net. 

 {2) The Essentials of American Timber Law. By 

 J. P. Kinney. Pp. xix + 279 + x. (New York: 

 John Wiley and Sons, Inc. ; London : Chapman 

 pnd Hall, Ltd., 1917.) Price 135. 6d. net. 

 ;(i) "DEFORE the coming- of Europ)ean settlers 

 ^ the forests of the United States occupied 

 an enormous area, half the whole country being 

 covered with trees. This vast heritage has been 

 greatly diminished. In the east there was little 

 or no open land for the settlers, and clearings had 

 to be made for farms and villages. Forest fires, 

 felling for timber, and grazing have also shared 

 largely in the destruction of a great part of the 

 original forest. The history of the movement, so 

 far as it is expressed in legal enactments, by which 

 a check has been put on the wasteful exploitation 

 of the great natural resources of timber is well 

 given in the volume entitled "The Development of 

 Forest Law in America." 



Contrary to general belief, the Colonial legisla- 

 tures in early days passed many laws against the 

 destruction of forests by fires, and made enact- 

 ments prohibiting waste of timber on common 

 lands by unnecessary or indiscreet cutting. In 

 18 18 a Massachusetts Act authorised agricultural 

 societies to offer premiums to encourage the 

 growth of oak and other trees necessary for ship- 

 building; and, soon after, many States imposed 

 severe penalties for the offences of cutting timber 

 or setting fires on public lands. The first effective 

 steps, however, in conservation were taken in 

 1885, when the New York legislature established 

 a permanent forest administration and created 

 forest reserves in the Adirondack and Catskill 

 Mountains. The administration was specially 

 charged with the duties of prevention and control 

 of forest fires and with the encouragement of 

 forestry on private lands. 



In i88r a Federal Act was passed which autho- 

 rised the President to create " forest reservations 

 in any vState or Territory having public lands, 

 wholly or in part covered with timber or under- 

 growth, whether of commercial value or not." It 

 was high time, as sixty years had passed since the 

 last preceding Act contemplating a general 

 reservation of lands for the purpose of conserva- 

 tion of timber. "During this long period the 

 pineries of the Northern States, which had .'cemed 



NO. 2591, VOL. 103] 



inexhaustible in 1831, had largely disappeared; the 

 future exhaustion of the timber supply of the 

 Southern States had become apparent to the far- 

 sighted, and the transference of the title from the 

 Federal Government to private individuals and 

 corporations of vast areas of the incomparable 

 forests of the Pacific Coast region had been 

 effected." The Government began to take strong 

 measures. President Harrison immediately set 

 aside 17,000,000 acres of forest reserves out of 

 the public lands which had not been distributed 

 to settlers. Influenced by the ideas of Gifford 

 Pinchot, who became chief of the Division of 

 Forestry at Washington in 1898, virile Presidents 

 like Cleveland and Roosevelt increased year by 

 year the forest reserves until they amounted in 

 1905 to 100,000,000 acres. The name "national 

 reserves" was changed to "national forests", in 

 1907. Besides the national forests, set aside out 

 of public lands in the west, which now cover 

 170,000,000 acres, there are mountain forests in 

 the east, in the Appalachian and White Mountains, 

 which are being gradually purchased under the 

 provisions of an Act passed in 191 1 that autho- 

 rised the expenditure of 11,000,000 dollars in their 

 acquisition. 



In addition many of the States have State 



forests. New York owning, for example, 1,800,000 



j acres, and Pennsylvania 400,000 acres. Nearly 



I 300,000 acres of forests, owned by various cities 



: and towns, have been acquired with the object of 



protecting the urban water supplies from con- 



j tamination by impurities, which are always present 



when water catchment areas are subject to farming 



! or grazing. In many of the States planting is 



j encouraged by the distribution of young trees to 



private persons at low rates, and in other States 



bounties for planting are given — in Kansas, for 



example, 10 dollars per acre planted. In New York 



plantations of trees of from i to 100 acres are 



exempt from all taxation for a period of thirty- 



I five years. The book under review is replete with 



^ information of this kind, showing the various ways 



in which forestry is encouraged in the United 



States by Government action. 



(2) This is a compact treatise dealing with 



the statutes concerning property in trees, 



forests, and forest products in the United 



I States, and with the interpretation of the laws by 



the courts. The first two chapters define and 



i classify property and ownership in general. The 



I next chapter treats of trees and timber as pro- 



i perty. The legal doctrine of waste, timber tres- 



1 pass, and contracts referring to timber are each 



the subject of three chapters. Inspection and 



measurement of timber products are treated in 



twelve pages, and the laws referring to transport 



of timber by water in thirty pages. Mortgage on 



timber ; the laws of boundary and highway trees ; 



trees, nurseries, and sawmills as fixtures, are each 



' the subject of a separate chapter. The final pages 



discuss the free use of timber taken from public 



lands by settlers and by mining, telegraph, and 



raihvav comnnnies. 



