468 United States. 



But, when William Penn, the founder and first 

 legislator of the State which represented his grant, sti- 

 pulated, in 1682, that for every five acres cleared one 

 acre was to be reserved for forest growth by those who 

 took title from him, that may properly be considered 

 an attempt to inaugurate a conservative policy, 

 dictated by wise forethought, an attempt, which, 

 however, bore little or no fruit. 



Thoughtful men probably at all times looked with 

 pity and apprehension upon the wasteful use of the 

 timber as they do now, yet squander went on, just as 

 it still does; but the apparently inexhaustible supplies 

 in those early times called for no restriction in its use. 



At the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the 

 nineteenth century, a fuel-wood famine must have ap- 

 peared in some parts of the country, just as in Ger- 

 many at that time and for the same reasons, the wood 

 having been cut along the rivers, which were the only 

 means of transportation, and hence, the distance to 

 which wood had to be hauled increasing the cost. 



This was probably the reason why the Society of 

 Agriculture, Arts and Manufactures of New York, 

 after an inquiry by circular letter, issued in 1791, 

 published, in 1795, a report on the "best mode of 

 preserving and increasing the growth of timber." 

 This condition probably also led the wise Governor of 

 New York, DeWitt Clinton, of Erie Canal fame, in a 

 message in 1822, to forecast an evil day, because "no 

 system of economy" for the reproduction of forest 

 supplies was being adopted; and he added: "Probably 

 none will be, until severe privations are experienced." 



Like Great Britain at that time, the federal govern- 



