470 United States. 



remained for 60 years the only expression of interest 

 in this part of the federal domain. 



In those early times, the extent of our forest domain 

 was entirely unknown, and the concern of occasional 

 early voices in public prints regarding a threatened 

 exhaustion of timber supplies can only be explained 

 by the fact that, in the absence of railroads, the sup- 

 plies near centers of civilization, or near drivable and 

 navigable rivers, were alone of any account. 



That the earlier propagandists of forest culture re- 

 ceived scant attention was due to the fact that con- 

 ditions soon changed; and with these changes the 

 evil day seemed indefinitely postponed, and the ne 

 cessity for forest culture apparently vanished. These 

 changes were mainly wrought by the opening up of 

 the west, by extending means of transportation 

 through canals and railroads, and by distributing pop- 

 ulation, whereby the need for near-by home supplies 

 was overcome; a continental supply of apparently 

 inexhaustible amount was brought into sight and with- 

 in reach. 



Meanwhile the population began to grow, immi- 

 grants began to pour in by the hundred thousand, 

 and the westward stream opened up new country and 

 new timber supplies, and a lumber industry of mar- 

 vellous size began to develop. The small country 

 mill, run in the manner of, and often in connection 

 with, the grist mill, doing a petty business by sawing 

 as occasion demanded, to order for home customers or 

 export, gave way to the large mill establishment as we 

 know it now; and with the development of railroad 

 transportation and the settlement of the western 



