Forest Reservation Policy. 483 



at the same time, the disadvantage of being a foreigner, 

 who had first to learn the limitations of democratic 

 government. Only the paltry sum of $8,000 was at 

 his disposal for plowing the ground, and even after 

 the agency had been raised to the dignity of a Division 

 in 1886, for years no adequate appropriations could 

 be secured, and hence the scope and usefulness of the 

 work of the Division was hampered. 



The Forestry Association, inaugurated with such a 

 flourish of trumpets and with such a large member- 

 ship at the start, had in the first two years dwindled 

 to a small number of faithful ones, and was without 

 funds when the writer became its secretary. 



In spite of these drawbacks, the propaganda had 

 progressed so far in 1891, that, through the earnest 

 insistence of the then Secretary of the Interior, John 

 W. Noble, who had been won over to the views for 

 which the Division and the Association stood, a clause 

 was enacted by Congress in "An act to repeal timber- 

 culture laws and for other purposes, " giving authority 

 to the President to set aside forest reservations from 

 the public domain. Again, this important legislation, 

 which changed the entire land policy and all previous 

 notions of the government's functions concerning the 

 Public Domain, was not deliberately enacted, but 

 slipped in as a "rider", at the last hour, in Conference 

 Committee. In this connection the name of Edward 

 A. Bowers, in 1887 Special Agent in the Department 

 of the Interior, and later Assistant Commissioner of 

 the General Land Office, deserves mention as most 

 active in securing this reservation policy. 



Acting under this authority, Presidents Harrison 



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