4S4 United States. 



and Cleveland proclaimed, previous to 1894, seventeen 

 forest reservations, with a total estimated area of 

 17,500,000 acres. 



The reservations were established usually upon the 

 petition of citizens residing in the respective States 

 and after due examination, the Forestry Association 

 acting both as instigator and as intermediary. 



Meanwhile no provision for the administration of 

 the reserves existed, and the comprehensive legislation 

 devised by the Chief of the Division of Forestry, which 

 included withdrawal and administration of all public 

 timberlands, failed to be enacted, although in the 

 Fifty-third Congress it was passed by both Houses, but 

 failed to become a law merely for lack of time to secure 

 a conference report. But the purpose of the advocates 

 of forestry was to create such a condition as would 

 compel Congress to act, by continually withdrawing 

 forested lands that would lie useless until authority 

 was given for their proper use and administration. 



In order to secure influential support from outside, 

 a committee of the Forestry Association induced the 

 then Secretary of the Interior, Hoke Smith, in 189G, 

 to request the National Academy of Sciences, the 

 legally constituted adviser of the government in 

 scientific matters, to investigate and report "upon 

 the inauguration of a rational forest policy for the 

 forested lands of the United States." After an un- 

 necessary so-called "junket" of a committee of the 

 Academy to investigate the public timberlands, a 

 preliminary report was submitted recommending the 

 creation of thirteen additional reservations, with an 

 area of over 20 million acres, and later a complete 



