Federal Forest Service. 487 



to bring together and distribute in the shape of re- 

 ports, bulletins, circulars, addresses and letters, such 

 information useful for the education of the public, 

 of wood consumers, and timberland owners, as its 

 limited appropriations permitted, undertaking also 

 some scientific investigations, especially in the line of 

 timber physics. 



Soon after, in July, 1898, when the writer resigned 

 his position as Chief of the Division of Forestry, to 

 organize the first professional forest school, the New 

 York State College of Forestry, Mr. Gifford Pinchot, 

 took charge of the division. Young, ambitious, ag- 

 gressive, with some knowledge of forestry acquired in 

 Europe and with influential connections and a large 

 fortune, he easily secured the first need for effective 

 sowing on the well-plowed field before him appro- 

 priations. Whatever had been feebly begun could be 

 broadly, sometimes lavishly, extended, and the new 

 idea of making "working plans" for private timber- 

 land owners could be developed a great educational 

 work, which, earlier, when even co-operation with 

 State institutions was considered a questionable 

 proposition, would have been turned down as too 

 paternal. 



In five years the appropriations had increased ten- 

 fold, to over $250,000; and in the first decade of the 

 new regime, around $3,000,000 had been spent on for- 

 estry investigations, not counting expenditures on 

 forest reservation account. 



A further strong support came into the field, 

 when Mr. Roosevelt became President of the 

 United States, in 1901, and unreservedly threw his 



