Colonial Development. 401 



not dictated by any tkreateniag deficiency of this class of 

 material, but merely intended to secure a proper and or- 

 derly use of the town property. 



The appointment of a Eoyal Surveyor of the Woods 

 for the New England colonies in 1699, and the penalties 

 imposed in New Hampshire (1708) for cutting mast 

 trees on ungranted lands ($500 for cutting 24-inch 

 trees), and in Massachusetts (1784) for cutting White 

 Pine upon the public lands ($100), were probably also 

 merely police regulations, to protect property rights of 

 the Crown or commonwealth. That this last move was 

 in no way conceived as a needed conservatism is proved 

 by the fact that two years later the Legislature of Maine 

 devised a lottery scheme for the disposal of fifty town- 

 ships; and 3,500,000 acres were disposed of in this way 

 during the twelve years following the war. Altogether 

 the States sacrificed their "wild lands" at trifling prices. 



But, when William Penn, the founder and first legis- 

 lator of the State which represented his grant, stipu- 

 lated, 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 at- 

 tempt 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 do restriction in its use. 



At the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the 

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



