416 United States. 



ject, the first, a most assiduous worker, being a writer of 

 local histories and gatherer of statistics, the second a 

 v/preacher. The third, the writer himself, had at least 

 the advantage of this technical training, but, 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 Forestiy Association, inaugurated with such a 

 flourish of trumpets and with such a large membership 

 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 pro- 

 gressed so far in 1891, that, through the earnest insist- 

 ence 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 pub- 

 lic domain. Again, this important legislation, which 

 changed the entire land policy and all previous notions 

 of the government's fimctions 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 



