200 STUDIES OF TREES 



Sweden, Russia and Denmark, Forestry, is also practiced 

 on scientific principles and the government in each of these 

 countries holds large tracts of forests in reserve. In British 

 India one finds a highly efficient Forest Service and in 

 Japan Forestry is receiving considera])le attention. 



In the United States, the forest areas are controlled 

 by private interests, by the Government and by the States, 

 On privately owned forests, Forestry is practiced only in 

 isolated cases. The States are taking hold of the problem 

 very actively and in many of them we now find special 

 Forestry Commissions authorized to care for vast areas 

 of forest land reserved for State control. These Com- 

 missions employ technically trained foresters who not only 

 protect the State forests, but also plant new areas, encourage 

 forest planting on private lands and disseminate forestry 

 informtiaon among the citizens. New York State has 

 such a Commission that cares for more than a million acres 

 of forest land located in the northern part of the State. 

 Many other States are equally progressive. 



The United States Government is the most active factor 

 in the preservation of our forests. The Government to-day 

 owns over two hundred million acres of forest land, set 

 aside as National Forests. There are one hundred and 

 fifty individual reserves, distributed as shown in Fig. 137 

 and cared for by the Forest Service, a bureau in the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. Each of the forests is in charge of a 

 supervisor. He has with him a professional forester and a 

 body of men who patrol the tract against fire and the illegal 

 cutting of timber. Some of the men are engaged in planting 

 trees on the open areas and others in studying the important 

 forest problems of the region. Fig. 138. 



Where cutting is to be done on a National Forest, the 

 conditions are investigated by a technically trained forester 



