FORESTRY MOVEMENT IN UNITED STATES. 381 



learned from an article in the Year-book of .the 

 United States Department of Agriculture, for 

 1899, in which an attempt is made to collect the 

 facts regarding these efforts and place them in 

 the most favorable light. While perhaps conser- 

 vative culling has been practised by lumbermen in 

 more cases than is known, actual forestry practice 

 with a view to securing reproduction has been rare 

 and only very lately introduced in a few conspicu- 

 ous cases, the Forestry Bureau of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture being instrumental in 

 most of them ; this bureau offering to prepare so- 

 called " working plans " for private owners, in 

 which some rules for the cutting of mature timber 

 are laid down, intended to insure a succession of 

 young growth. It is stated, that owners of nearly 

 2,000,000 acres have asked for such advice. With 

 the increase of educated foresters able to make 

 and carry out such working plans, and with the 

 appreciation by the forest owners of the possibility 

 of securing continuous revenues by a conservative 

 treatment of their properties under such plans, 

 these small beginnings promise to bring about the 

 much-needed reform, especially with the owners of 

 extensive tracts, who are financially able to forego 

 the present revenue from closer cutting for the 

 sake of better future returns, which may be de- 

 rived from more conservative lumbering. 



Most of the efforts to engage state governments 

 in establishing forest policies originated in associa- 



