402 ECONOMICS OF FORESTRY. 



committees, until more definite reservations were 

 called for. An act to establish a forest reserva- 

 tion 'on the head waters of the Missouri and 

 Columbia rivers passed the Senate in 1884, and 

 again in 1885, but died in the House Committee; 

 in the same year a general act providing for forest 

 reservations was reported favorably in the House. 

 After this, hardly a year passed without a "number 

 of legislative propositions to the same effect being 

 introduced, the titles of the bills filling several 

 quarto pages of the above-cited document. 



Hardly any kind of legislation which could be 

 suggested was overlooked, from the creation of 

 forest commissions to investigate the subject to 

 providing for fully organized forest administra- 

 tions and the establishment of forestry schools. 



The American Forestry Association presented 

 a comprehensive bill drawn by the Chief of the 

 Forestry Division in 1888, providing for the with- 

 drawal from entry or sale of all public timber lands 

 not fit for agricultural use, and for their proper 

 administration under technical advice. (S. 1476 

 and S. 1779, 5oth Cong, ist sess.) 



Modifications of this bill were introduced from 

 year to year, and their enactment urged with small 

 success. 



Finally, in the Fifty-first Congress, through the 

 earnest insistence of Secretary of the Interior John 

 W. Noble, who was fully imbued with the necessity 

 of some action such as was advocated by the asso- 



