Forestry in the United States 



that has been deforested and then abandoned by lumber com- 

 panies becomes pubHc property in default of taxes. Such lands 

 to a large extent should belong to the state, and should maintain 

 protective forests, as they include watersheds, the sources of 

 streams. 



Five years ago the Division of Forestry was an insignificant 

 branch of the Department of Agriculture, with 1 10,000 a year 

 to spend. Now it is a Bureau, with nearly half a million a year. 

 A large body of forestry specialists trained in the best forestry 

 centres of the Old World, are at work on special American prob- 

 lems, as members of the staff of the Bureau. Co-operation with 

 landowners has brought under the Bureau's management almost 

 10,000,000 acres of privately owned forest. Experts size up the 

 problems on the ground, and the owners follow the Bureau's 

 advice. The International Paper Company, controlling over 

 100,000,000 acres of spruce, are introducing reproductive forestry 

 under Government direction. Twenty-six thousand acres in 

 farmers' woodlots are being managed under expert direction. 



Teaching forestry in this country has seriously begun. In 

 1898 the New York State College of Forestry was established at 

 Cornell University, with Dr. B. E. Fernow, ex-chief of the Division 

 of Forestry, at its head. The four years' course provided for 

 broad as well as technical training. A tract of 30,000 acres, 

 the forest laboratory, was at Axton, in the Adirondacks. After 

 five years of healthy growth, this college was extinguished through 

 state politics, and the hundred undergraduate students scattered 

 to other schools to finish their studies. 



The Yale School of Forestry, established in 1900, offers at 

 present the most thorough forestry training obtainable. The 

 Universities of Minnesota and Michigan have very strong courses. 

 Berea College, Kentucky, and a large number of other colleges 

 and state universities offer a year or more in forestry. In 1898 

 the Biltmore Forest School was opened on the Vanderbilt estate 

 near Asheville, North Carolina, for the instruction and training of 

 students. 



Outside of the schools, a great power for the upbuilding 

 of public sentiment is vested in the state and national forestry 

 organisations. The American Forestry Association, formed in 

 1882, binds together all interests. The official organ of this 

 association is the monthly publication. Forestry and Irrigation. 



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