276 AMEKICAN FORESTRY 



forests and foresters appointed for their execution. In Biltraore, ttliaca, 

 Cambridge and Ann Arbor schools of forestry were founded, state forest 

 reserves were established (in l*ennsylvania 600,000 acres), and in particular, 

 s}ecial fire wardens, with a greater or smaller number of assistants, called 

 rangers, were jtut in charge. But the most significant result of the movement 

 was the resolution of the federal Congress, 1891, constituting a lai'ge part of 

 the forested areas of the public lands still existing United States Forest 

 Reserves, and subjecting them as such to the management of the central gov- 

 ernment. At first only 18,000,000 acres were set aside, but since then more 

 than 150,000,000 acres have passed into the reserves, but of this amount, only 

 120,000,000 acres are actually forested, so that at present a full quarter of 

 the total forest area of the t'nited States belongs to either state or federal 

 reservations. In these public forests, which embrace the largest part of the 

 western mountainous districts, in more than 50 large tracts almost the entire 

 Sierra Nevada of California, the Cascade Mountains, the Mogollon Mountains 

 of Arizona, great stretches of the principal mountain chains of Colorado, Big 

 Horn Mountains, etc. the natural conditions of the North American forest 

 growth and hence also the principal causes and conditions of forest destruc- 

 tion by fire and other factors have been thoroughly studied out by experts in 

 their special lines, and thereby with surprising rapidity ways and means 

 have been found to combat the inception and spread of fires very effectively 

 in most years. 



In 1909 President Roosevelt, who had taken a great personal interest in 

 the movement for forest conservation, was able to announce with well-justified 

 satisfaction that during the preceding year only about one-tenth per cent of 

 the entire area of the forest reserves had been visited by fire; while in 1906 

 the area visited was about one-sixth per cent, and in 1907 about one-seventh 

 per cent. This was indeed a brilliant success for the new forestry system, 

 and it must be conceded that the officials concerned, both of the Land Office 

 and Department of Agriculture, did their full duty. In 1899 there were nine 

 superintendents, 39 supervisors and 300 rangers, and with the growth of the 

 forest reserve area several thousand were subsequently added. In the years 

 1896, 1897, 1898 and 1900 some still very destructive fires had raged in these 

 areas and the proportion devastated annually had amounted to 8 to 15 per 

 cent, but careful investigations in the reservations established the fact that in 

 earlier years far greater portions of them had been frequently burned over. In the 

 Black Hills reservation of South Dakota, the Big Horn reservation of Wyoming 

 and the Priest River reservation of Idaho, the forest floor showed everywhere 

 more or less fresh traces of fire. In the Cascade mountains, out of 3,000,000 

 acres only 25,000 (eight- tenths per cent) showed no traces of previous fires; 

 in the northern Sierra Nevada out of 2,950,000 acres, only 77,000; in the 

 Pike's Peak and Bitter Root reservations, only about twenty per cent. Even 

 in the forests of the east, which for the most part had remained in the control 

 of private persons or local governmental bodies, the new era brought with it 

 a decided change for the better, notwithstanding the fact that in Minnesota, 

 Wisconsin and Michigan, during 1889 and 1894, a succession of immense fires 

 took place. The years 1908 and 1909 brought no essential alteration in the 

 favorable condition of things in the west, while on the other hand in New 

 England and in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, there were during 1908 

 a number of the most frightful an< devastating conflagrations; and now this 

 year 1910 has brought to the west in its turn, and especially to the states of 

 Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and California, a baptism of fire, which 

 is absolutely without parallel in the history of these states. In such a case 

 as this, the police system of United States fire wardens and rangers, and in 



