THE FORESTRY BILL IN CONGRESS 



CONGRESSMAN B. H. SNELL, of New York 

 State, has introduced the National Forestry Pro- 

 gram Committee bill in Congress, and the first hear- 

 ing on it took place on January 26 before the < Agricul- 

 tural Committee of the House. Bill H. R. 15327 is 

 supported, as has already been told in AMERICAN Fores- 

 try, by practically every organization interested com- 

 mercially or otherwise in the 

 forests, including conserva- 

 tion associations, lumbermen, 

 timberland owners, cham- 

 bers of commerce, pulp and 

 paper manufacturers, the 

 newspapers, wood-using in- 

 dustries, etc., and is approved 

 and endorsed by the Ameri- 

 can Forestry Association. 



A hearing before the Sub- 

 committee on Appropriations, 

 Representative And e r s o n, 

 chairman, on January 7, was 

 attended by many supporters 

 of the Snell bill, on account 

 of the presentation of argu- 

 ments for the $1,000,000 

 item for tire protection and 

 the $10,000,000 item for for- 

 est acquisition, under the 

 Weeks Law, which are some- 

 what similar in policy to 

 those in the Snell bill. 



Col. W. B. Greeley, mak- 

 ing the introductory state- 

 ment on behalf of the United 

 States Forest Service said 

 that the problem of fire pre- 

 vention was the first step to- 

 ward the reforestation of the 

 nation's idle acres, for a 

 large portion of the forest 

 land would be naturally re- 

 forested if it were given pro- 

 tection against fire. The 

 need for fire prevention was 

 shown to be of the utmost 

 importance, not only because 

 (jf the protection of the 

 growing forests, but because 

 of the manner in which the 

 timber of the country is now being cut four times as fast 

 as new timber is being grown. The forest fire losses an- 

 nually. Colonel Greeley said, were an inexcusable waste, 

 and every dollar expended in preventing fire was an im- 

 portant element in the production of the nation's future 

 timber supply. This he said was most important in the 

 regions where there was not now much work being done 

 by the States on their own account. Colonel Greeley 



lltrris & Ewing 



REPRESENTATIVE BKRTRAND H. SNELI. 

 FORESTRY BILL 



pointed out that the bill proposes to allot money only to 

 those States which are protecting their own forest areas, 

 and that no money be expended in excess of the amount 

 of money expended by the States receiving Federal aid. 



Alfred Gaskill, State Forester of New Jersey, speaking 

 for twenty-one State Foresters who have formally de- 

 clared themselves in favor of the program for tire pre- 

 vention, said that others were 

 known to be in favor of the 

 item who had not been in- 

 cluded in the list reached by 

 the State Foresters Associa- 

 tion Committee. J. S. 

 Holmes, State Forester of 

 North Carolina, and other 

 State Foresters declared in 

 favor of the measure. 



E. T. Allen, representing 

 the Western Forestry and 

 Conservation Association, the 

 National Lumber Manufac- 

 turer's Association, and with 

 credentials from the Gover- 

 nor of Oregon, spoke on how 

 co-operation with the Feder- 

 al Government is effected in 

 the western districts, adding 

 that the private owners in 

 the west spend annually over 

 half a million dollars pro- 

 tecting their own and ad- 

 joining land from fire, with 

 much heavier expenditures 

 in bad years. He said that 

 Federal aid would also as- 

 sist in taking more effective 

 measures to prevent fires 

 throughout all the regions 

 affected, and would increase, 

 not decrease the amount of 

 attention paid to their hold- 

 ings by private owners. He 

 said that in some States pa- 

 trol of forest land was re- 

 quired by law, and that the 

 owners believed that fire pro- 

 tection should be by co-opera- 

 tive measures of Federal and 

 State Governments and pri- 

 vate owners, and not be handled through separate meas- 

 ures which might overlap. 



A strong statement on behalf of the National Forestry- 

 Program Committee, which includes the nation's paper 

 industry, lumber manufacturers and wholesalers, news- 

 paper publishers, wood-using industries, forestry associa- 

 tions and technical foresters was made by R. S. Kellogg, 

 chairman of the committee, when he said : "The Na- 



FATHER OF THE 



