4 THE FORESTER. January, 



On motion of General Andrews, the Secretary was authorized to cast the ballot of 

 the Association for the officers nominated, and they were declared duly elected. 



The report of the Committee on Resolutions was then presented by Mr. Coville, and 

 was adopted as read, without discussion. (Hereto attached.) 



At the request of the Chair, Mr. Gifford Pinchot, Forester of the Department of 

 Agriculture, explained the work of his Division, mainly by reading extracts from his 

 annual report to the Secretary. He described the reorganization of the Division, and 

 detailed the work which each of the four sections is engaged in. An interesting fact 

 mentioned was that at the request of the Secretary of the Interior, the Division of Forestry 

 will prepare working plans for the forest reserves. He stated that the Geological 

 Survey was in close touch with his Division but that unless the Interior Department 

 makes the first move towards consolidation, he did not see clearly how it could be 

 accomplished. 



The Chair said he thought there should be a definite proposition for consolidation 

 submitted to Congress. Little had been accomplished toward getting the reserves until 

 that line of action had been adopted. He thought it was the proper function of this 

 Association to formulate a definite proportion on this new project. 



Mr. Coville moved that the Board of Directors make this project a feature of their 

 legislative work, and that the Legislative Committee of the Board be directed to con- 

 sider the advisability of drafting a bill for consolidation, if after deliberation it should 

 seem advisable. 



An interesting discussion followed as to the proper executive department to take 

 charge of such consolidated work. The Chair remarked that the present condition of 

 things had come about from perfectly natural reasons; and he thought it best to estab- 

 lish first an enforced cooperation and division of work between the Division of Forestry, 

 the Geological Survey, and the General Land Office. This would perhaps prepare the 

 way for consolidation. The Interior Department has control of the lands, and it might 

 require too great a change to transfer the work of the General Land Office to another 

 department. For the present, therefore, he favored merely an enforced cooperation. 



Mr. Bowers advocated no half-way measures. We should ask for what we think is 

 the right thing, he said. The Land Office is merely a selling office, he continued ; it 

 was organized to dispose of the public lands to settlers, and was not meant to be a per- 

 manent bureau. But as the reserves are in the hands of the Interior Department, it 

 might be best to make the proposed forestry bureau a part of that Department, though 

 separate from and independent of the Land Office. The Department of Agriculture is 

 an investigating or scientific department rather than an administrative one, he said, and 

 so he favored putting the forestry bureau with the Interior Department, and taking into 

 it the expert force from the Department of Agriculture. 



Mr. Coville spoke of the rapid growth of the work in the latter Department and said 

 that there is a general tendency to concentrate in that Department work requiring scien- 

 tific investigation; and yet it has a large amount of purely administrative work. He 

 cited the Bureau of Animal Industry in which about ninety per cent, of the work is admin- 

 istrative. The Weather Bureau, also, is a great administrative division. He therefore 

 thought that a bureau of forestry might very properly be placed in the Department of 

 Agriculture. It would be a better institution in fifty years from now, if placed there. 



Professor Thomas H. MacBride, of Iowa State University, thought that the present 

 situation in forestry calls for investigation as well as administration, and he therefore 

 advocated placing the bureau of forestry in the Department of Agriculture. Forestry 

 is a phase of agriculture, and it would be a mistake, he said, to take it away from that 

 Department. Along these lines, too, he believed we could appeal successfully to the 

 great farming portion of our population. 



Mr. Pinchot said that if the Government forestry work is to include tree-planting 

 and working-plans for cultivating the reserves, then it is a serious question whether 



