1900. AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 5 



that kind of work can be handed over to the Interior Department. These matters are 

 very largely questions of investigation and experiment. 



Mr. Bowers remarked that until the lands are all segregated the property will be, at 

 least in part, in the hands of the Interior Department. But he disclaimed any preju- 

 dice in the matter. 



The Chair added that it took four years to mature the policy of forest reserves, and 

 the probability is that by the time any bill for consolidation can be matured, the boun- 

 daries of the reserves will be known. It will be easy then, he thought, to transfer their 

 control to the Department of Agriculture. 



Mr. Coville suggested that the new bureau should not undertake the clearing of the 

 titles to the land or the marking of the boundaries of the reservations. But when the 

 Land Office had cleared the titles and the Geological Survey had marked out the lines, 

 those bureaus should have nothing more to do with the reserves. He also pointed out 

 that the work of the Department of Agriculture is now so large that the Secretary is a 

 very busy man, and so there is less likelihood of the integrity of any bureau in that De- 

 partment being interfered with by any new Secretary. This concluded the discussion. 



A vote of thanks was tendered the Cosmos Club for its hospitality in affording the 

 Association the use of the hall, and, on motion of Mr. Coville, the meeting then ad- 

 journed. 



In the evening those present at the meeting were entertained informally by Mr. 

 Gifford Pinchot at his residence on Rhode Island Avenue. 



Report of the Board of Directors. 



At the last annual meeting of the American Forestry Association the Executive 

 Committee was dissolved and its duties devolved upon the Board of Directors, which 

 presents the following report on the progress of forestry during the past year. 



Advancement is observable both in the direction of depending public sentiment and 

 in that of specific legislation and executive action. We are now entering upon a new 

 era, marked clearly by altered points of view, to which the development of the last 

 twenty-five years has steadily, if not always perceptibly, trended. For the most part, 

 the people have come to see and to appreciate the ends for which the Association has 

 been aiming. Forestry, properly understood, and as distinct from the less commercial 

 interests of arboriculture and landscape work, has emerged conspicuously as a recog- 

 nized object of state and individual study and effort, and as a promising field both for 

 private enterprise and for thoughtful statesmanship. 



It was in May, 1898, that an important increase in the appropriation of Congress 

 for the administration of the Federal Forest Reserves enabled the Secretary of the In- 

 terior to place in the field a more nearly adequate Forest Service. The forest ranger 

 system as it now exists may hopefully be regarded, subject, of course, to important 

 elaboration and extension, as the first step towards a scheme of forest protection that 

 promises to be substantially effective. In the suppression and avertance of forest fires 

 the present system has already shown encouraging results. 



Since September, 1898, seven new reserves have been added. These are the Tra- 

 buco Canyon and the Fish Lake Reserves, the Gallatin Reserves, the Gila River, Lake 

 Tahoe, Santa Inez and Prescott Reserves, with a total acreage of 5,250,136 acres. The 

 Mount Rainier Reserve, originally created by President Cleveland, has been reduced 

 by 207,360 acres, which have been set aside to form the Mount Rainier National Park. 



The U. S. Geological Survey is steadily pursuing its all-important work of survey- 

 ing, describing and mapping the lands included in the reserves. The work of map- 

 ping has progressed in the Flathead and Lewis and Clarke Reserves of Montana, the 

 Priest River and Bitter Root Reserves of Idaho, the Cascade Reserve of Washington 

 and the Uintah Reserve of Utah. 



