1901 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



93 



The Forester, 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY 



The American Forestry Association, 



AND 



Devoted to Arboriculture and Forestry, the 



Care and Use of Forests and Forest 



Trees, and Related Subjects. 



The Forester assumes no responsibility for 

 opinions expressed in signed articles. 



All members of the American Forestry Associa- 

 tion receive the Forester free of charge. Annual 

 fee for regular members $2.00. An application blank 

 will be found in the back of this number. 



All contributions and communications should be 

 addressed to the Editor, 



202 14th Street, S. W., Washington, D.C. 



Subscriptions and remittances should be sent to 

 41 North Queen St., Lancaster, Pa., or 202 14th St., 

 S. W., Washington, D. C. 



Copyright, 1901, by the American Forestry As- 

 sociation. 



Vol. VII. 



APRIL, 1901. 



No. 4. 



Steps toward The irrational and waste- 

 Consolidating ful division of the gov- 

 Forest Work. ernment's forest work, 

 between the Division of 

 Forestry of the Agricultural Department, 

 the Land Office and the Geological 

 Survey, which has struck every one who 

 has known anything about the forest 

 situation in this country as being the 

 point at which it has most needed re- 

 modelling, is at last being done away 

 with. It would be difficult to say too 

 much in welcome of any reform in this 

 quarter, but many of the Forester's read- 

 ers already know this well. What has act- 

 ually taken place can best be understood if 

 certain passages in the official correspon- 

 dence are allowed to explain themselves. 

 In a letter addressed to Mr. M. A. Moody, 

 Congressman from Oregon, Mr. Gifford 

 Pinchot explained his position with regard 

 to the government's forest work as fol- 

 lows : 



"In reply to your letter of inquiry of 

 January iSth, I have to say that the forest 

 work of the United States Government is 

 at present divided among three unrelated 

 and independent organizations. These 

 are : The General Land Office, which ad- 

 ministrates the national forest reserves; 

 the U. S. Geological Survey, which 



maps them, describes the irforests, recom- 

 mends changes in their boundaries, and 

 establishes the permanent boundaries on 

 the ground ; and the Division of Forestry 

 of the Department of Agriculture, which 

 is charged with all matters of professional 

 forestry. The chief interests of the latter 

 at present are the promotion of practical 

 forestry among private owners, and the 

 preparation of working plans for conserv- 

 ative lumbering and reports upon technical 

 forest subjects in the national forest re- 

 serves at the request of the Secretary of 

 the Interior. The work of the Geological 

 Survey is temporary in its nature and will 

 naturally terminate when the forest re- 

 serves have been covered. It is better 

 and more economically done by the Survey 

 than it could be under any other manage- 

 ment. 



"In the language of the resolution 

 adopted by the National Board of Trade 

 at its meeting held in Washington in De- 

 cember, 1S9S, 'The liberality of Congress 

 in providing for forest investigations, sur- 

 veys, and administration has been attended 

 with waste of money and lack of effective- 

 ness, due to absence of concentration of 

 forces in plans for the execution of forestry 

 laws.' 



" All the trained foresters in the employ- 

 ment of the United States, and with five 

 or six exceptions all those in this country, 

 are in the Department of Agriculture. 

 The administration of the forest reserves 

 is carried on without the participation of 

 a single member of the trained forest force 

 paid by the Government. A similar situ- 

 ation would be created if a bridge building 

 concern should maintain a corps of highly 

 educated engineers, should separate them 

 entirely from its practical work, and should 

 entrust the building of its bridges entirely 

 to men without practicable or theoretical 

 training for that purpose. 



"The proposed administration of the 

 forest work of the Government by the De- 

 partment of Agriculture is supported by 

 the following reasons : 



" 1. The Department of Agriculture has 

 already a very important held ol forest 

 work for farmers and others the intro- 

 duction of practical forestry on private 



