A FEDERAL FOREST SERVICE 



BY 

 GIFFORD PINCHOT 



Forester, U. S. Department of Agriculture 



Note.— Almost immediately upon the adjournment of the 

 Forest Congress a bill to transfer the care of the forest re- 

 serves to the Secretary of Agriculture became law. A na- 

 tional forest service therefore came into actual existence in the 

 Bureau of Forestry of that Department, the name of which 

 Bureau, on the first of July, 1905, will be changed to the 

 Forest Service. This paper has therefore been modified in 

 accordance with the facts. It is now a statement of the 

 objects and organization of the Forest Service. 



•y HE National Forest Service has three principal 

 objects. First, it is responsible for the general 

 progress of forestry in the United States among the 

 people at large, so far as the national government is 

 concerned. This work rests upon the fact that in a 

 government such as ours no movement can be perma- 

 nently successful unless it is based on a general public 

 recognition of its importance and utility. Since, 

 therefore, it is essential to the well-being of the nation 

 that its forests should not be destroyed, the first duty 

 of the Forest Service is to place that fact clearly before 

 the people. 



Second, the Forest Service, being almost, if not 

 quite, the only organization at present capable of so 

 doing, is charged with giving private owners the 

 knowledge of how to perpetuate their forests by wise 

 use. The area of private forest lands in the United 

 States does now, and probably must always, greatly 



