THE PERIOD OF BEGINNINGS 21 



ground except where assigned by the magistrate, and during the next 

 decade this General Court, as well as the Court of Connecticut at 

 Hartford, passed several laws regulating the cutting of timber. 



In 1640, the inhabitants of Exeter, New Hampshire, adopted a gen- 

 eral order for the regulation of the cutting of oak timber. In 1660, at 

 Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a fine of five shillings was imposed for 

 every tree cut by the inhabitants, except for their own buildings, 

 fences and firewood; and in the towns of Kittery and Dover, strict 

 limitations were put on the number of trees that a person could have 

 at any one time, the limit at Dover being ten. 



The General Assembly at Elizabethtown, East New Jersey, imposed 

 a penalty of five pounds in 1678 for every tree cut from unpatented 

 lands. In a council held at Elizabethtown in 1683, a resolution was 

 adopted, reciting that much timber trespass and waste was being com- 

 mitted, and authorizing the Governor to issue a proclamation and 

 enforce the law against timber trespass. In 1681, William Penn stipu- 

 lated in his ordinances regarding the disposal of lands, that for every 

 five acres cleared of forest growth, one acre should be left to forest. 

 Strict laws against forest fires were passed by many of the colonies 

 soon after they were established — by several of the New England colo- 

 nies previous to 1650. A Massachusetts act of 1743 specifically recog- 

 nized the damage caused by fire to young tree growth and to the soil, 

 and a North Carolina act of 1777, imposing penalties for the unlawful 

 firing of the woods, declared forest fires "extremely prejudicial to the 

 soil." 



The first legislative recognition in America of the principle of tim- 

 ber conservation through the imposition of a diameter limit for cut- 

 ting, except the parliamentary acts directed at the maintenance of a 

 supply of mast timber, was the statute passed at Albany, New York, 

 in 1772. This act forbade any person to bring into Albany any wood 

 below certain specified diameters — six inches for pine. In 1783, the 

 General Court of Massachusetts passed an act forbidding the cutting 

 or destroying of white pine trees above a certain size, from any lands 

 of the state, without license from the Legislature. This law was strik- 

 ingly similar to the one that had aroused such opposition on the part 

 of the colonists of New Hampshire, when imposed by England during 

 the colonial period. 



