28 UNITED STATES FOREST POLICY 



published his "Report on the Trees and Shrubs Naturally Growing in 

 the Forests of Massachusetts." Professor Emerson was one of the 

 earliest advocates of forest conservation in America.'^ An ordinance 

 passed in 1851 by the General Assembly of the newly formed "State of 

 Deseret," the Mormon settlement later called Utah, imposed a pen- 

 alty of $100, in addition to the liability for all damage, on anyone who 

 should waste, burn, or otherwise destroy timber in the mountains. In 

 1855, Mr. R. U. Piper of Woburn, Massachusetts, in his book on "The 

 Trees of America," made an extended appeal for forest protection 

 and for the planting of trees. "It seems that the supply of many kinds 

 of wood which are necessary for mechanical purposes is becoming so 

 uncertain as to make it a matter of serious inquiry what is to be done 

 in our own day to meet the demand," he complained. "When Canada 

 has exhausted her supply, which she must at some time do, where are 

 we to go.'' In our enjoyment of the present we are apt to forget that 

 we cannot without sin neglect to provide for those who are to come 

 after us. It is a common observation that our summers are becoming 

 dryer and our streams smaller, and this is due to forest destruction, 

 which makes our summers dryer and our winters colder." Piper quoted 

 from William CuUen Bryant to show that the rivers in Spain were 

 drying up because of the destruction of forests. In 1855, Andre 

 Michaux bequeathed $12,000 to the American Philosophical Society 

 in Philadelphia for forestry instruction. 



Five years later, Harland Coultas spoke of the "formidable scale" 

 on which the woods were disappearing. "In America we are in danger 

 of losing sight of the utility of the woods," he said. "... If we 

 remove trees from the mountain side, from a low, sandy coast, or 

 from an inland district only scantily supplied with water, there is no 

 end to the mischievous consequences which will ensue. By such igno- 

 rant work as this the equilibrium in the Household of Nature is fear- 

 fully disturbed." In 1865, the Rev. Frederick Starr discussed fully 

 and forcibly the "American Forests, their Destruction and Preserva- 

 tion." In this treatise he made the following prophecy: "It is feared 

 it will be long, perhaps a full century, before the results at which we 

 ought to aim as a nation will be realized by our whole country, to wit, 



21 Proceedings, Am. Forestry Congress, 1885, 62: Kinney, "Forest Law in 

 America," 3. 



