THE PERIOD OF BEGINNINGS 29 



that we should raise an adequate supply of wood and timber for all 

 our wants. The evils which are anticipated will probably increase upon 

 us for thirty years to come, with ten-fold the rapidity with which 

 restoring or ameliorating measures shall be adopted.'"^ 



In 1867, the committee appointed by the legislature of Michigan to 

 investigate forest destruction reported: "The interests to be subr 

 served, and the evils to be avoided by our action on this subject have 

 reference not alone to this year or the next score of years, but genera- 

 tions yet unborn will bless or curse our memory according as we pre- 

 serve for them what the munificent past has so richly bestowed upon 

 us, or as we lend our influence to continue and accelerate the waste- 

 ful destruction everywhere at work in our beautiful state."^^ In 1868, 

 George P. Marsh published his famous work on "Man and Nature," in 

 which he discusses at great length the effects of forest destruction 

 upon climate, rainfall, and floods.^* This book had a very great influ- 

 ence, and was frequently cited by the early conservationists. A few 

 years later the Overland Monthly published an able article by Taliesin 

 Evans on the relation of conservation to lumber exports ;'" and about 

 the same time N. U. Beckwith wrote in the Canadian Monthly of the 

 "habitual, wicked, insane waste of lumber" in Canada.^® As early as 

 1873, Verplanck Colvin was urging the legislature of New York to buy 

 the forests at the sources of the Hudson ; and in the same year, Gover- 

 nor Hartranft of Pennsylvania, in his message to the legislature, 

 called attention to the importance of forest preservation. 



The year 1872 marks the date of several events of importance in 

 the forestry movement. In that year, $100,000 was given to Harvard 

 College by the will of James Arnold to establish in the Bussey Institu- 

 tion a professorship of tree culture, and maintain an arboretum,^^ 

 while in a western state, arbor day was celebrated for the first time at 



22Coultas, Harland, "What May be Learned from a Tree," 179: H. Doc. 181; 

 55 Cong. 3 sess., 168. 



23 Michigan, House Documents, No. 6, 1867. 



24 Marsh, "Man and Nature," 128-329. 



25 Overland Monthly, March, 1871, 234. 



26 June, 1872, 527. 



27 In 1835, Benjamin Bussey of Roxbury, Massachusetts, had provided for a 

 school of agriculture and horticulture as a department of Harvard College, and in 

 1870, the school had been opened. 



