34 UNITED STATES FOREST POLICY 



DeWitt Clinton, but the first action came in 1872, when a law was 

 passed naming seven citizens as a State Park Commission, and 

 instructing them to make inquiries with a view to reserving or appro- 

 priating the wild lands lying northward of the Mohawk. This com- 

 mission, of which Verplanck Colvin was a member, recommended a law 

 forbidding further sale of state lands. ^^ Minnesota appropriated 

 money to aid the Forestry Association formed in St. Paul in 1876. In 

 1877, Connecticut provided by law for a report on forestry, and an 

 agent was sent to Europe to get the material for this report.^" In 

 1864, California passed a law forbidding the cutting of trees on state 

 lands, but rendered the law practically inoperative by a proviso that 

 it should not apply to timber cut for manufacture into lumber or 

 firewood, for tanning or agricultural or mining purposes. In 1872, 

 California passed a law against setting fire to forests, and in 1874, a 

 law to protect the big trees — applying only to trees over sixteen feet 

 in diameter. Other states had, of course, preceded California in the 

 protection of forests against fire. In 1876, Colorado included in her 

 constitution a section relating to protection of forests.^^ 



ACTION OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF 



SCIENCE 



More fruitful of immediate results than most of this state legis- 

 lation was the adoption in August, 1873, by the American Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science, of a resolution providing for the 

 appointment of a committee to memorialize Congress and the several 

 state legislatures on the importance of forest preservation, and to 

 recommend needed legislation.^^ The committee appointed was com- 

 posed of F. B. Hough of New York, George B. Emerson of Boston, 

 Professor Asa Gray of Cambridge, Professor J. D. Whitney of Cali- 



36 ^m. Forestry, Dec, 1910, 695: Fernow, "Economics of Forestry," 386: 

 Proceedings, Am. Forestry Assoc, 1894-95-96, 145. 



37 Hough, "Report on Forestry," I, 205. 



38 Ibid. The same constitutional convention that drew up the Colorado consti- 

 tution also adopted a strongly conservationist memorial to Congress, asking for 

 the transfer to the state of all the timber lands on the public domain within the 

 state. The motive behind this is betrayed by Colorado's later energetic opposition 

 to the Federal forest policy. 



39 S. Ex. Doc. 28 ; 43 Cong. 1 sess. 



