110 UNITED STATES FOREST POLICY 



EARLY ADVOCATES OF FOREST RESERVES 

 It will be recalled that public opinion, and even scientific opinion, 

 during the seventies, had generally favored the sale of timber lands ; 

 but there had been a few signs of dissent from that policy. As early 

 as 1867, the Commissioner of the Land Office, speaking of Oregon, 

 declared that "lands producing timber of such valuable qualities and 

 in such extraordinary quantities should be preserved as timber lands 

 through all time." In 1873, the committee of the Association for the 

 Advancement of Science had so qualified their disapproval of a sys- 

 tem of national forests as to practically grant the advisability of such 

 a system. In 1877, Hough voiced approval of the Canadian system of 

 selling stumpage with a reservation of the land,^^^ and in a later vol- 

 ume of his "Report on Forestry" unreservedly urged that policy for 

 the United States. ^^'^ In 1878, Commissioner Williamson wrote to Sec- 

 retary Schurz, "The soil should not be sold with the timber where the 

 land is not fit for cultivation."^^*' Secretary Schurz fully agreed with 

 his commissioner in this matter, and persuaded Senator Plumb of 

 Kansas to introduce a bill withdrawing all timber lands from sale, but 

 the bill was lost in the Committee on Public Lands. "^ In the following 

 year, Schurz urged the reservation of some of the redwood tracts in 

 California,^'^ and in 1880, the Public Lands Commission presented a 

 bill reserving from sale all lands "chiefly valuable for timber," ex- 

 cepting those bearing minerals. The failure of this bill has been 

 noted.^" 



Secretary Teller was not generally enthusiastic about forest re- 

 serves, although later, as senator, he introduced one bill which would 

 have permitted their establishment. Commissioner McFarland, in 

 1884, urged the establishment of "permanent timber reserves in locali- 

 ties and situations where such permanent reservations may be deemed 

 desirable."^^* In 1885, Secretary Lamar and Commissioner Sparks 



168 Hough, "Report on Forestry," I, 194. 



169 Ibid., III. 8. 



i-jo Report, Sec. of Int., 1878, XV. 



iTi S. 609; 45 Cong. 2 sess. See Report, Land Office, 1900, 110-112. 



172 Report, Sec. of Int, 1879, 29. 



1T3 Cross Reference, pp. 98, 99. 



174 S, 760; 47 Cong. 1 sess.: Report, Land Office, 1884, 19. 



