THE PERIOD OF CONSERVATION 161 



of national forests was increasing rapidly, and the appropriations 

 had to cover an increasingly large area, while the income from the 

 forest reserves was increasing faster than appropriations were. 



CREATION OF NEW RESERVES 



Cleveland's forest reserve proclamations of February 22, 1897, 

 were the last he made, for his term expired shortly afterwards, but 

 McKinley had been in office less than a year when he established his 

 first reserve,^*' and during his term of office he increased the number 

 of forest reserves from twenty-eight to over forty,^^ covering in 1901 

 a total area of about 50,000,000 acres. 



President Roosevelt was far more aggressive in his reservation policy 

 than his predecessors had been. His policy, however, should be credited 

 mainly to his chief forester, Pinchot; in fact, it is perhaps only fair 

 to say that for a very large part of the 150,000,000 acres of forest 

 reserves which are now the property of the American people, credit is 

 due to Gifford Pinchot, who was Roosevelt's most trusted assistant 

 and adviser. Pinchot saw that the government was rapidly losing its 

 timber land, and he organized a field force to gather information as 

 the basis of recommending reserves. During these years, the timber- 

 men of the Lake states were looking westward for new fields to exploit, 

 and their agents in the West were assembling blocks of timber land as 

 fast as they could. Thus proceeded the race between the government 

 and the private individuals for the remaining western timber. Roose- 

 velt set aside thirteen reserves in the first year of his administration ;^® 

 and his zeal increased prodigiously in the last years of his administra- 

 tion. In 1907, the number of national forests had been increased to 

 159, with a total area of over 150,000,000 acres — three times the 

 area at the beginning of Roosevelt's administration.''^ 



IMPROVEMENT OF THE FOREST FIRE LAW 



Congress made some advances in the protection of timber in other 

 ways than by providing money. In the first place, the law against 

 setting forest fires was somewhat improved. The act of 1897 had pro- 

 se Stat. 30, 1767. 



57 Report, Land Office, 1901, 107. 



58 Stat. 32, 1988-2030. 



59 Report, Land Office, 1907, 20. 



