FORESTRY AND FOREST MANAGEMENT 343 



munities and cities and by national commissions, which have 

 done such excellent work that many of the forest areas com- 

 pare favorably with those of Germany. Not only were the 

 old areas replanted, but extensive tracts of land along the 

 sea coast, where the sands shifted and at times covered 

 entire farms, were taken over and planted with forest trees. 

 Other European and Asiatic countries have definite forest 



FIG. 193. A natural coniferous forest. Photograph from the 

 Wisconsin State Conservation Commission. 



policies, and Japan ranks with Germany and France in the 

 results obtained from her forests. 



It was not until about 1875 that a serious interest in for- 

 estry began to develop in the United States and Canada. 

 Up to this time it had seemed as though the forests were 

 inexhaustible. Sporadic efforts had been made in earlier 

 years by cities and by a few states to control in part the 

 cutting of timber. Some of the early settlements in New 

 England made laws regulating the cutting and sale of timber 

 products. William Penn in 1682 declared that one acre must 

 be kept in forest for each five acres cleared. It is unfortunate 

 that with this precedent the state of Pennsylvania should at 

 present be in worse condition than any other eastern state 



