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and value. The final report of the said Commission shall be presented to the 
Legislature not later than March 15, 1895. 
Sec. 3. The said Commission shall have power to appoint one competent per- 
son to act as statistician, whose duties shall be to compile the statistics collected 
by said Commission, under their direction and supervision, whose salary shall be 
one thousand dollars per annum, with necessary expenses, to be paid in the same 
manner as is hereinafter provided for the payment of the Forestry Commission. 
Sec. 4. The Commissioners appointed hereunder shall be entitled to receive by 
quarterly payments a compensation as follows: The Engineer, twenty-five hundred 
dollars ($2500) per annum; the Botanist, twenty-five hundred dollars ($2500) 
per annum, with necessary expenses for each; and the sum of twenty thousand 
dollars ($20,000), or so much as may be necessary, is hereby appropriated out 
of any money in the treasury, not otherwise appropriated, to be paid by warrant 
drawn by the Auditor-General. 
It should be added that the chief executive officers of the Com- 
monwealth had already recognized the magnitude of the forestry 
problem. Governors Hartranft, Beaver and Pattison had made 
urgent allusions to it, in their messages. 
Such, in brief, is the history of the forestry ideain Pennsylvania. 
There remains yet to be given an outline of the conditions existing 
when a change in public policy seems to be assured for the near 
future. 
The area of Pennsylvania may be stated in round numbers at 
46,000 square miles. Of this we may say approximately 64 per 
cent. is in farms; or under some general oversight, not usually 
accorded to forests in this country. That is to say, that in a little 
more than two and a half centuries of civilized occupation, we have 
swept off about two-thirds of the forest area of the State. When 
first settled almost its entire area was densely wooded. In doing 
so we have reached a point where importation of lumber ex- 
ceeds exportation. Nor is this all. We have practically extermi- 
nated the Wild Black Cherry (Prunus serotina Ehrh.), the Black 
Walnut (/Juglans nigra. L.), and two of our most valuable Hickories 
(Carya alba Nutt. and Carya porcina Nutt.) have ceased to be 
abundant enough for our own special industries. Hemlock ( Zsuga 
Canadensis Carr.) is superseding White Pine (Pinus strobus L.) be- 
cause the latter is becoming poor in quality, or high in price; in 
fact the better qualities of earlier days are no longer to be had ex- 
cept at exorbitant rates. Within five years, extensive Hemlock 
forests have been cut solely for the bark, the trunks being allowed 
to remain and rot unutilized, just where they fell. It may be pos- 
