186 THE NATIONAL FOREST RESERVES 



properly utilized. Among others, the McRae bill (H. R. 119) 

 was passed twice b}"" the House, and in a slightly different form 

 once by the Senate, but failed of final consideration. Soon after 

 the beginning of his administration President Cleveland pro- 

 claimed two reservations, one of these, the Cascade Range Forest 

 Reserve, in Oregon, being of enormous size, embracing nearly 

 four and a half million acres. 



As session after session of Congress passed without the needed 

 legislation to protect these reservations, the friends of forestry 

 united upon a new line of action. The American Forestry Asso- 

 ciation, in its executive sessions, drew up a letter, subsequently 

 signed by the Secretaiy of the Interior, the Hon. Hoke Smith, 

 calling upon the National Academy of Sciences for information 

 upon the whole subject. Secretary Smith also asked that Con- 

 gress appropriate the sum of $25,000 for this purpose. In the 

 act approved June 11, 1896, this amount was accordingly set 

 aside "'to enable the Secretary of the Interior to meet the ex- 

 penses of an investigation and report by the National Academy 

 of Sciences on the inauguration of a national forestr}^ policy 

 for the forested lands of the United States." The commission 

 appointed l)y the President of the Academy at once took up the 

 subject and as soon as practicable visited many of the forestry 

 areas of the West, making a preliminary report to the Secretary 

 of the Interior on February 1, 1897, recommending the establish- 

 ment of thirteen additional forest reserves. The recommenda- 

 tion was at once acted upon, and on February 22 President 

 Cleveland proclaimed the thirteen reserves, containing an esti- 

 mated area of over twent^'^-one million acres. 



The commission in this preliminary report recognized the 

 difficulty of securing suitable legislation for the protection of 

 the forests or of the reservations, and accordingly used, as one 

 of its arguments for making these reservations, the fact that a 

 greater number of persons would be induced by self-interest to 

 urge upon Congress the enacting of laws which public interests 

 alone have not been sufficient to bring about. The commission 

 "believes that the solution of this difficult problem [of forest 

 management] will, however, be made easier if reserved areas are 

 now increased, as the greater the number of persons interested 

 in drawing supplies from the reserved territor}^ or in mining in 

 them, the greater will be the pressure on Congress to enact laws 

 permitting their proper administration." The wisdom of this 

 argument was seen in the demand from the West for immediate 



