STORY OF OUR NATIONAL FOREST 87 



these and many other early conservational enact- 

 ments by the colonies, the new nation, and several of 

 the states, increased extraordinarily during the 

 quadrupling of the population in the half century 

 following 1820. Numerous official and private 

 warnings were meantime published, but were un- 

 heeded. The bare mountains and soil-less wastes in 

 Spain, in much of France and in the Far East were 

 cited as the inevitable end of a course which ap- 

 peared to grow madder as the population increased. 

 The vanishing of virgin white pine and black wal- 

 nut was predicted years before it occurred. But the 

 people, blinded by belief in the inexhaustibility of 

 their forests, remained indifferent, and Congress, 

 apparently drunk with the wealth at its disposal, 

 flung its vast treasures of woodland to whoever 

 asked in the name of local need or personal profit. 

 By 1870 more than 95,000 square miles of finest 

 timber lands had been presented to soldiers in extra 

 recognition of service, recalling our recent soldier 

 bonus, but far more costly even than that since it 

 gave what never could be replaced. Nearly all these 

 bonus lands passed quickly into the hands of specu- 

 lators at a fraction of their values even then. By 

 1870, nearly 200,000 square miles of rich forest had 

 found their way into private possession through 

 grants to states, and twice that an area greater 

 than the combined total areas of the New England 

 and Middle Atlantic states with Ohio, Maryland, 

 and the Virginias thrown in had been tossed free 



