H4 OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



messages, but Congress did not give effect to it until 

 three years later. In the meantime, by thorough 

 study of the Western public timberlands, the ground- 

 work was laid for the responsibilities which were to 

 fall upon the Bureau of Forestry when the care of 

 the National Forests came to be transferred to it. 

 It was evident that trained American Foresters 

 would be needed in considerable numbers, and a for- 

 est school was established at Yale to supply them. 



"In 1901, at my suggestion as President, the 

 Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Hitchcock, made a 

 formal request for technical advice from the Bureau 

 of Forestry in handling the National Forests, and 

 an extensive examination of their condition and 

 needs was accordingly taken up. The same year a 

 study was begun of the proposed Appalachian Na- 

 tional Forest, the plan of which, already formulated 

 at that time, has since been carried out. A year later 

 experimental planting on the National Forests was 

 also begun, and studies preparatory to the applica- 

 tion of practical forestry to the Indian Reservations 

 were undertaken. In 1903, so rapidly did the public 

 work of the Bureau of Forestry increase that the 

 examination of land for new forest reserves was 

 added to the study of those already created, the for- 

 est lands of the various states were studied, and co- 

 operation with several of them in the examination 

 and handling of their forest lands was undertaken. 



"While these practical tasks were pushed for- 

 ;ward, a technical knowledge of American Forests 



