5H 



Garden and Forest. 



tOcToBEk S3, 1889. 



The American Forestry Association. 



The Annual Meeting at Philadelphia. 



THE American Forestry Congress held its eighth an- 

 nual meeting in Philadelphia last week, and changed 

 its name. It is now the American Forestry Association. 

 This is an improvement. The Pennsylvania Forestry As- 

 sociation had its fourth annual meeting at the same time 

 and place. The joint sessions were held in Horticultural 

 Hall, and began on Tuesday evening, continuing till Fri- 

 day afternoon. Hon. James A. Beaver, Governor of Penn- 

 sylvania, and the President of the Association, presided in a 

 vital and stimulating manner, which did much to promote 

 the systematic transaction of business. He was sometimes 

 relieved by Hon. H. G. Joly, of Quebec, and Dr. Charles 

 Mohr, of Mobile. Many interesting papers on forestry 

 subjects were presented — more, indeed, than could be read. 

 At least sixteen states were represented by delegates ap- 

 pointed by their Governors, as was also the province of 

 Quebec. The Board of Education of the city of Cincinnati 

 sent a representative, and there were delegates from some 

 of the agricultural organizations of the country. The Penn- 

 sylvania Forestry Association and the people of Phila- 

 delphia entertained their visitors with a most engaging and 

 satisfactory hospitality. All conditions were favorable, and 

 the meeting was universally regarded as the best one ever 

 held by the national organization. 



The vi'ork began on Tuesday evening with an address 

 by Hon. Carl Schurz on the general subject of the import- 

 ance of forests, and of proper forest management, to civili- 

 zation and national welfare. It was an interesting and im- 

 pressive presentation of the facts of the condition and 

 treatment of the forests on our public domain, with illus- 

 trations from the speaker's experience while he was Secre- 

 tary of the Interior. He urged the necessity of the perma- 

 nent maintenance of forest conditions in mountain regions 

 as indispensable to the permanent and useful flow of the 

 streams having their sources in them. After referring to the 

 important economic considerations which should be recog- 

 nized in national forest management, he spoke eloquently 

 of the obligation of the people of this country to regard 

 themselves as trustees to whom are committed interests of 

 stupendous magnitude affecting the destiny of millions of 

 human beings through all coming time. 



The most important action of the meeting was the adop- 

 tion of the resolutions introduced by Mr. B. E. Fernow, 

 Chief of the Forestry Division of the Department of Agri- 

 culture, by which the association voted to petition the 

 Senate and House of Representatives of the United States 

 to pass an act withdrawing from sale the forest lands of 

 the public domain until a Commission, to be appointed by 

 the President, shall have made the necessary examination 

 and reported to Congress what part of these lands should 

 be kept permanently in forest. The resolutions also ask 

 that the army shall be employed to protect the forests on 

 the public lands from spoliation and destruction, if this 

 becomes necessary, until the Commission shall have re- 

 ported a plan for a permanent- system of national forest 

 management. 



This is substantially the course that has been advocated 

 by Garden and Forest, and which has been approved by a 

 large proportion of the leading journals of the country. 

 The readiness with which the American Forestry Associa- 

 tion follows Mr. Fernow's lead in this important movement 

 is an encouraging indication of enlightened and practical 

 judgment, and all serious-minded and patriotic Americans 

 should unite in making an effective presentation of the . 

 matter to Congress and to the President, in order that effect- 

 ive and speedy action may be secured. Unless this is done, 

 it will soon be too late to prevent the permanent ruin of 

 some of the fairest and most important portions of our 

 national heritage. 



A FORCIBLE SPEECH. 



The discussion provoked by these resolutions was one 



of the most interesting and useful features of the meeting. 

 The proposed plan was opposed by Mr. Lemon Thompson, 

 of Albany, New York, on the ground that it would be 

 more in accordance with the spirit of our institutions and 

 with our national practice hitherto, to sell all such forest 

 lands to individuals who wish to buy them, and also for 

 the reason that, as a matter of fact, the forests would be 

 better protected under individual ownership than if man- 

 aged by politicians and ofhce-holders, appointed by the 

 Government. Mr. Thompson was often interrupted, but 

 held his ground sturdily until he had said what he wished. 

 Effective replies were made by Mr. Fernow, by Mr. Her- 

 bert Welsh, of Philadelphia, Colonel Edgar T. Ensign, For- 

 est Commissioner of Colorado, and others. But the most 

 thorough and convincing speech of this discussion, and, 

 indeed, of the whole meeting, was made by Mr. Richard J. 

 Hinton. Mr. Hinton has recently attended the Senate Com- 

 mittee on Irrigation through the whole course of its inves- 

 tigations, traveling nearly fifteen thousand miles through 

 the mountainous and arid regions of the west for this pur- 

 pose. During the course of his eventful life Mr. Hinton 

 has more than once happened to be at hand at the right 

 time and place for action, but he probably has not often 

 done a better quarter of an hour's work than in the forcible 

 address in which he advocated the passage of these resolu- 

 tions. He showed very clearly how impossible it is that 

 individual citizens, or even the separate states, should deal 

 successfully with the problems connected with the man- 

 agement and course of rivers which are thousands of miles 

 in length, and which flow through the territory of a dozen 

 different states. His arraignment of the criminal and 

 stupid indifference which would wantonly exhaust in the 

 life of a single generation the possibilities of our magnifi- 

 cent national inheritance "through a thousand onward 

 years," and his appeal to the American people to act wisely 

 while there is yet time for effective action, was a passage 

 of remarkable beauty and power. 



VARIOUS PAPERS. 



In his address Mr. Schurz said : " The destruction of the 

 forests of the country will be the murder of its future and its 

 progress. It seems to me that wherever the forests cover the 

 head-waters of great rivers the Government should keep pos- 

 session. If the possession is gone, then regain it. Look at the 

 valleys of the Hudson and Mohawk — already the flow of these 

 rivers is diminished from twenty to thirty per cent. If the 

 destruction of the forests continues the United States will be 

 as completely stripped as Asia Minor." 



Mr. Fernow, Chief of the Forestry Division, read a carefully 

 prepared paper on "Methods of Forestry Reform." It is the 

 one which he read to the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science a few weeks ago. We quote his obser- 

 vations regarding 



STATE FOREST COMMISSIONERS. 



" A state which is administering its trust for the people, a 

 government by the people, who believe in education as the 

 best means of advancing their interests, will not object to pro- 

 viding for the education of their agents, which alone fits them 

 to exercise their duties of governing intelligently. What, then, 

 can be of more pressing need in each state than a forest com- 

 missioner, whose duty it shall be to collect tlie facts upon 

 which the foi-est legislation for his state is to proceed ; who 

 will represent the forest interests of the state ; who, in gather- 

 ing information in regard to tlie distribution, location, con- 

 dition of forest areas, the rate and method of their decrease or 

 increase, the relations of supply and demand of forest pro- 

 ducts, and information in regard to the relation of water and 

 soil conditions in his state to forest areas, can also act as an 

 educator of the people with reference to their forestry inter- 

 ests and as the otficer in cliarge of the observance of forestry 

 laws and forest police ; and who would manage state (or 

 school) forest lands where such may exist? Whatever legis- 

 lation we may ask for, the appointment of such an officer is 

 almost an unavoidable condition to insure the enforcement of 

 forestry laws, while the value of his labors as a bureau of 

 information can hardly be exaggerated or their necessity 

 doubted. 



"The same agencies may be employed by the government, 

 to produce an economic reform, that are open to private 



