46 PRACTICAL rOBESTEY. 



and Manufactures in New York made a report on the best way to 

 preserve and increase the growth of timber. Four years afterwards 

 Congress appropriated $200,000 for the purchase and preservation 

 of timberlands to supply ship timbers for the navy, and in 1822, 

 with the same object in view, it -authorized the President to employ 

 the army and navy to protect and preserve the live oak and red 

 cedar timber of the Government in Florida. Since that time more 

 and more attention has been given to the forests. In 1828 Governor 

 De Witt Clinton, of New York, spoke of the reproduction of our 

 woods as an object of primary importance, and in the same year 

 the Government began an attempt to cultivate live oak in the South 

 for the use of the navy. Three years later an act was passed which 

 is still almost the only protection for the much-abused forests of the 

 public domain. 



In 1872 the Yellowstone National Park was established, and in 

 1873 Congress passed the timber-culture act, which gave Government- 

 land in the treeless regions to whoever would plant one-fourth of his 

 claim with trees. In 1875, the American Forestry Association was 

 formed in Chicago through the efforts of Dr. John A. Warder, who 

 was one of the first men to agitate forest questions in the United 

 States. In the centennial year (1876) Dr. Franklin B. Hough, per- 

 haps the foremost pioneer of forestry in America, was appointed 

 special agent in the Department of Agriculture. This was the begin- 

 ning of educational work in forestry at Washington. Soon afterwards 

 Congress began to make appropriations to protect the public timber, 

 but nothing was done to introduce conservative forest management. 



About this time forest associations began to be established in the 

 different States, the most influential and effective of which has been 

 that in Pennsylvania. The States also began to form forest boards 

 or commissions of their own. 



In 1888 the first forest bill was introduced in Congress. It failed, 

 to pass, but in 1891 an act was passed which was the first step toward 

 a true policy for the forests of the nation. The first step toward 

 national forestry is control of the national forests. This act, whose 

 chief purpose was to repeal the timber-culture act, contained a clause 

 which authorized the President to reserve timber lands on the pubhc 

 domain, and so prevent them from passing out of the possession of 

 the Govermnent. 



The public domain. — In all the States and Territories west of the 

 Mississippi except Texas, and in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, 

 Wisconsin, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, all the land originally 

 belonged to the Government. This was the public domain. It has 

 graduaUy been sold or given away until in many of the States it has 

 all or nearly all passed to other owners. But it still includes more 



358 



