Early Forest History. 403 



ing, transplanting, pruning, etc. This was done under 

 a more general act of 1827, by which the President was 

 authorized to take proper measures to preserve the live 

 oak timher growing on the federal lands. Under these 

 acts, altogether some 344,000 acres of forest land were 

 reserved in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. 



But, although another act, of 1831, provided for the 

 punishment of persons cuting or destroying any live 

 Oak, Red Cedar, or other trees growing on any lands of 

 the United States, no general conception of the need of 

 a broad forest policy, or even of a special value attach- 

 ing to the public timberlands dictated these acts, except 

 so far as the securing of certain material, then believed 

 necessary for naval construction, was concerned. In- 

 deed, the act of 1831 remained for 60 years the only ex- 

 pression of interest in this part of the federal domain. 



In those early times, the extent of our forest domain 

 was entirely unknown, and the concern of occasional 

 early voices in public prints regarding a threatened ex- 

 haustion of timber supplies can only be explained by the 

 fact that, in the absence of railroads, the supplies near 

 centers of civilization, or near drivable and navigable 

 rivers, were alone of any account. 



That the earlier propagandists of forest culture re- 

 ceived scant attention was due to the fact that conditions 

 soon changed; and with these changes the evil day 

 seemed indefinitely postponed, and the necessity for for- 

 est culture apparently vanished. These changes were 

 mainly wrought by the opening up of the west, by ex- 

 tending means of transportation through canals and rail- 

 roads, and by distributing population, whereby the 

 need for near-by home supplies was overcome; a con- 



