423 United States. 



have been resisted by Congress for the last seven years, 

 but with ever weakening resistance. 



Meanwhile the single States have begun to develop 

 their own policies. 



Outside of legislation aiming at protection against 

 forest fires — ^which nearly every State possessed from 

 early times, ineffective for lack of machinery to carry it 

 into effect — and outside of the futile attempts to en- 

 courage timber planting referred to, no interest in tim- 

 berlands was evinced by State authorities for the first 

 two-thirds of the century, since practically all these 

 lands had been disposed of to private owners, and the 

 authorities did not see any further duties regarding 

 them. 



The first State to institute a commission of inquiry 

 was Wisconsin, in 1867; but with the rendering of the 

 report, prepared by I. A. Lapham, one of the active 

 early propagandists — ^the matter was allowed to mature 

 for thirty years. 



The next State to move, in a feeble way, in 1876, was 

 Minnesota, the legislature making an annual grant of 

 money to its forestry association. The appointment of 

 commissions of inquiry then became fashionable. 



New Hampshire appointed such a commission in 

 1881, which reported in 1885, without result, and 

 another commission in 1889, whose report, in 1893, led 

 to the establishment of a permanent commission of in- 

 quiry and advice, with a partial supervision of forest 

 fire laws. Vermont followed suit with a commission of 

 inquiry, in 1883, whose report made in 1884, remained 

 without consequences. 



In Michigan the expedient was resorted to of consti- 



