Private Forestry. 431 



partment of the Pennsylvania Eailroad Company is per- 

 haps the largest single planter in the country, having 

 set out over three million trees (by 1908), with the 

 avowed purpose of growing railroad ties. 



By 1908, popular interest in forest conservation had 

 become so keen, and at the same time paternalistic ten- 

 dencies so fully developed by the Eoosevelt administra- 

 tion — ^the federal government having entered upon ex- 

 tensive plans of reclaiming lands by irrigation, and pre- 

 paring to develop water powers, and inland waterways, — 

 that the time seemed ripe to bring all these conservative 

 forces into unity. 



The President called together in conference the gov- 

 ernors of all the States with their advisers, together with 

 the presidents of the various national societies inter- 

 ested, and others, to discuss the broad question of the 

 conservation of natural resources. 



As a consequence national and State Conservation 

 Commissions were formed in all parts of the Union, and 

 a new era of active interest in economic development 

 seems to have arrived. 



4. Education and Literature. The primary education 

 of the people at large and of their governments in par- 

 ticular, the propaganda for the economic reform con- 

 templated by the forestry movement, was carried on, as 

 stated, by the federal Division of For^try and especially 

 by the so-called forestry associations which sprang up in 

 all parts of the country, by means of their annual and 

 special meetings, aided by the general press and some- 

 times by special publications. 



The first Journal of Forestry, a monthly publication. 



