8 AN AUSTRALIAN STUDY OF AMERICAN FORESTRY. 
subjected to restriction without compensation, as regards the size of trees they 
may fell on their property, if the welfare of the State demands such interfer- 
ence, 
Which is the old Roman doctrine of “ Utere tuo ne alterum noceas,” so 
often used by forestry propagandists. 
This tendency towards paternalism and forestry may be ascribed in great 
measure to the educational and publicity work of the early Bureau of Forestry, 
and the American Forestry Association. 
It has influenced the development of the forest laws of the United States 
of America. 
In view of the fact that several of the Australian States project important 
forestry legislation, it may be interesting and profitable to review the succinct 
laws of the United States of America on the subject. 
Like Topsy, they seem to have “ growed.” 
The important Act creating National Forests, was just a “rider” tacked 
on to an “Act to repeal timber culture laws and for other purposes.” (Act of 
March 3, 1891.) 
It reads— 
“Section 24.—The President of the United States may, from 
‘time to time, set apart and reserve in any State or territory, having 
public land bearing forests, any part of the public lands wholly or 
in part covered with timber or undergrowth, whether of commercial 
value or not, as public reservations, and the President shall, by 
public proclamation, declare the establishment of such reservations 
and the limits thereof.” 
The administration of the National Forest so proclaimed was provided 
for six yéars later by another “rider” hung on to a hurried Sundry 
Civil Appropriaticns Act, passed in an extra session on June 4, 1897. 
The tacked-on clauses enacted that— 
“(1.) No public forest reservation shall be established, except to 
improve and protect the forest within the reservation, or for 
the purpose of securing favourable conditions of water flow, 
and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and 
necessities of citizens of the United States; but it is not the 
purpose or intent of these provisions, or of the Act providing 
for such reservations, to authorise the inclusion therein of 
lands more valuable for the mineral therein or for agricultural 
purposes than for forest purposes. 
(2.) The Secretary of the Interior shall make provisions for the 
protection against destruction by fire and depredations upon 
the public forests and forest reservations which may have 
been set aside under the said Act of March 3, 1891, and which 
may be continued: and he may make such rules and regu- 
lations, and establish such service as will insure the objects 
of such reservations, namely, to regulate their occupancy and 
use, and to preserve the forests thereon from destruction, and 
any violation of the provisions of this Act or such rules and 
regulations shall be punished as is provided for in the Act of 
June 4, 1888 (repealed by the Criminal Code of 1909, which 
provide a maximum penalty of £200 or one year’s imprison- 
ment for forest offences). 
