In December 1920, the Association of 

 State Foresters (now the National 

 Association of State Foresters) was 

 formally organized at a meeting in 

 Harrisburg, PA. This body evolved 

 from earlier organizations of State 

 agencies formed in the East to 

 address mutual problems such as 

 regionwide attacks of white pine 

 blister rust. More recently, the 

 National Association of State 

 Foresters has become a highly 

 effective force in strengthening State 

 and Federal forestry relations, plus 

 providing the State Foresters with a 

 strong voice in national legislation 

 and policies affecting their interests. 

 Regional organizations, such as the 

 Southern Group of State Foresters, 

 have been formed under the auspices 

 of the National Association of State 

 Foresters and have been very 

 effective in addressing regional 

 matters such as interstate fire and 

 pest compacts, which provide 

 guidelines and policies for 

 cooperative assistance among States. 

 The impact of such agreements in the 

 South, as well as in other regions, 

 has been very substantial. They 

 outline procedures under which States 

 can provide equipment and manpower 

 assistance to one another across State 

 lines in emergency situations. This 

 effort has proved invaluable. 



Formation of the Florida Forestry 

 Association in 1923 offers tangible 

 evidence of how efforts of the 

 Southern Pine Association and other 

 supporters of the Southern Forestry 

 Conference paid off. Two men from 

 Florida, William L'Engle and S. 

 Bryan Jennings, attended a Southern 



Forestry Conference meeting in 

 Montgomery, AL, in early 1923, 

 where they met R. D. Forbes, 

 Southern Forestry Conference 

 secretary and by that time director of 

 the Forest Service's Southern Forest 

 Experiment Station. He urged them to 

 form a State forestry association to 

 alert the people of Florida and the 

 legislature to the need for protecting 

 and developing the great natural 

 resource that lay in the vast forest 

 acreage then covering two-thirds of 

 their State. As a result, L'Engle and 

 Jennings called a meeting in 

 Jacksonville on March 1, 1923, 

 where the Florida Forestry 

 Association was organized. It was 

 formally chartered in 1926. 



A year later the Florida Forestry 

 Association played a lead role in 

 securing legislation to create the State 

 Board of Forestry, which then 

 organized the Florida Forest Service. 

 In 1935, the Association spearheaded 

 legislative activity that resulted in 

 establishment of the University of 

 Florida's school of forestry. Working 

 with the school in 1953, the 

 Association assisted in creation of a 

 cooperative tree improvement 

 program with strong industry support, 

 one of the first research projects of 

 this type in the South (Weddell 

 1960). 



One reason the Florida Forestry 

 Association was formed in 1923 was 

 "to prepare effective testimony 

 before a U.S. Congressional 

 Committee investigating the necessity 

 for conserving the forests of the 

 Southeast." The report of this joint 



