15 
Secretary Hoke Smith, of the Department of the Interior, impressd 
with the importance of devising some adequate system of protection 
and management of the forests, both within the reserves and in the 
public domain, under date of February 15, 1896, requested the 
National Academy of Sciences, the legally constituted adviser of 
the Government in scientific matters, to investigate and report 
‘‘upon the inauguration of a rational forest policy for the forested 
lands of the United States.” He especially desired an official expres- 
sion as to the desirability and practicability of preserving the forests 
from fire and maintaining as forested lands portions of the public 
domain now bearing wood growth; as to how far the influence of 
forests on climate, soil, and water conditions warranted a policy of 
forest conservation in regions where the public domain is principally 
situated; and what specific legislation should be enacted to remedy 
existing evils. 
Under date of February 1, 1897 ’, the academy submitted to Secre- 
tary Francis a preliminary report recommending the creation of 
thirteen additional forest reserves with a total area of 21,379,840 
acres. These reserves were proclaimed, as recommended, by the 
President, February 22,1897. On May 1, 1897, the president of the 
academy submitted his complete report, embodying a comprehensive 
review of the subject, with recommendations and bills for the estab- 
lishment of a bureau of forestry in the Department of the Interior. 
This report has been printed as Senate Document No. 105. 
The sundry civil appropriation bill, passed June 4, 1897 (see Sen. 
Doc. No. 102), set aside the proclamations of February 22, 1897, sus- 
pending the reservations, which were made upon the recommendation 
of the committee of the academy, until March 1, 1898, presumably to 
give time for the adjustment of private claims and to more carefully 
delimit the reservations, an appropriation of $150,000 for the survey 
of the reservations under the supervision of the Director of the Geo- 
logical Survey being made. The provisos attached to this appropri- 
ation embody the most important forestry legislation thus far enacted 
by Congress. These provisos had been in the main formulated in a 
bill known as the McRae bill (H. R. 119), which was passed by the 
House of Representatives and the Senate of the Fifty-third Con- 
gress—without, however, becoming a law; and again had passed 
the House in the Fifty-fourth Congress, it being the legislation advo- 
cated by the American Forestry Association as a first step toward a 
more elaborate forest administration of the public timber lands. 
Excluding minor items, the law provides that— 
All public lands heretofore designated and reserved by the President of the 
United States under the provisions of the act approved March third, eighteen 
hundred and ninety-one, the orders for which shall be and remain in force and 
effect, unsuspended and unrevoked, and all public lands that may hereafter be 
set aside and reserved as public forest reserves under said act shall be as far as 
practicable controlled and administered in accordance with the following provi- 
sions: 
‘No public forest reservation shall be established, except to improve and pro-. 
tect the forest within the reservation, or for the purpose of securing favorable 
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 authorize 
the inclusion therein of lands more valuable for the mineral therein or for agri- 
cultural purposes than for forest purposes. 
