Early efforts to awaken the American public to the need 
to renew forest resources included the work of Franklin B. 
Hough (1878, 1880, 1882) in his comprehensive 1878 
‘‘Report Upon Forestry.’’ It was the first detailed general as- 
sessment of the forest situation. Later, the Forest Service 
in the U.S. Department of Agriculture began the long-term 
process of studying American forests and promoting for- 
estry through an increasing flow of reports, articles, and 
other information on the Nation’s forest situation and the 
need for forest conservation. 
Another impetus for forest protection and management in 
the United States came in the form of new organizations. A 
number of lumbermen and scientists created the American 
Forestry Association in 1875 through the influence of John 
Aston Warder. In 1885, the American Forestry Association 
merged with the American Forest Congress and in 1888 with 
the Southern Forestry Congress. Taking a cue from this 
national organization, a North Carolina Forestry Associa- 
tion was formed in the same year with the encouragement 
of State Geologist J.A. Holmes. This was the first of a se- 
ries of State forestry associations established in following 
years. Like their national counterparts, these groups worked 
to advance the cause of forestry and to encourage passage 
of State and Federal forestry legislation. 
Some individuals sought to spread the gospel of sound for- 
estry by example as well as by word. Gifford Pinchot, the 
first trained American-born forester, came in 1892 to North 
Carolina, where he managed the forests of George 
Vanderbilt’s Biltmore estate. In 1898, Pinchot became 
Chief of the Division of Forestry in the Department of the 
Interior (upgraded to Bureau in 1901) and soon converted 
President Theodore Roosevelt to the cause of a national 
conservation crusade. In 1905, the forest reserves were 
transferred from the Department of the Interior to the 
Department of Agriculture’s newly created Forest Service, 
with Pinchot as Chief. 
At the time, there were no forest reserves in the South. 
However, in the 1890’s, a movement had begun in North 
Carolina and New Hampshire supporting the creation of na- 
tional parks and forest reserves in the East. The Division of 
Forestry, in cooperation with the Geological Survey of the 
U.S. Department of the Interior, conducted a field investiga- 
tion of the Southern Appalachian region. Their report, sub- 
mitted to Congress in 1902 by President Roosevelt, detailed 
widespread damage to the region’s forests. The report also 
cited cleared and abandoned farmlands and large-scale ero- 
sion and flooding as ever-increasing problems. 
The movement for eastern forest reserves made little prog- 
ress for several years because many Congressmen felt it was 
inappropriate, if not unconstitutional, for the Federal Gov- 
ernment to acquire private land. There was, however, prog- 
ress in other ways. In 1908, President Roosevelt convened 
a Conference of Governors on the Conservation of Natural 
Resources at the White House. Nearly 500 people attended, 
including 22 governors, 11 personal representatives of 
governors, and 98 representatives of 31 State commissions. 
The Governors’ Conference, followed by a Joint Conserva- 
tion Conference with a wide variety of participants, stimu- 
lated many State Governments to think about establishing 
State forestry agencies. 
The creation of Southern State forestry agencies followed the 
national lead. In Alabama, citizens including Charles 
Mohr, the author of an early U.S. Division of Forestry study 
on pines of the Southern United States, prompted the cre- 
ation of a State forestry commission. In Louisiana in 1907, 
Henry E. Hardtner, a pioneer lumberman, helped organize 
the Louisiana Forestry Association, which began to play an 
important role in southern forestry. 
Similar forestry commissions or associations were in time 
established in all the Southern States. Among early 
crusaders, Austin Cary of the USDA Forest Service played 
a strong role in advancing forest conservation throughout 
the South and has often been called the father of southern 
forestry. His message was simple—good forestry is good 
business. Yet Hardtner and Cary were the exceptions. As a 
general rule, there was little interest in leaving seed trees, 
as Hardtner suggested, or in practicing comprehensive fire 
control, a favorite theme of Cary’s. 
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