6 FORESTRY INVESTIGATIONS U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



HISTORICAL. 



The establishment of the Division of Forestry can be traced to the action of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, which at its annual meeting at Portland in August, 

 1873, appointed a committee "to memorialize Congress and the several State legislatures upon 

 the importance of promoting the cultivation of timber and the preservation of forests and to 

 recommend proper legislation for securing these objects." 



A subcommittee of this committee, consisting of Mr. George B. Einerson ? a well known 

 educator and naturalist, and Dr. F. B. Hough, prepared the memorial 3 and furthered its consider- 

 ation by the Forty-third Congress, the memorial having been transmitted to the Congress with a 

 special message by President Grant and referred to the Committee on Public Lands in both House 

 and Senate. Although as a result a bill was favorably reported 2 by the Committee of the House 

 providing for the appointment of a Commissioner of Forestry, similar to the Commissioner of 

 Fisheries, no action was taken by the Forty-third Congress, nor did the Forty-fourth Congress act 

 on a similar bill introduced by Hon. Mark H. Bunnell, M. C. Instead an amendment was adopted 

 to the act making appropriations for the legislative, executive, and judicial expenses of the 

 Government for the year ending June 30, 1877, which was approved August 15, 1876, and required 

 that the Commissioner of Agriculture " appoint a man of approved attainments and practically 

 well acquainted with the methods of statistical inquiry, * * * with the view of ascertaining 

 the annual amount of consumption, importation, and exportation of timber and other forest 

 products; the probable supply for future wants, the means best adapted to the preservation 

 and renewal of forests, the influence of forests on climate, and the measures that have been 

 successfully applied in foreign countries or that may be deemed applicable in this country for the 

 preservation and restoration or planting of forests, and to report upon the same to the Commis- 

 sioner of Agriculture, to be by him in a separate report transmitted to Congress." 



Curiously and significantly enough this clause and the appropriation of $2,000 for the purpose 

 appears as a part of the provisions for the distribution of seeds. 



In obedience to this law the then Commissioner of Agriculture, the Hon. Frederick Watts, 

 appointed, on August SO, 1876, Dr. Franklin B. Hough, of Lowville, Lewis County, N. Y. ? as an 

 agent to prepare such report, Dr. Hough not only having been most instrumental in bringing about 

 the legislation leading to his appointment, but also being well known as a writer of local histories 

 and gatherer of statistical material. 



This appointment was continued from year to year without further special appropriation by 

 Congress; since 1881, however, under a special appropriation as chief of an established administra- 

 tive division in the Department of Agriculture.'* Dr. Hough produced three voluminous reports, 

 transmitted to and published by Congress in separate volumes in 1877, 1880, and 1882, and compris- 

 ing in all 1,586 pages of information on a wide range of subjects. 



The appropriations being extremely limited, special original research was excluded, and Dr. 

 Hough being acquainted with the subject as an interested layman only and not as a professional 

 forester, these reports, while valuable compilations of existing facts from various sources, natu- 

 rally did not contain any original matter, except such suggestions as Dr. Hough could make with 

 regard to the duties of the Government with reference to the forestry interests of the country 

 and especially of the public domain. 



In 1883 Dr. Hough was displaced as chief of the administrative division, although retained as 

 an agent under the new chief, Mr. N. H. Eggleston,from Stockbridge, Mass. During Mr. Eggle- 

 ston's incumbency one report was issued in 1884 — the first published directly from the Department 

 of Agriculture — comprising 462 pages. It concerned itself largely with tree-planting interests in 

 the prairies and plains,- it reported also on the decrease of woodlands in the State of Ohio and the 

 forest conditions in some other States; it adduced statistics on the kinds and quantity of railroad 

 ties used in the country and discussed the production of maple sugar. In a briefer report (24 pp.) 

 embodied in the Keport of the Commissioner of Agriculture for 1885 various other questions were 

 also touched upon. 



See Appendix (copy from Sen. Ex. Doc. 23 ? first session Forty-third Congress). 



2 Keport No. 259, H. K , first session Forty third Congress. 



3 See u Headings of appropriations" farther on. 



