172 FORESTRY INVESTIGATIONS U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



the Pacific coast, and State horticultural societies in various States, make the subject one to be 

 discussed and to be fostered. 



The most active of these associations, publishing also, since its formation in 1886, a bimonthly 

 journal, Forest Leaves (at first less frequently), is the Pennsylvania State Forestry Association, 

 which has succeeded in thoroughly committing its State to a proper forest policy, as far as official 

 recognition is concerned. 



FORESTRY COMMISSIONS. 



Usually as a result of this associated private effort various States have appointed forestry 

 commissions or commissioners. These commissions were at first for the most part instituted for 

 inquiry and to make a report, upon which a forest policy for the State might be framed. Others 

 have become permanent parts of the State organization with executive or educational functions. 

 Such commissions of inquiry were appointed at various times in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, 

 Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, 

 North Dakota, Colorado, California; while commissioners or commissions with executive duties 

 exist now or did exist for a time in Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, 

 Minnesota, Colorado, and California. 



Maine has an efficient forest-fire law (chap. 20 of Eevised Statutes) based on that of the State 

 of New York, and a forest commissioner (created in 1891, Public Laws, chap. 100) — the State land 

 agent of the State being ex officio designated as such — to look to its execution. The forest 

 commissioner has in addition annually a small amount of money appropriated to satisfy the 

 requirements of the following two sections of the law : 



Sec. 15. The foiest commissioner shall take such measnres as the State superintendent of public schools and 

 the president of the State college of agriculture and the mechanic aits may appro\e for awakening an interest in 

 behalf of forestry in the public schools ; academies, and colleges of the State, and of imparting some degree of 

 elementary instruction upon this subject therein. 



Sec. 1G. The forest commissioner shall prepare tracts or circulars of information, giving plain and concise 

 advice for the care of wood lands and for the preservation of forest growth. These publications shall be furnished 

 to any citizen of the State upon application. 



Two very interesting and instructive reports on the growth of the spruce and on allied subjects 

 are the result. s 



New Hampshire had a temporary commission of inquiry, appointed in 1881 and reporting 

 in 1885; and another such commission in 1889, reporting in 1893, when the permanent forestry 

 commission was created (March 29, 1893) with a paid secretary, who publishes an annual report. 

 The main function of the commission is one of inquiry and suggestion, besides partial supervision 

 of the forest-fire law. The acquisition of public parks, if private munificence should be found 

 willing to furnish the necessary funds, is also made a part of the function of the commission. Two 

 small areas have been donated. 



In Massachusetts no special public officers are charged with the care of forestry interests, 

 and hence the otherwise useful legislation is probably of only partial effect. Its best feature is 

 perhaps that of encouraging communities to become owners of forest tracts (chap. 255, acts of 

 1882). The city of Boston has made special efforts in this direction, having set aside more than 

 7,000 acres for forest parks. The State board of agriculture was, in 1890, ordered to inquire "into 

 the consideration of the forests of the State, the need and methods of their protection," and 

 report thereon, which order did not produce anything of value. A bill to secure such forest 

 survey, introduced into the legislature in the year 1897, failed of passage. 



In Yermont a commission of inquiry was instituted in 1882, reporting in 1881 without any 

 practical result, the proposed legislation remaining unconsidered. 



In New York a law was passed in 1872 naming seven citizens, with Horatio Seymour, 

 chairman, as a State park commission, instructed to make inquiries with the view of reserving 

 or appropriating the wild lands lying northward of the Mohawk or so much thereof as might be 

 deemed expedient, for a State park. The commission, finding that the State then owned only 

 40,000 acres in that region, and that there was a tendency on the part of the holders of the rest 

 to combine for the enhancement of values should the State want to buy, recommended a law 

 forbidding further sales of State lands and their retention when forfeited for the nonpayment of 

 taxes. 



