The National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on the Inauguration of a Rational Forest Policy for the Forested Lands of the United States. 1896

[The following narrative is taken from Frederick W. True’s Semi-centennial history of the National Academy of Sciences, A History of the First Half-Century of the National Academy of Sciences 1863-1913, pp. 314-323.]

At an early date, the Government of the United States adopted the policy of purchasing or setting aside from the public domain certain limited areas of forested land from which to obtain timber for the use of the Navy, but it was not until the repeal of the so-called timber-culture laws in 1891 that the President was authorized to make extensive forest reservations without reference to any special economic value which they might possess. As a result of executive action in accordance with this provision of the law, the reserved forest lands in 1896 comprised no less than eighteen million acres, for which there was no definite system of management. Moved apparently by this circumstance,[See Yearbook U.S Dep. Agric., 1899, p. 13.] under date of February 15, 1896, the Secretary of the Interior, Hoke Smith, addressed the following letter to the President of the Academy:[Rep. Nat. Acad. Sci. for 1896, p. 13.]

The President of the Academy at once appointed the following committee to consider and report on the subject in question: Charles S. Sargent (chairman), Henry L. Abbot, Alexander Agassiz, Wm. H. Brewer, Arnold Hague, and Gifford Pinchot. The President was also, ex officio, a member of the committee.

It was obvious at the outset that no report of value could be made without a personal inspection by the committee of the forested areas of the public domain and the forest reservations, and on the representations of President Wolcott Gibbs, the sum of $25,000 was appropriated by Congress in the Sundry Civil Act, approved June 11, 1896, to enable the Secretary of the Interior to meet the expenses of an investigation and report by the Academy. The committee already mentioned being acceptable to the Secretary of the Interior, was authorized to visit the various forested areas and reservations at the expense of the Government. The members of the committee, with the exception of the President, Wolcott Gibbs (whose condition of health forbade his going into the field) and Professor Agassiz, traveled westward on July 2, 1896, and spent three months in laborious study and inspection of the forests. They traversed large areas of unreserved forest, and visited all the reservations established prior to 1897, except six, which were either of limited extent or well-known to the members of the committee.

The conditions which they found were truly lamentable. Except in the national parks, which were effectively guarded by detachments of the Army, vast sections of the forest reserves were being destroyed annually by fires started by careless or ignorant campers and hunters, or by sparks from locomotives. In some instances they were started by shepherds or by mining prospectors for the purpose of clearing the ground. “Nearly every summer their smoke obscured for months the sight of the sun over hundreds of square miles.” To this destruction by fire was added a widespread devastation caused by wandering herds of sheep, which ranged about the borders of the forests, stripping the ground bare of seedling trees and growing shrubs, trampling the tender plants, and dislodging the soil on steep mountain slopes. On the unreserved lands, the theft of timber by settlers, mining prospectors, railroad contractors and others had assumed enormous proportions. The Department of the Interior which was charged with the custody of these lands was powerless to stop this plunder of the public domain, owing mainly to defective and conflicting laws and the sentiment of the people in the States and Territories in which the forests are located that they belonged to them and not to the people of the United States as a whole.

Upon its return from the West, the committee on February 1, 1897, presented a preliminary report to the Secretary of the Interior, in which it recommended the establishment of thirteen new forest reservations, covering somewhat more than twenty-one million acres, to be added to the seventeen reserves already existing, which comprised seventeen and one-half million acres. This report was forwarded to the President on February 6, 1897, by the Secretary of the Interior, David R. Francis, with a favorable recommendation, and on February 22, the 165^th anniversary of the birth of Washington, President Cleveland promulgated proclamations establishing the reserves.

About two months later, on May 1, 1897, the committee submitted its complete report on the inauguration of a forest policy, which was transmitted on the same date by President Wolcott Gibbs to the Secretary of the Interior and printed at the Government Printing Office.[See p. 383; also Rep. Nat. Acad. Sci. for 1897, pp. 29-73, where the report is printed in full.] this report, which covers 45 printed pages, is comprehensives in scope and contains definite recommendations for the establishment of a national forestry service. It begins with a review of Gustav Wex’s researches on the relation of stream-flow to forests in Central Europe, and sets forth the reasons why attention should be given to the preservation of the forests of the United States. It then gives a brief account of the history of forest administration in Europe and of the organization of the forestry service in France, Germany, India, and Canada. This is followed by a chapter on the destructive effects of fires, sheep husbandry and illegal timber cutting in the forest reserves of the United States, and on the condition of the several reserves. The committee then proceeds to outline a definite system of national forest administration, including both temporary measures and a permanent organization. The disastrous results of defective and conflicting forest laws are then commented upon, and attention called to the desirability of establishing additional national parks. A summary of the conclusions and recommendations closes the report.

The form of organization for the national forestry service recommended by the committee was patterned after that of Germany. It contemplated the formation of a separate forest bureau in the Department of the Interior, the principal officers of which were to be a director, an assistant director, and four inspectors. These officers were to form an advisory board which would pass on general matters relating to the forests. The actual care of the forests was to be intrusted [sic] to a corps of foresters, assistants, and rangers. The forest areas of the West were to be grouped in four departments, each to be in charge of an inspector.

All the officers above the grade of rangers were to be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, were to hold office during good behavior, but to be subject to retirement at the age of 64 years.

Until a permanent corps could be organized, it was proposed to form a temporary corps recruited mainly from graduates from West Point. A portion of these officers were to be sent to Europe to study in the forestry schools of France and Germany, and it should be their duty on returning to America to organize a forestry school in the United States for the instruction of the forest corps. This part of the program was not regarded by the committee, or at least by some of its members, as of primary importance. Stress was, however, laid on the desirability of offering relatively high rates of compensation and providing for retirement, in order to attract men of integrity who would render intelligent and conscientious service.

To provide for the proper establishment of new forest reserves, the committee recommended that a board of forest lands should be created, composed of an officer of the Engineer Corps of the Army, an officer of the Geological Survey, an officer of the Coast Survey and two persons not connected with the Government service, whose duty should be to fix the boundaries of such reserves.

These and other recommendations were summarized by the committee in its report which closes as follows:

To aid Congress in enacting laws in accordance with its recommendations, the committee drafted five bills, which are given in full in the appendix to its report.

The work of the committee has had far-reaching consequences, although the Government did not adopt the system of forest administration proposed. The proclamation of new forest reserves, in accordance with the recommendations contained in the preliminary report of the committee, led to an animated discussion in Congress, in the course of which the views and action of President Cleveland and of the committee of the Academy were vigorously attacked. It resulted therefrom that the reservations were ordered suspended for a year. They were subsequently reaffirmed and made effective, however, by President McKinley.

The final report of the committee was to a certain extent forestalled by the action of Congress which in the Sundry Civil Act for 1898, passed June 4, 1897, made the following provision:

In the Sundry Civil Act for 1899, $110,000 was appropriated “to meet the expenses of protecting timber on the public lands,” and for other similar purposes, and $75,000 “for the care and administration of the forest reserves, to meet the expenses of forest inspectors and other emergency help in the prevention and extinguishment of forest fires, and for advertising dead and matured trees for sale within such reservations.”[Op. cit., p. 618, 55^th Congress, 2d Session, chap. 546, 1898.] These amounts were to be expended under the Department of the Interior. The control of the public forests thus remained with the Interior Department without the formation of a separate bureau, as recommended by the committee of the Academy.

In the meantime the Government had in the Division of Forestry in the Department of Agriculture another organization concerned with questions of forest management and preservation. The activities of this division increased rapidly year by year, and finally on February 1, 1905, the management of the public forests was transferred to it from the Department of the Interior. A special Act of Congress, approved on that date, provides “that the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture shall, from and after the passage of this Act, execute or cause to be executed all laws affecting public lands heretofore or hereafter reserved under the provisions of section twenty-four of the Act entitled ‘An Act to repeal the timber-culture laws, and for other purposes,’ approved March third, eighteen hundred and ninety-one, and Acts supplemental to and amendatory thereof, after such lands have been so reserved, excepting such laws as affect the surveying, prospecting, locating, appropriating, entering, relinquishing, reconveying, certifying, or patenting of any of such lands.”[Stat. at Large, vol. 33, part 1, p. 628, 58^th Congress, 3d Session, chap. 288, sec. 1, 1905]

At the beginning of the fiscal year this bureau, known as the Forest Service, had in its employ 821 persons, of whom 153 were professionally trained foresters. In 1908 the force comprised 1779 persons, consisting of 29 inspectors, 98 forest supervisors, 61 deputies, 33 forest assistants, 8 planting assistants, 941 rangers, 521 guards and 88 clerks.[Rep. Dep. Agric. for 1908, p. 417] The scope and magnitude of the activities of the Service have increased year by year since that date.

Thus, after the lapse of fifteen years since the committee of the Academy made its recommendations, the Government has provided an effective organization for the protection of the public forests—one which may be fairly said to possess the principal features, though not the exact form, which the committee considered desirable. Instead of a bureau of forests in the Department of the Interior we have the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture. Instead of a “director” and “assistant director,” we have a “chief forester” and “associate forester”; instead of “head foresters” and “foresters” we have “forest supervisors” and “deputies.” The division into departments has been adopted. The formation of a special “board of forest lands” has not been carried into effect, the locating and surveying of forest lands and kindred duties remaining in charge of the General Land Office of the Department of the Interior.

The plan of recruiting officers from West Point and providing for retirement for age has not been adopted, while the forest schools connected with universities and colleges have supplied the means of educating young men in the principles of forestry and the organization of a forestry school by the Government has not been necessary. Regarding the importance of the work of the committee of the Academy in the promotion of the forestry interests of the United States, Mr. Gifford Pinchot, who was a member of the committee, and has also been the most conspicuous advocate of scientific forestry in America, wrote in 1905:

The following data were culled from the report of Secretary Wilson for 1912: