Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/185

From Youth to Age as an American. 167 secure large bodies of timber lands and then evade paying taxes on it. I don't mean to say that New England men alone, or even in majority, are responsible for the timber-land frauds that have been made to carry the name of Oregon, through the columns of ten-cent monthlies, into obscure corn- ers. But the fact of the rush to get timber land on the Pacific side was certainly largely brought about by men and magazines of the Atlantic seaboard States. The American Forestry Association was the active agency in initiating the forest reserve policy. B. E. Fernow, Chief of the Bureau of Forestry of the Department of Agriculture, was the most active agent in creating the forest reservation that has reached an aggregation of 155,000,000 of acres; ample to furnish forest homes for one million families. In January, 1897, the membership roll of the American Forestry Association was 690 ; 78 of these were females ; 371 were resi- dents of New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and the District of Columbia. This is not as against the pur- poses of the association, for I believed in it long before that date ; nor is the number of woman members noted out of dis- respect ; it was to show where and by what class the overcut of timber was most noticed. But examination of the actors in bringing about the reservation policy proves that there was more care to have control of the natural forests of the newest States than to replant where there had been an overcut. And where most certainly the land can be reforested, a true ec- onomy would say loudly that it ought to be. It is ten years now since a committee from the National Academy of Science was asked for by Hon. Hoke Smith, Sec- retary of the Interior, at the suggestion of B. E. Fernow, Chief Forester. The report of this committee was simply a few unproven assertions on the causes and effect of forests and the destructive effects of sheep-ranging in forests. The German system of forest management was recommended, even to the use of mounted soldiery. This was not consistent v/itli the national land policy, and effort has been made ever sin(3p