100 Years of Federal Forestry Agriculture Information Bulletin No. 402

"The forestry Division of the Department of Agriculture, primarily created to promote a popular understanding of the vital interests which are centered in the forest wealth of the United States . . . has shown the need of inaugurating a new system of forest management and reproduction, by which alone the perpetuation of an amply supply of forest products, so vital to national prosperity, can be secured."

Bernhard E. Fernow (1886-1898)

Highlights

The year of the Centennial of the Declaration of Independence was one of change for the West and for the Nation. Indians, buffalo, and frontiersmen gave way before organized and reckless exploitation of natural resources. Lumbermen had exhausted the forests of the East, were fast clearing the great pine forests of the Lake States, and would soon move on to the South and West. Herds of cattle and sheep spread over the grasslands. Homesteading farmers broke the sod and sowed grain on the prairies and plains. Mining was a major industry in the mountains. The railroads linked East and West and controlled great land grants in return. Acquisitiveness was the spirit of the times, with little heed to the rules of fair play or the needs of the future.

Reaction to abuse of the Nation's natural values during this period gave rise to the forestry and conservation movement in America. In August 1876, Congress authorized $2,000 for the first federal office devoted to forestry. Those who supported the measure were men of vision. Those men who in the next few decades would establish the profession of forestry would need the same hardy spirit as their predecessors of the frontier past.

The first of those men was Dr. Franklin B. Hough, a physician of broad interests, who in 1873 addressed the American Association for the Advancement of Science on the heedless consumption of American forests. The Association sent a message to Congress supporting Dr. Hough's contention that efforts should be made to learn the condition of the forests in order to support their wise use and conservation. Finally, on August 30, 1876, the Commissioner of Agriculture appointed Hough to the role of forest agent, to gather data on the forests and forest products, European forestry practices, and on means to preserve and renew the forests. His series of exhaustive reports laid a factual basis for the conservation movement and supported the work of others. The American Forestry Association, formed in 1875, worked to transform public concern for the forests into effective legislation, to begin farsighted programs, and to train people who would work in as well as for the forests. Dr. Bernhard Eduard Fernow, a leader of the MA who was trained in forestry in his native Germany, brought professionalism to federal forestry with his appointment as Chief of the Division of Forestry in 1886. He set up scientific research programs and initiated cooperative forestry projects with the States, including the planting of trees in the Great Plains.

The weight of the data and recommendations advanced by men like Hough and Fernow led to the genesis of the National Forest System. By 1891 it was apparent to many that forests represented a great but vulnerable national asset that for the sake of posterity should be protected from unbridled despoliation. That year, 18 years after Hough's first call for action, Congress authorized the withdrawal of Forest Reserves from the public domain, to be administered by the Department of the Interior. President Benjamin Harrison set aside the Yellowstone Timberland Reserve (now part of Shoshone and Teton National Forests) in 1891, and by the end of his term had proclaimed 12.4 million acres of forest land safeguarded from selfish speculation. His successor, Grover Cleveland, added 25.9 million acres more, and in 1897 Congress enacted legislation to insure the proper care, protection, and management of the public forests; to authorize the employment of guardians for the Reserves; and to open them for regulated use.

In the two decades, the Nation had made significant progress in its movement from frontier freebooting toward a policy of wise use and conservation. The appointment of Franklin Hough signalled the shift.

But at least one man knew that what was past was only prologue. He was America's first native professional forester, schooled in Europe, experienced in managing a large private forest in North Carolina, personally familiar with many of the new Forest Reserves, and destined to become Chief of the Division of Forestry in 1898. His name was Gifford Pinchot, and he would be present at and take part in the birth of the Forest Service.

1876-1904

Big wheels, big trees, big loads characterized a growing America's drive to appease her hunger for wood after the War between the States. 1 (top left). Montecristo, an 1897 lumber town in the Washington Cascades, as photographed by Gifford Pinchot. (F—730) 2 (top right). This was a man-sized job in Washington in 1901. (F—19021) 3 (bottom). Ratchet jacks were used to load logs in Washington's coastal forests. (F—16185)

1 (top). Logging in Michigan, in 1900, on lands that are now a part of the Manistee National Forest. (F—415708) 2 (bottom). These logs were being hauled to market in Michigan in 1887. (F—416242)

These were "Home" to the Lake State lumberjacks— 1 (top). The "Van" or supply store. (F—43105) 2 (middle). The cookhouse. (F—54141) 3 (bottom). The bunkhouse. (Forest Service, Region 9 [Office of Information]. Circa 1898, Ontonagou River, Upper Michigan)

Sidelights (1876-1904)

In 1885, New York State created the huge Adirondack Forest Reserve and a commission to protect and manage it, but excluded timber cutting. The same year, California, Colorado, and Ohio set up State boards of forestry.

In 1898, New York's Cornell University started the Nation's first 4-year professional forestry school, and a 1-year Biltmore Forest School opened in North Carolina. By this time 20 colleges were offering some instruction in forestry. Then in 1900, Yale Forest School opened with graduate courses.

The professional Society of American Foresters was founded in 1900. Connecticut and Pennsylvania hired the first State Foresters in 1901, and New York employed a trained forester for its big reserve.

The Minnesota Forest Reserve, first Reserve created by Act of Congress rather than Presidential proclamation, was set up in 1902.

Michigan Agricultural College began a 4-year course in forestry in 1902. The next year, similar courses began at the Universities of Maine and Minnesota, while the University of Michigan starred a graduate program in forestry, and a 2-year forest academy opened in Pennsylvania.

Forestry was indeed on its way in America at last.

1876-1904

1 (top). The fallen bigtree, "Mary Washington," was famous in Fresno County, California, about 1900. (F—25505) 2 (bottom). The famous "Boole Tree" in California in 1901; it was still standing in 1976. (F—22689)

Logging in the early 1900's. 1 (top). Moving a steam donkey-skidder used in logging in California, 1904 style. (F—32660) 2 (bottom left). Uphill skidding trail in North Georgia. The log is yellow poplar, which along with Southern yellow pine kept Georgia mills humming in the early 1900's. (F—23741) 3 (bottom right). Arizona logging featured 10-foot logging wheels in 1903. (F—53332)

1 (top). Skidding logs by mule team in Georgia in 1903. (F—40094) 2 (bottom). The rosin yards in Savannah, Georgia, in 1903. (F—40877)

1. Falls on the Catawba River, on the slopes of the Blue Ridge above Old Fort, North Carolina, as they were in 1901. (F—25331)

1 (top). In the late 1800's and early 1900's wildfires raged without control. These fires combined with excessive timbercutting to bring devastation to many areas throughout the country. (F—43808) 2 (bottom). Newaygo, Michigan, after the Big Fire in 1884. (F—416236)

First the Division of Forest (1881) and then the Bureau of Forestry (1901), predecessors of the Forest Service, caused forestry "stirrings" throughout the land. 1 (top left). Dr. Franklin B. Hough, early-day crusader for good forest practices, was the first Chief of the Division of Forestry. (Hough) 2 (top right). Gifford Pinchot, destined to be the Nation's first native Chief Forester, studied abroad. In an European larch grove in Germany he made friends with the local forester's children (1889). (F—523002) 3 (bottom). In Nebraska, action was well underway in the 1890's to plant trees in the sandhills country. These nursery beds in Halsey in 1903 attest to that interest. (F—53473)

1 (top left). Colonel William F. Fox helped direct the "Township 40 Party" in New York in 1900. This was one of the Nation's first Federal-State cooperative forestry projects. (F—13994) 2 (top right), 3 (middle right), 4 (bottom). Crews already afield in Massachusetts (1903), in New York (1900), and in West Virginia (1903) studying local forest conditions, surveying, and evaluating the timber resources. (F—43429, F—242310, F—242313)

1. The first class, Cornell University School of Forestry, in 1900. Cornell University initiated the first 4-year course in professional forestry under Dr. Bernard Fernow (center) in 1898. Cornell and other early schools produced many top-flight foresters and Forest Service leaders. (F—242312)

1 (top left). Yale Forest School, Class of 1906, in summer camp in 1904. Early classes at Yale included two future heads of the Forest Service, Robert Y. Stuart and Henry S. Graves. (F—242314) 2 (top right). Grey Towers, the Pinchot home in Milford, Pennsylvania, was the site of the Yale Forest School's summer school and field laboratory in the early 1900's. (Sixty-three years later, Grey Towers and 100 acres of surrounding woodland were to become the Pinchot Institute for Conservation Studies, and a gift to the Forest Service from the families of Amos and Gifford Pinchot.) (Pinchot Institute for Conservation Studies) 3 (bottom left) & 4 (bottom right). In the days of the Forest Reserves (1899), Ranger H. C. Tuttle and Than Wilderson built this building, long used as a ranger station, in what is now the Bitterroot National Forest, Montana. It is one of only two or three such structures built at the time and still standing in 1976. (F—244370 F—515567)