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Show 568 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT claimed two additional forest reserves in Oregon on September 28, 1893, with a combined area of 4,501,300 acres but was unwilling to do more until Congress provided some form of protection and control for the existing forests.0 National Forest Commission The first truly professional aid in planning for withdrawals came in 1896 with the appointment of the National Forest Commission. The National Academy of Sciences was asked by Hoke Smith, Secretary of the Interior (who had been stimulated to make the inquiry), what legislation, if any, was necessary to make effective the reservation policy. In response, it chose a commission of seven to study and report. Included were Charles S. Sargent, who has previously been mentioned as in charge of the Tenth Census report on the Forests of North America; William H. Brewer, a distinguished Yale botanist; Alexander Agas-siz, mine administrator, zoologist, and patron of science; Wolcott Gibbs, president of the National Academy; and, most important for the future of forestry, Gifford Pinchot. With an appropriation of $25,000 the commission toured the forest regions of the West for 3 months and through Chairman Sargent orally recommended the establishment of 13 additional forests in Washington, California, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, South Dakota, and Idaho. The "Report of the National Forestry Committee of the National Academy of Sciences Upon the Inauguration of a Forest Policy for the Forested Lands of the United States" is a brilliant example of how an extraordinarily skillful group of outstanding scientists could draft a document bearing within it a blueprint for the development of the forest policy for the next quarter-century. The report examined in detail the forestry experience of the na- 9 GLO Report, 1893, pp. 78-79; 1894, p 94. dons of western Europe and applied the lessons to be learned from that experience to the situation in the United States. It stated that in the forest reservations the commission had visited, fire, caused either willfully or carelessly by prospectors, miners, tourists, did far more damage than did trespassers. Next to fire in destroying young trees and undergrowth were the nomadic bands of sheep which did far more damage to the ranges on important watersheds than the sheep were worth. The report emphasized that the forest reserves belonged to, and should be managed for, all the people, not for any particular class. The steep-sloped lands should not be cleared, the grazing of sheep should be regulated, miners should not be allowed to burn land over willfully, lands better suited for agriculture or mining should be eliminated from the reserves, mature timber should be cut and sold, and settlers and miners should be allowed to cut only such timber as they needed. Members of the commission hit hard at the patronage system, low pay, insecurity of tenure and poor quality of appointees made responsible for enforcing the regulations against trespass on the public lands, and used some of William A. J. Sparks' earlier phraseology in condemning the Timber Cutting Act, calling it the "greatest gift ever made by Congress." Citing the conduct of the Homestake Mining Company which allegedly had violated every regulation concerning the cutting of timber on public mineral lands while cutting timber worth between $2 million and $3 million, the commission urged that the Timber Cutting and the Timber and Stone Acts, both of which encouraged fraud, be repealed and recommended that the administration of the forest reserves should be placed in the hands of nonpolitically oriented men trained in the best of modern science and engineering and of highest character. To secure such men liberal sal- |
