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Show ADMINISTRATION OF THE PUBLIC FOREST LANDS 593 eral and forest lands were restored to the public domain but the haste in ordering the withdrawals undoubtedly had led to the inclusion of some lands that were suit- able for agriculture and might better have been left outside the reserves. The crusading ardor of Theodore Roosevelt and Gif-ford Pinchot in behalf of conservation was Status of National Forests, 1909-1913 Number of Forests Number of Forests Increase or Decrease in Year Enlarged Reduced Total Acreage 1909 34 10 +26,528,439 1910 6 26 - 1,574,128 1911 43 61 - 2,322,954 1912 22 53 - 3,201,867 1913 12 27 - 789,728 Compiled from data in GLO Reports, 1909-1913. not matched during the administration of his successors until another Roosevelt took over the White House. Yet it should be pointed out that Walter L. Fisher, Secretary of the Interior, in 1911 took a thoroughly Rooseveltian position in opposing the alienation of either forest or cutover land not adapted for agricultural uses. "The fact that purchases must now be made in the Appalachian Mountains . . . shows how unwise it is for the government to dispose of such lands to private individuals." From 1909 to 1933, the Forest Service was consolidating the gains it had made, bringing its forests into effectively administered units, and experimenting in a limited way with new techniques.83 Interior and of the Bureau of Forestry, S. Doc, 61st Gong., 3d sess., No. 719 (Serial Nos. 5892-5903), includes some of the most fascinating passages in congressional investigations. In addition to Hays, Ise, Pinchot, and Richardson previously cited in this chapter see Henry F. Pringle, Life and Times of William Howard Tajt (2 vols., New York, 1939); Alpheus T. Mason, Bureaucracy Convicts Itself: The Ballinger Pinchot Controversy of 1910 (New York, 1941); M. Nelson McGeary, Gifford Pinchot: Forester Politician (Princeton, 1960); and James Penick, Progressive Politics and Conservation (Chicago, 1968). "Department of the Interior, Annual Report, 1911, Vol. I, p. 8. Fisher also strongly urged the repeal of the Timber and Stone and Timber Cutting Acts, empowering the Secretary of the Interior to sell timber on public lands, and the leasing of the public range- The Weeks Forest Purchase Act The rapid growth of conservation sentiment in the older states led them not only to look with favor upon the reservation of the national forests of the West but also to examine critically the needs for protecting the watersheds of their major rivers and improving their forests by applying scientific forestry practices. John Ise has traced the conservation activities in the various states leading to the appointment of state foresters and boards of forestry, the establishment of forestry schools, first at Cornell under Fernow, later at Yale, Michigan, and elsewhere, the organization of forestry societies, the publication of forestry journals, and finally the movement for Federal management of the forests in the White and Appalachian Mountains.84 A growing body of conservationists, concerned about the inroads the lumber industry was making on the last important stands of forests, the recreation industry which bemoaned the scenic losses lumbermen caused, and the towns and cities which suffered from periodic floods brought heavy pressure upon Congress for the adoption of a pro-lands to halt the serious abuses resulting from overgrazing. 84 Ise, United States Forest Policy, pp. 143-50. |