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Updated: June 5, 2025
The first steps in forestry in this country, as in any other where the development and destruction of natural resources has been rapid, were necessarily directed mainly to informing the public mind upon the importance of forestry, and to building up national and State laws and organizations for the protection of timberlands set aside for the public benefit.
It did not manage any of the Government timberlands because there were no forest reserves at that time. It was not until 1891 that the first forest reserve, the Yellowstone Park Timberland Reserve, was created by special proclamation of President Harrison. Later it became part of the National Park reserves.
The forests include 1266 irrigation projects and 325 water-power plants, in addition to many other power and irrigation companies which depend on the Government timberlands for water conservation and the regulation of rain water run-off and stream flow. The National Forests aid greatly in conserving and making available for use the precious limited rainfall of the arid regions.
These timberlands return a net income of from $3,000,000 to $4,000,000 a year. India now protects more than 35,000 square miles of forest against fire at an annual cost of less than half a cent an acre. Forest experts say that the United States, which produces more than one-half of all the sawed timber in the world, should pay more attention to the export lumber business.
In 1905, the administration of the forest reserves was transferred from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Agriculture, and their name changed to National Forests. No great additions to the government timberlands have been made since that time. Small, valuable areas have been added. Other undesirable tracts have been cut off from the original reserves.
The sufficiency of life brought daily growth in the self-reliance which had left them for a time. The wide timberlands, the broken low hills of the green prairie at length began to give place to a steadily rising inclined plane. The soil became less black and heavy, with more sandy ridges. The oak and hickory, stout trees of their forefathers, passed, and the cottonwoods appeared.
The pine and hardwood forests of the Atlantic and New England States first fell before the bite of the woodman's ax and the sweep of his saw. Wasteful lumbering finally sapped the resources of these productive timberlands. Shift was then made farther westward to the Lake States. Their vast stretches of white pine and native hardwoods were cut to a skeleton of their original size.
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