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directed to a small boom belonging to the lumber company. When sufficient logs were gathered together in the boom they were then taken by a tugboat to the lumber mill.

There is but little evidence left of this industry which at one time was one of the most important in Pennsylvania. In the bed of the river one can now see piles of rock running in a row for miles up the river from Williamsport. These are the remains of the piers that often were over 30 feet in height. Soon floating ice in the spring and the great force of water in time of floods will scatter these rocks and this important industry that formed the foundation of much of the early wealth of the State will have passed into history.

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Extract from Address of Governor Sproul.

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HE Second Annual Convention of the Pennsylvania State Chamber of Commerce was held in Harrisburg, Pa., on September 27th and 28th. At this meeting an address was made by the Hon. William C. Sproul, Governor of Pennsylvania, in which he referred to the needs of the State, making the following statement about forestry:

"We want to help along in our forestry program. There has been a good bit said about it. In coming from New York State I came through the great forest preserves in Potter County, where the State of Pennsylvania owns over 200,000 acres. We own now over 1,100,000 acres, but there are still 5,000,000 acres of land in Pennsylvania which are not to be utilized for much else beside growing trees. I tell you it is a great crop! Five million acres, with what we have, makes an area just about as big as the State of New Jersey, and it is right here in the heart of this industrial State. We want to go ahead now and acquire that land, for the next generation will hold us mighty remiss, as we think our predecessors remiss, in sitting by and seeing the great timber wealth of this State ruthlessly destroyed, and those splendid fertile hills and mountains in Pennsylvania, the heart of Penn's Woods, made desolate and barren and useless. We have got to go along with that program."

The Chamber also passed the following resolution:

Restoration of Pennsylvania's Timber Production.

WHEREAS, The State of Pennsylvania should be a leader in timber production, and in the manufacture of timber products, but has permitted its position to be lost through failure to restore its deforestated areas, until the State has fallen from a timber exporting State to a timber importing State, and

WHEREAS, The Governor of the Commonwealth has declared that it is one of the policies of his administration, as far as possible, to restore Pennsylvania to its former position as a timber producing Commonwealth therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Pennsylvania State Chamber of Commerce heartily endorses the policy advocated by Governor Sproul for the restoration of Pennsylvania's timber production.

In the United States during the past year 27,000 forest fires were reported burning over 8,500,000 acres, and there were also numerous fires which were not reported.

National or State Regulation of Pennsylvania's Forests.

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HE attention of Forest Leaves has been called to the following correspondence between Mr. Pinchot, and Mr. J. Girvin Peters and Colonel W. B. Greeley of the National Forest Service.

From his correspondence, the publication of which Mr. Pinchot apparently desires, judging from his concluding telegram, it appears he desires to place, and to center the control of forest devastation and tree cutting, both public and private, in Federal rather than in State authority. This would be extending the authority that the United States, through its Forest Service, has exercised over the lands reserved or set aside as National Forest Reserves, and which are owned by the National Government, to all forests and woods, whether situated on lands owned by the Government, or on lands owned by a State or by individuals in States, like Pennsylvania where the United States Government owns no forest lands.

Difficulty will, we think, be found in convincing Pennsylvania that such a surrender to the National Government of individual and Sate control should be made. The situation is radically different legally in our State from that presented in states where the ownership of Federal forests, reserved and held by the National Government, naturally has imposed on the Government the duty of control and regulation of timber care, cutting, and replanting. In our State the timber is mainly owned privately, not by the State, or by the National Government. Our Constitution provides that private property shall not be taken for public use without due compensation made to the owner and it is very doubtful whether legislation authorizing the National Government or the State to restrict and regulate the cutting and growth of timber privately owned, would not be held by the courts to be an invasion of private property, that could only be justified as a quasi taking or regulation for public use, to be done only on the basis of compensation to the owner. But legislation providing for such regulation and compensation would necessarily have to be passed by the State, and not by Congress, at least initially. Any such regulation by Congress would have to be first authorized by the State, and it is doubtful whether the State of Pennsylvania would ever willingly and without serious protest surrender its State control over lands in the State to Congress, nor do we see any need for it.

Apparently the thought is that State control would be ineffective over forest devastation. That

under the National plan, the Federal Government would control the harvesting of commercial forest crops. That this "would involve the prevention of destructive lumbering, protection of young growth already on the ground, simple measures for securing natural reforestation, and slash disposal on the cutover land."

Colonel Greeley in his letter (following) of October 6th, appears to reasonably and effectively meet this view, where he says: "There is no question as to the greater effectiveness of Federal control of private forests and forest industries as a regulatory measure. But I do question the wisdom of attempting this form of regulation. It faces so many questions, both legal and administrative, as to Federal and State jurisdiction over private property, and the relation between Government and industry, that, in my judgment, by pinning our faith to this remedy we will simply mark time and get nowhere for many years."'

PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF FORESTRY, HARRISBURG.

Mr. J. Girvin Peters, U. S. Forest Service, Washington, D. C.

Dear Peters:

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September 21, 1920

HIS is a formal reply to your circular letter of July 3 to State Foresters, which we have repeatedly discussed.

You ask my cooperation for the Forest Service plan to induce the State of Pennsylvania and other States, by means of a subsidy from the Federal Government, to pass such legislation as the Forest Service may approve for protecting forest lands against fire and for preventing the devastation of commercial timberlands by destructive lumbering. If the State of Pennsylvania or any other State should not meet your requirements as to laws or their enforcement, you propose to withhold the subsidy.

You advise control by the States over a problem which is distinctly the concern of the whole Nation. You propose to distribute control over forest devastation among 35 timber-growing States, many of which have heretofore handled their forest affairs with striking inefficiency: you propose to solve a Nation-wide problem, of vastly greater importance to the Nation as a whole than to any one State, by the indirect method of subsidized suggestion, persuasion, or

direction by the Federal Government in 35 different State legislatures; and you propose Federal supervision of the administration of State laws in a way surcharged with the certainty of friction.

In my judgment, your program is fundamentally wrong in principle, can never be put through Congress, and if it could would be unworkable. I can not support it.

Your proposal amounts to this, that the States which are unable to supply their own needs for timber (States that are already in the vast majority, and in ten years are likely to be in a majority of ten to one) shall agree to have little or nothing to say as to their own future supply of timber, but shall leave to the legislatures of the timber-exporting States the control over what is to them an absolute necessity of life.

Do you imagine for a moment that Kansas and Nebraska, Pennsylvania and New York, will contribute their money through federal appropriations, and then sit calmly by and trust to the legislatures and State forces of Oregon and Louisiana for the enactment and application of measures which will assure to the farmers of the middle west and the workers of the industrial East the timber supplies they must have to earn their living? And do you imagine that their share of a million dollars (I propose to ask a million dollars from the next Pennsylvania Legislature for fire protection alone), distributed among 35 States, will be more powerful with the Legislatures of Washington and Oregon than the lumber lobbies which have dominated them for years? A mere statement of the situation is enough to show that State control, even if it were desirable, is altogether out of reach.

The outstanding fact is that there is a question not of control by the Nation or the States, but a question of National control or no control at all.

By emphasizing the importance of fire almost to the exclusion of forest devastation, your letter opens the gates, first for laxity in the enactment and enforcement of laws to prohibit devastation, and then for the side-tracking of such measures altogether. That is precisely what the lumbermen want. They have so far successfully kept fire in the forefront of the discussion. If they can overshadow the real issue by talking nothing but fire protection, they will succeed in escaping the compulsory practice of such simple forestry on commercial forest lands as will keep those lands reasonably productive.

It goes without saying that close and hearty cooperation between the Federal Government and the States in fire protection is essential to any National forest program. I am emphatically for it. I hope that the State of Pennsylvania may be fortunate enough hereafter to get much more money from the Federal Government under the Weeks Law than heretofore. But I shall oppose strongly the attempt to make such cooperation the key to State control of forest devastation.

As a State Forester, I realize that forest devastation is a National, interstate problem with which only the Federal Government can deal. Such National control will increase, not diminish, the value, importance, and extent of the work of every State Forest Department, and immeasurably advance the cause of forestry in every State as well as in the Nation at large.

The Forest Service, with its practical and successful experience in the decentralization and localization of forest administration, can make certain, as separate State administrations naturally could not, of uniform fairness to all the private interests concerned. Under its supervision, an intelligent, clean, stable, and thoroughly democratic control would be assured.

It is no answer to say that the present forest administration of Pennsylvania or any other State is good. So far as Pennsylvania is concerned, it has been so far a matter of months only, and we all know the many States in which the handling of forest affairs has been or is now weak in resources, vacillating in plan, politically minded, or under the domination of great lumber interests. What is needed is the continuous, consistent, enduring, Nation-wide plan which the United States Forest Service alone can lay down, and which the Federal Government alone has sufficient power to enforce.

The Forest Service program has many excellent features. Except for the principle of State control, which is unworkable and unattainable, a truly National forest policy might be built upon it. With that single item changed, and certain appropriations omitted, I could support it without reserve. The Society of American Foresters, as you know, has recently voted three to two in favor of National control.

Copies of this letter are being sent to the various state forest departments and to other interested organizations.

Sincerely yours,

Gifford Pinchot, Commissioner of Forestry.

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I have of course read your letter of September 21 to Mr. Peters with great interest. There is no question as to the greater effectiveness of Federal control of private forests and forest industries as a regulatory measure. But I do question the wisdom of attempting this form of regulation. It faces so many questions, both legal and administrative, as to Federal and State jurisdiction over private property and the relation between Government and industry that, in my judgment, by pinning our faith to this remedy we will simply mark time and get nowhere for many years.

Whatever course our national policy takes, I believe that we should encourage every sound development toward better forest practice which originates in local sources and becomes effective through local expression and action. I am convinced that the Federal government will make the most rapid immediate progress and at the same time build most solidly for the future by taking the lead in a cooperative movement and by aiding the States toward forestry through the exercise of their recognized powers.

Actual accomplishment in timber production will, for a long time to come, be measured by the reduction in the yearly acreage of forest fires. Every other cause of devastation is insignificant compared with the destruction of timber and young growth by fire. Records just compiled for the last fiscal year show a recorded total of 27,000 forest fires and 8,500,000 acres of forest land burned over. The Almighty only knows how many additional fires occurred and how many additional millions of acres were burned over of which no records are obtainable. One of the greatest forest resources which the country has is the 130 odd million acres of land containing young growth in various stages. This, with the areas of second growth timber of merchantable size, must bridge the gap between the exhaustion of our virgin forests and our adjustment to a sustained yield. Millions of acres of these young stands are being wrecked by fire every year. It seems to me beyond question that our immediate efforts and the character of the legislation we

seek should be bent toward reducing this fundamental cause of forest devastation.

I appreciate your distinction between Federal cooperation with the States in fire protection and Federal control of methods of cutting. But I do not believe it possible to do one thing through State agencies and the other thing through Federal agencies. Fire prevention and silviculture are so interwoven that one administrative organization must handle both. What use for the Federal Government to require the leaving of seed trees or young timber if the State laws do not require slash disposal or freely permit light burning? Either the State or the Federal Government must handle the whole thing. With destruction by fire so obviously the first object of attack, I am for working through the States, the exercise of whose police powers seems to me essential to the prevention of forest fires. If we can not stop forest devastation by this means, I will be for Federal control; but such Federal control must extend to fire prevention as well as cutting methods. And, while seeking to control fires through the States, I see no reason why we should not accomplish as as possible through the same agencies toward stopping forest destruction from all causes.

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Why should we discard the State forest organizations as active agencies in preventing every form of forest devastation? Under your leadership, as well as subsequently, the Forest Service has endeavored to build up the State forestry departments. Many of these organizations have accomplished real achievements in forestry. They are established, recognized agencies for accomplishing the results we both seek. With better Federal cooperation they can be made still more effective. I know that you agree as far as fire prevention goes; but I fail to see why the State Foresters and their staffs should not be made just as active agents as possible in the whole field of forest practice and the prevention of devastation, including the creation of State forests, public education in forestry, and the regulation of private lands.

It seems to me desirable, furthermore, to enlist the real support for the prevention of forest devastation which is offered by many individuals and groups among timberland owners and forest industries. With it, as well as that of the general public and the State forest organizations, much can be accomplished and we can begin immediately under such a program as Col. Graves and I have advocated.

It is far from my desire to prolong the discussion of this question. I can see no reason for

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