In reviewing the public land policies prevailing during the period up to 1890, a student of government is likely to be both appalled and incredulous. Railroads having government land grants or rights of way were permitted to cut adjacent timber for construction purposes. Timber cutting on mineral lands by bona fide residents was also permitted. But in the vast territory from the Missouri River to the Pacific states, settlers were without legal right to cut public timber. Consequently, to obtain the wood necessary for their existence they simply had to steal it.
During the period 1881-87, the value of timber reported stolen from government land was in excess of $36 million and the amount recovered was $478,000. The annual appropriation for protection against trespass and theft was barely sufficient to employ an average of twenty-five timber agents, who were expected to protect 70 million acres of public timberlands. Worse yet, they were appointed for political reasons and were without knowledge or fitness for the work.
Not until 1891 was there promise of a remedy for the ills besetting the public lands. In that year, Congress authorized the president to set apart portions of the public lands as forest reserves—the forerunners of the national forest and park systems. Even so, the legislation was in the form of an obscure rider attached to a general appropriations act, and subsequent legislation providing for the protection and administration of the reserves was delayed until 1897.
Adapted from Professional Forestry in the United States, by Henry Clepper (Johns Hopkins Press for RFF, 1971).
A version of this article appeared in print in the September 1971 issue of Resources magazine.
