When I became President, the Bureau of Forestry (since 1905 the United
States Forest Service) was a small but growing organization, under
Gifford Pinchot, occupied mainly with laying the foundation of American
forestry by scientific study of the forests, and with the promotion of
forestry on private lands. It contained all the trained foresters in the
Government service, but had charge of no public timberland whatsoever.
The Government forest reserves of that day were in the care of a
Division in the General Land Office, under the management of clerks
wholly without knowledge of forestry, few if any of whom had ever seen
a foot of the timberlands for which they were responsible. Thus the
reserves were neither well protected nor well used. There were no
foresters among the men who had charge of the National Forests, and no
Government forests in charge of the Government foresters.
In my first message to Congress I strongly recommended the consolidation
of the forest work in the hands of the trained men of the Bureau of
Forestry. This recommendation was repeated in other messages, but
Congress did not give effect to it until three years later. In the
meantime, by thorough study of the Western public timberlands, the
groundwork was laid for the responsibilities which were to fall upon
the Bureau of Forestry when the care of the National Forests came to be
transferred to it.
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