The special knowledge gained was made public
in printed bulletins; and at the same time the Bureau undertook, through
the newspaper and periodical press, to make all the people of the United
States acquainted with the needs and the purposes of practical
forestry. It is doubtful whether there has ever been elsewhere under the
Government such effective publicity--publicity purely in the interest of
the people--at so low a cost. Before the educational work of the Forest
Service was stopped by the Taft Administration, it was securing
the publication of facts about forestry in fifty million copies of
newspapers a month at a total expense of $6000 a year. Not one cent has
ever been paid by the Forest Service to any publication of any kind for
the printing of this material. It was given out freely, and published
without cost because it was news. Without this publicity the Forest
Service could not have survived the attacks made upon it by the
representatives of the great special interests in Congress; nor could
forestry in America have made the rapid progress it has.
The result of all the work outlined above was to bring together in the
Bureau of Forestry, by the end of 1904, the only body of forest experts
under the Government, and practically all of the first-hand information
about the public forests which was then in existence.
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