In 1905, the
obvious foolishness of continuing to separate the foresters and the
forests, reenforced by the action of the First National Forest Congress,
held in Washington, brought about the Act of February 1, 1905,
which transferred the National Forests from the care of the Interior
Department to the Department of Agriculture, and resulted in the
creation of the present United States Forest Service.
The men upon whom the responsibility of handling some sixty million
acres of National Forest lands was thus thrown were ready for the work,
both in the office and in the field, because they had been preparing
for it for more than five years. Without delay they proceeded, under the
leadership of Pinchot, to apply to the new work the principles they had
already formulated. One of these was to open all the resources of the
National Forests to regulated use. Another was that of putting every
part of the land to that use in which it would best serve the public.
Following this principle, the Act of June 11, 1906, was drawn, and its
passage was secured from Congress. This law throws open to settlement
all land in the National Forests that is found, on examination, to be
chiefly valuable for agriculture.
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