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When Federal financial aid was made available to State forestry under the Weeks Act of 1911, new forestry agencies sprang into being in a dozen States, and the functions of other State forestry agencies were greatly expanded and strengthened by singling out fire protection as "something specific to do and at the same time to do everywhere," becoming in fact the "backbone of State fores try." At the time of the Weeks Act 25 States were reported to have some kind of forestry agency; by 1937 the number had increased to 42. Students of forest administration are quite doubtful whether the remaining States can be expected to follow in line because their forests are located almost entirely on Federal lands and already under the management of the United States Forest Service.

Professor Illick has outlined some trends in State forest administration as fol lows: (1) Centralization of powers, influences, and responsibilities as "sustained in a large measure by grants in aid"; (2) structural trend toward integration with conservation rather than agriculture in "accord with the general principles of integration in public administration"; (3) active internal reorganization of State forestry in the interests of simplification and coordination of activities; (4) steady growth of technical personnel and extension of the merit system; (5) forest-land acquisition "retarded considerably, unless the Federal Government is willing to assist the States" (under the Fulmer Act of 1935); (6) public relations; and (7) special consideration to the human values in forestry.45

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In notable contrast to managers of other natural resources, the foresters have long and conspicuously expounded the content and methods of long-range planning, in both the Federal and State Governments. The explanation may be partly personal in origin (due particularly to the activities of Gifford Pinchot and his associates), but other factors are also involved, as the sustained practice of the essentials of a “career service," and the close articulation of forestry govern ment with forestry education (particularly at Yale, the head of which was formerly a Federal forester), the availability of regular Federal aid for a consider able period of time (since the Weeks Act of 1911), and the deliberate practice of interchanging research and administrative personnel in the Federal service and also among the States."

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Parks. In 1641 the Massachusetts Bay Colony decreed that the "Great Ponds," bodies of fresh water over 10 acres in area, should forever remain open to the public for "fishing and fowling" and thereby assure a permanent food supply. The policy so declared by colonial New England has successfully sur vived into the present day, although now the necessity may no longer be food but open spaces.48 This example is only one of a long series of New England

45 See Joseph S. Illick, "Some Trends in State Forest Administration," Journal of Forestry (1935), 33: 310 et seq., and "Administrative Setups for State Forestry" (made available in manuscript). "Of the 40 States that now [1933] carry on forestry functions, 30 do not now have and never have had their forestry under agriculture." At that time 4 States still had forestry connected with agriculture; by 1937 only 1 State (Rhode Island) so reported in the author's questionnaire to the State planning boards.

46 Cf. A National Plan for American Forestry (1933).

47 "It appears that a higher degree of interstate movement of supervisory officials has developed among the State forest services than elsewhere. This has doubtless been brought about in part by the national consciousness of the forestry profes sion and by the fact that State forest services are generally relatively inconspicuous governmental activities, in which the appointment of a nonresident may be made without attracting much adverse criticism. A few examples will illustrate the extent to which the practice has arisen in forestry. The Connecticut State forester was once chief of the Vermont service and at one time served in the Federal service. The Texas State forester was formerly deputy State forester of Oregon and earlier had served in the U. S. Forest Service. The assistant State forester of Georgia has served in the States of Montana and Florida. Mississippi and Oklahoma have chief foresters who have served in other States. The State forester of Ten. nessee was formerly assistant State forester in Virginia and was at one time in the New Jersey service. In Massachusetts the officials in charge of fire-prevention activities formerly spent 9 years in the New York department; the assistant State forester was a ranger in the Federal service for 6 years. The State forester of Arkansas has been an extension forester n New York and in North Dakota. The State forester and the assistant State forester of Montana came from the Federal Forest Service. The first chief of the Minnesota service, who served many years after its establishment in 1911, was brought from the Federal service. The State forester of Illinois was formerly a regional forest supervisor in the National Park Service. The former State forester of Oklahoma and assistant State forester of Indiana are now employed by the Forest Service. A former head of the Pennsylvania service was at one time chief of the Federal Forest Service. At one time or another Louisiana, New Hampshire, Florida, Alabama, and Georgia have had State foresters who have had experience in the Federal service. These cases do not exhaust the list of such instances but illustrate the striking erosion of the restrictions of State boundaries on lines of career.' V. O. Key, The Administration of Federal Grants to the States (1937), pp. 311-312.

48 In 1923 the attorney general of the Commonwealth ruled, "The great ponds can be applied to such uses as the progress of civilization and the increasing wants of the community properly demanded." Cited in B. W. Nelson, State Recreation (1928), p. 3.

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STATE CONSERVATION OF RESOURCES

provisions setting aside "commons" in the compact town communities that were so characteristic wherever people from New England settled. The word “park" can be traced back to the large English landed estates and reservations that were so vigorously protected by the hated game laws which had found root in colonial America, especially in the South. Such parks and reservations differed significantly from the 1641 example of Massachusetts Bay in that they were not open to the public and were usually well cared for and administered, in unfortunate contrast to the "Great Ponds," public access to which was guaranteed but for which no mechanism of administration had been provided. Aside from private estates and the urban park movement,49 the first great step in the evolution of the concept of National and State parks took place at the very culmination of the Civil War when Congress in 1865 gave the beautiful Yosemite Valley, with its overhanging cliffs and towering waterfalls, to the State of California for recreational purposes., Actual administration of the area, however, was delayed for a decade pending disposal of claims of settlers in the area, and then it was opened under a special commission appointed by the Governor of California. În 1905, however, Yosemite was returned to the Federal Government in consideration of other areas suitable for State park purposes.

The first substantial effort by the States to establish their own park systems really began, shortly after the grant of Yosemite to California, with the efforts to preserve the natural beauty of Niagara Falls. In 1885-an important date in New York's conservation history for it also witnessed the great Forest Preserve Act-the Niagara State Reservation was dedicated. In the same year the Federal Government again lent its good offices to the development of State parks by transferring Mackinac Island to the State of Michigan, after it had been suc cessively a military reservation and a national military park. Minnesota next entered the park field in 1889 by establishing Birch Coulie Park and shortly after its well-known Itasca State Park. Civic groups rapidly sprang into being for the purpose of effectively vocalizing the public needs for parks-the Massachusetts Trustees of Public Reservation in 1891, the American Scenic and Historic Preser vation Society in 1895, and on State or regional bases the Appalachian Mountain Club, Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, and Ohio's Historical and Archeological Society, and Save-the-Redwood League, to cite only a few. The growth of State recreation is indicated on the accompanying map, from which it appears that only two States (Massachusetts and New York) established before the present century some central administrative agency to manage the principal State recreational areas. Ten other States are reported to have estab lished park agencies before the creation of the National Park Service in 1916, but the rapid growth of State park administration occurred immediately thereafter. Between 1917 and 1930, 29 States appear to have established a park agency, and the National Park Service reported in 1937 that there are park agencies in all the States except Arizona and Wyoming, within which there are extensive areas held as national parks and forests.

In many States, however, State parks appeared before the establishment of a State park administrative agency. Thus, five States (Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) had created State parks in the period before 1900, although no primary park administrative body was in existence. The tendency has been distinctly away from using individual park boards or commissions for the administration of particular recreational areas to the estab lishment of a central park agency with full jurisdiction over all the principal recreational areas of the States and, in turn, to integrate the park activities with the general conservation agency.

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"It should also be pointed out that this whole section on recreation is rather incomplete pending the report of the Secre tary of the Interior and the National Park Service on the Nationwide recreational survey authorized by Congress in 1936 (49 Stat. 1894). See National Park Service, 1937 Yearbook, Park and Recreation Progress (1938).

50 Infra., pp. 97-103.

of the first comprehensive surveys 51 of this character was that undertaken t John Nolen in 1908 when he was retained as consultant to the Wisconsin S Park Commission to investigate the recreational possibilities of that

41 Cf. early reports of Massachusetts Trustees, etc.

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STATE CONSERVATION OF RESOURCES

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One of the characteristic functions of the State park agences is to make and keep current comprehensive surveys of potential park areas and facilities. One

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Writing in the American Planning and Civic Annual, Miss James has charac terized Mr. Nolen's survey as follows:

His study of the State, by no means as exhaustive as that made 20 years later in California by Frederick Law Olmsted, resembled Mr. Olmsted's in its designation of specific areas and in the formulation of certain selection standards from which any justifiable selection must proceed; and they are excellent standards, in general quite as applicable to day as they were then. A notable fea ture of his report is his reasoned justification for State parks. Three of the four areas he recommended were acquired by the State, in whole or in part, within 4 years.

The best known State park survey was that prepared by Frederick Olmsted for the State of California in 1927-28, based on detailed field investigations, reports of regional advisers, and public hearings held in many areas so as to afford an adequate opportunity for the expression of citizen opinion. Out of a total of 330 areas which the staff studied, the report recommended 125 projects for favorable consideration. The report of the survey concluded with a very brief and very general discussion of the nature of principles governing the acquisition of park areas. More interest probably attaches to the procedure of the survey, involving cooperation between volunteer reporting groups and a central technical staff, and to the specific criteria use in eliminating particular areas from the recom mendations of the report.52 Other comprehensive efforts at State park planning include the Massachusetts Open Space Plan of 1926, the 25-Year Conservation Plan of Iowa prepared by Jacob Crane in 1933, studies of the New York Council on Parks, and the Indiana Conservation Department.

See Report of State Park Survey of California (1929), pp. 7-13 (dealing with "scope and limitations of the survey, method of conducting it"), 54-57 ("discussion of specific State park projects"), and 70-71 ("principles governing acquisition of park areas"). Miss James has commented, "The report itself is extraordinarily fine in a variety of ways. For one thing, it related State parks to the recreational activities, facilities, and needs of the people of the State as a whole in an exceptionally illumi nating manner; and it established selection criteria that, in my own opinion, come pretty near being the best yet formulated." American Planning and Civic Annual, p. 136.

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Part II. SPECIAL TRENDS
Chapter 3. MINERALS

SUMMARY

State management of minerals has involved two usually separated activities: survey and control. These activities are separated not merely in present administrative organization but also by the fact that the survey activities appeared as early as the decade of 1820-30, while mineral control activities came only toward the end of the nineteenth century. The primary func tion of the early State geological surveys was to explore the nature and location of the mineral wealth of the country, and they were frequently followed by periods of exploitation and speculation that were to some extent made possible by the knowledge revealed by the surveys. In only one State did these early geological surveys become a permanent agency of the State government (New York, 1836), but in all the other States the survey organizations were intermittent in character. By the end of the century, however, permanent survey organizations were established in most States. In the course of their operations these surveys have compiled a wealth of information about the physical resources of the States.

Initially, the American policy with reference to mineral deposits on the public lands was one of reservation and governmental leasing, but this policy was abandoned on a national scale in 1845 as "uneconomic," and no national efforts were made to prevent mineral exploitation until the first decade of the present century. In conspicuous contrast to this reversal of a policy of controlling mineral development on the vast majority of public lands, a few States (Texas, Michigan, and Minnesota) expressly adopted the "discredited" policy of mineral reservation. One of the concrete achievements of the later conservation movement was the readoption of the reservation policy during the first two decades of the present century by the National Government as well as by many States.

Governmental control of mineral development on privately owned land has been very slow in emerging. State regulation of coal mining was first drawn in terms of the health and safety of the miners rather than the conservation and effective utilization of coal as a mineral fuel, and even today the most elementary regulations for the conservation of coal are lacking in most States. Greater State control is exercised over oil and gas, starting with crude measures for the prevention of physical waste in the decade 1890–1900 and gradually expanding into “economic waste" and production control in the principal oil States. The most effective examples of conservational planning of oil (unitization) are still confined to oil fields on the public lands.

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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LIBRARIES

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