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. It was evident that trained American Foresters would
be needed in considerable numbers, and a forest school was established
at Yale to supply them.

In 1901, at my suggestion as President, the Secretary of the Interior,
Mr. Hitchcock, made a formal request for technical advice from the
Bureau of Forestry in handling the National Forests, and an extensive
examination of their condition and needs was accordingly taken up. The
same year a study was begun of the proposed Appalachian National Forest,
the plan of which, already formulated at that time, has since been
carried out. A year later experimental planting on the National Forests
was also begun, and studies preparatory to the application of practical
forestry to the Indian Reservations were undertaken. In 1903, so
rapidly did the public work of the Bureau of Forestry increase, that the
examination of land for new forest reserves was added to the study
of those already created, the forest lands of the various States were
studied, and cooperation with several of them in the examination and
handling of their forest lands was undertaken. While these practical
tasks were pushed forward, a technical knowledge of American Forests
was rapidly accumulated. 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 coul