Chapter 26

CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES

[1906]

Toward the close of the nineteenth century, attention was called to the fact by scientific men that the methods employed in the use of our soil, mines, forests, and water supply were extremely wasteful. During the previous decades the resources of the country were regarded as inexhaustible. As stated by President Roosevelt in 1907: "Hitherto as a nation we have tended to live with an eye single to the present, and have permitted the reckless waste and destruction of much of our national wealth." At the same time the call came for the conservation of our natural resources.

The destruction of the forests first attracted attention. The first national reservation of forests was made in 1891, and in 1898 a marked advance was made by the establishment of a division of Forestry in the Department of Agriculture. Gifford Pinchot, as chief of the division, called attention of the people to the interdependence of the forests and the waterways.