In 1897, again a commission was instituted to formulate new legislation. This commission reported in 1902, declaring that all accessible forests were more or less devastated, accentuating the needs of water management, and proposing a more rigorous definition of ban forests, a strict supervision of communal forests, and the management of private properties under working plans by accredited foresters or else under direct control of the forest department, the foresters to be paid by the State, which is to recover from the owners. It was found that in the past 35 years of the 125,000 acres needing reforestation urgently only 58,300 acres had been planted at an expense of $1,340,000. In 1910, conditions seem not to have much improved, for again a vigorous attempt at re-organization and improvement on the law of 1877 was made by the Minister of Agriculture; so far without result. It is to be noted that Italy is perhaps the only country where forest influence on health conditions was legally recognized, by the laws of 1877 and 1888. The belief that deforestation of the _maremnae_, the marshy lowlands between Pisa and Naples, had produced the malarial fever which is rampant here, led the Trappist monks of the cloister at Tre Fontane to make plantations of Eucalyptus (84,000) beginning in 1870, the State assisting by cessions of land for the purpose. A commission, appointed to investigate the results, in 1881, threw doubt on the effectiveness of the plantation, finding the observed change in health conditions due to improvement of drainage; and lately, the mosquito has been recognized as the main agency in propagating the fever. The new propositions, however, did not any more recognize this claimed influence as a reason for public intervention. Incidentally it may be stated that to two Italians is due the credit of having found the true cause of salubriousness of forest air, namely in the absence of pathogenic bacteria. 3. _Education and Literature._ The first forest school was organized by Balestrieri, who had studied in Germany, at the Agricultural School near Turin about 1848, transferred to the Technical Institute in Turin in 1851. This school continued until 1869, and from 1863 on, had been recognized by the State, assuring its graduates employment in State service. In 1869, the State established a forest school of its own (_Institute Forestale_) at Vallambrosa near Florence, with a three years’ course (since 1886, four years) and, in 1900, with eleven professors and 40 students. In spite of the State subvention of $8,500, it appears that some peculiar economies are necessary, for owing to the absence of stoves the school is closed from Nov. 1 to March 1. In spite of the existence of this school, the State Service is recruited also from men who have not passed through this school.