_The National Forest Policy._--The forest policy of the United States may be said to have had its origin in 1799 in the enactment of a law which authorized the purchase of timber suitable for the use of the navy, or of land upon which such timber was growing. It is true that laws were in force under the early governments of Massachusetts, New Jersey and other colonies, providing for the care and protection of forest interests in various ways, but these laws were distinctly survivals of tendencies acquired in Europe, and for the most part of little use. It was not until the apparent approach of a dangerous shortage in certain timber supplies that the first real step in forest policy was taken by the United States. Successive laws passed from 1817 to 1831 strove to give larger effect to the original enactment, but without permanent influence towards the preservation of the live oak (_Quercus virginiana_ Mill.), which was the object in view. A long period of inaction followed these early measures. In 1831 the solicitor of the treasury assumed a partial responsibility for the care and protection of the public timber lands, and in 1855 this duty was transferred to the commissioner of the general land office in the Department of the Interior. The effect of these changes upon forest protection was unimportant. When, however, at the close of the Civil War railway building in the United States took on an unparalleled activity, the destruction of forests by fire and the axe increased in a corresponding ratio, and public sentiment began to take alarm. Action by several of the states slightly preceded that of the Federal government, but in 1876 Congress, acting under the inspiration of a memorial from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, authorized the appointment of an officer (Dr Franklin B. Hough) under the commissioner of agriculture, to collect and distribute information upon forest matters. His office became in 1880 the division of forestry in what is now the United States Department of Agriculture.