_The Need of a Forest Policy._ The need for a well-defined forest policy with respect to the government forest lands now began to be felt. Railroad land grants, the Homestead Act, Preëmption claims, and the Timber and Stone Act were taking much valuable timberland out of government ownership. People secured claims under these acts merely for the timber that was on them. The purposes of the laws and acts of Congress were being fraudulently evaded. Also the Government had restrictive and protective laws in regard to its lands, but it could not enforce them on account of lack of appropriations with which to maintain an administrative and protective organization. The time was now ripe for an executive policy to manage the woodlands that still remained in the possession of the Government before it was too late to save what was left. _The Act of March 3, 1891._ The Division of Forestry was designed by the nature of its duties to be more than a bureau of information. The existence of a governmental department to promulgate forestry principles while the Government itself had made no provision to apply such principles to its own permanent timberlands was an incongruity that suggested further legislative action. This was in part supplied by the law of March 3, 1891, which conferred upon the President the power to establish Forest Reservations. The first exercise of power under this act was the presidential proclamation creating the Yellowstone Park Timber Land Reserve under President Harrison on March 30, 1891. This was probably the wisest step yet taken in the development of a National Forest policy; but, unfortunately, the act left the Division simply a bureau of information as it was before. AN ANOMALOUS CONDITION--FOREST RESERVES WITHOUT FOREST ADMINISTRATION _The Need of Administration on the Reserves._ At first thought it will be seen that this piece of legislation must necessarily remain inoperative unless it were followed by the establishment of a proper administration of the Reserves based upon sound forestry principles. Furthermore, the law withdrew from public use all such lands that might be acquired under it. It was now easy for the Government to acquire lands; the question that next presented itself was how to protect and regulate the use of these new acquisitions. Forest protection cannot be secured without forest rangers and forest guards; nor forest management without technical foresters. The very reasons for establishing the Reserves would point to the absolute need of a system of managing them. These reasons were briefly: