AM 9 New York State Callege of Agriculture At Gornell University Ithaca, N.Y. Library IAN TON 2 813 270 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924052813270 PROCEEDINGS OF THE -American Forest Congress Held at Washington, D.C., January 2 to 6, 1905, under the auspices of the AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION Published for the Association by the H. M. SUTER PUBLISHING COMPANY WASHINGTON, D.C. 1905 PREFACE The American Forest Congress, the proceedings of which make up this volume, was held at Washington, D. C., January 2 to 6, 1905, under the auspices of the American Forestry-Association. The purpose of this Congress, as stated in the official call, was “to estab- lish a broader understanding of the forest in its rela- tion to the great industries depending upon it; to advance the conservative use of forest resources for both the present and future need of these industries ; to stimulate and unite all efforts to perpetuate the forest as a permanent resource of the nation.” That the time was ripe for such a meeting was proven by the splendid attendance, both in numbers and personnel, from every section of the country. From its inception the plan for the Congress had the approval of the President of the United States, as well as many of the most prominent persons in the official and industrial life of the country. As a result the American Forest Congress turned out to be not only the most important meeting ever devoted to forestry in the United States, but one of the most influential gatherings that has given its attention to an economic subject. It is not too much to say that from the date of this Congress forestry has come to have a new meaning to the American people. It was the wish of the delegates that, in view of the very comprehensive treatment of the subject of forestry at the several sessions of the Congress, that the pro- ceedings should be collected in permanent form, which explains the making of this volume. The plan fol- iv PREFACE lowed in its compilation has not been to produce a ver- batim report of the several sessions of the Congress, but to collect the full list of papers read and the more important impromptu addresses into convenient form for reading and ready reference. ORGANIZATION OF THE CONGRESS Monorary President, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES President of the Congress, HON. JAMES WILSON Committee of Arrangements, JAMES WILSON, Secretary of Agriculture. A. J. CASSATT, ; President, Pennsylvania Rail- road. HowarbD ELLIoTT?T, President, Northern Pacific Ry. JoHN Hays HAMMOND, Mining Engineer. T. J. GRIER, i Homestake Mining Co., Lead, 8. Dak. FRED WEYERHAEUSER, St. Paul, Minn. N. W. McLEop President, atl] Lumber Manu- facturers Association. V. H. BECKMAN, Editor, Pacific Lumber Trade Journal, R. A. LONG, President, Southern Lumber Manufacturers Association. GEORGE K. SMITH, Secretary, Nat’! Lumber Manu- facturers Association. GARRET SCHENCK, a ae Great Northern Paper 0. THomMasS F. W4LSH, President, National Irrigation Association. H. B. F. MAcFARLAND, President, Board of District Com- missioners. W. 8. HARVEY, Vice - President, Pennsylvania Forestry Association. JoHN Joy EDSON, President, Washington Loan & Trust Co. 1 ALBERT SHAW, Editor, Review of Reviews. WHITELAW REID, Publisher, ‘New York Tribune. REDFIELD PROCTOR United States Gariator from Ver- mont. HENRY C. HANSBROUGH, United States Senator from North Dakota. NATHAN B, Scort, United States Senator from West Virginia. THomAS R. BaRD, United States Senator from Cali- fornia. JAMES W. WapswortH, Member of Congress from New York. JouN F. Lacey, Member of Congress from Iowa. FRANK W. MONDELL, Member of Congress from Wyo- ming. CHARLES D, WALCOTT, Director, U, 8. Geological Survey. GIFFORD PINCHOT, Forester, U. 8. Agriculture. F. H. NEWELL, Chief Engineer, U. 8. Reclama- tion Service. GEORGE H. MAXWELL, Executive Chairman, The Na- tional Irrigation Association. B, L. Wiee@ins, Vice-Chancellor, University of the South GEORGE P,. WHITTLESEY, Director, American Forestry As- sociation. Department of vi ORGANIZATION OF THE CONGRESS F. J. HAGENBARTH President, National Live Stock Association. JESSE SMITH, President, Utah Wool Growers’ ‘Association, H. A. JasTRo, General Supt., Kern County Land Co., California. E, 8. GOsSNEY, Manager, Gosney & Perkins Bank, Flagstaff, Ariz. W. A. RICHARDS, Commissioner, General Land Of- fice. B. T. GALLOWAY, Chief, Bureau of Plant Industry. OVERTON W. PRICE, Associate Forester, Bureau of Forestry. H. S. GRAVES, Director, Yale Forest School. FILIBERT ROTH, Director, Forestry Department University of Michigan. F. V. CovILue, Botanist, U. 8. Department of Agriculture. Wm. L. Hatt, Ass’t Forester, Bureau of Forestry JAMES B, ADAMS, In charge of Records, Bureau of Forestry. HERMANN VON SCHRENK, Expert, Bureau of Forestry. H. M. SUTER, Editor, Forestry and Irrigation. C. J. BLANCHARD, Statistician, U. S. Reclamation Service. CONTENTS. PART I. FORESTRY AS A NATIONAL QUESTION THE Fortst In THE Lire or A NATION..........0-000000- 3 President Roosevelt. THE GENERAL NEED oF Forest PRESERVATION...........-- 13 James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture. THE Forest Poricy OF FRANCE..........0 ec ec eeeeeeeneee 22 J. J. Jusserand, Ambassador from France. ATTITUDE OF Epucationay Institutions Towarp Forestry 29 B. L. Wiggins, Vice-Chancellor, University of the South. IMPORTANCE OF THE ForEsi's To AGRICULTURE............ 42 John Lamb, Member of Congress from Virginia. DEPENDENCE oF Business INTERESTS Upon THE ForEstTs.. 51 Howard Elliott, President, Northern Pacific Railroad. \ PART II. IMPORTANCE OF THE PUBLIC FOREST LANDS TO IRRIGATION. Tue CLosg RELATION BETWEEN ForEstRy AND IRRIGATION 53 Guy E. Mitchell. FoRESTS AND RESERVOIRS. ...... 00 cece cece cece cece eeeeeee 60 F. H. Newell. RELATION OF Forest CovER TO STREAMFLOW............-- 67 J. B. Lippincott. Ricuts oF Way IN ForEst RESERVES.......-.6.-0 ee ee eee 81 Morris Bien. viii ContTENTS TrRIGATION CONSTRUCTION AND TIMBER SUPPLIES......... 87 Arthur P. Davis. Impromptu ADDRESSES: Hs Mi Walsotts..0icran cones cicace aan eas eae wdwes 91 Ds, Wa LOU EY oases sacibueveseane oo tae deg aaidiae cee wire ideas 93 PART III. THE LUMBER INDUSTRY AND THE FORESTS. THE LUMBERMAN’S INTEREST IN FORESTRY.........-.--- 99 N. W. McLeod. CHANGED ATTITUDE oF LUMBERMEN TOWARD ForestRY.... 103 J. E. Defebaugh. Is Forestry Pracricasie on Lone Lear Ping LANDS?.... 124 John L. Kaul. Is Forestry PRACTICABLE IN THE NORTHWEST?...........- 132 Victor H. Beckman. INTEREST oF LUMBERMEN IN CONSERVATIVE FORESTRY..... 137 F. E. Weyerhaeuser. IMPORTANCE oF ForEstrRy TO WooDWoRKING INDUSTRIES... 142 M. C. Moore. Is Forestry PRACTICABLE IN THE NORTHEAST?........... 147 John A. Dix. Our PaciFic Coast Forests AND LUMBERING AS DIFFER- ING FROM OTHER FORESTS............0 000 cease 153 George P. Emerson. RIsE IN VALUE OF STUMPAGE........0.e cece eee eee eees 163 : James T. Barber. IMPORTANCE OF LUMBER STATISTICS. ........000c cece eee 166 George K. Smith. OPppoRTUNITIES FoR LUMBERING IN THE PHILIPPINES...... 173 George P. Ahern. Tue Lumser Drarers’ INTEREST IN ForEsT PRESERVATION 189 George W. Hotchkiss. CoorERAGE AND Its RELATION TO FORESTRY.............. 194 John A. McCann. ContTENTS ix PART IV. IMPORTANCE OF THE PUBLIC FOREST LANDS TO GRAZING. Practica, RESULTS OF THE REGULATION OF GRAZING IN THE Forest RESERVES..........00c0ceceeecceee 210 A. F. Potter. THE Protection of Home BUILDERS IN THE REGULATION OF GRAZING ON Forest RESERVES........-..00000% 218 E. S. Gosney. Tue ADVANTAGE oF CoOPERATION BETWEEN THE GOVERN- MENT AND THE Live Stock ASSOCIATIONS IN THE REGULATION AND CONTROL OF GRAZING........ 228 Fred P. Johnson. NEcEssity oF Usinc THE Forest RESERVES For GRAZING “PURPOSES ss savseisn ¢ o28e 4 eee RES ee eeN wanes late t 4A 232 . Francis FE. Warren. SHEEP GRAZING IN THE Forest RESERVES, From A Lay- MAN’S STANDPOINT. ........0 0c ceeeeeeceuuees 242 L. H. Pammel. IMPROMPTU ADDRESS.......0. 000 ccc cee cee ete ceneeeeeneues 249 R. H. Campbell. PART V. RAILROADS IN RELATION TO THE FOREST. Wuat Inrormation 1s Most Urcentity NEEDED By RAIL- ROADS REGARDING TIMBER RESOURCES........... 253 Charles F. Manderson. Work oF THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD IN PLANTING TIM- BER FOR CROSS TIES. ....-0. ccc eee eee ces eeeece 260 Joseph T. Richards. Is rt PracticaBLE For RarLRoaps To Horp Forest Lanps L. E. Johnson. x ContTENTS REsuLttS IN THE PRESERVATIVE TREATMENT OF RAILROAD ‘TIMBERS To PROLONG DURABILITY. .........000% 276 Herman von Schrenk. LeTrTer EROM Mr. JAMES J. HILL. ...... 2. cee eee eee eee 290 PART VI. IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC FOREST LANDS TO MINING. THe DEVELOPMENT of Water Power as RELATED To Forest RESERVES........0ccccseseccceeeeeeeces 293 A. L. Fellows. WILL THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE Forest RESERVES ON A CONSERVATIVE Basis RETARD THE DEVELOP- MENT OF MINING?........00.0 cee cee eee ee eeee 302 Seth Bullock. IMPORTANCE OF THE PusLic Forest Lanps to MINING.... 307 T. J. Grier. MINING IN THE ForEst RESERVES...........2 000 0cceeeeee 318 F. A. Fenn. THE VALUE oF ForEstRY to COMMERCIAL INTERESTS...... 332 George H. Maxwell. IMPROMPTU ADDRESS.......-.-0.0ceeeecceceeenc cee veeuces 349 David T. Day. PART VII. NATIONAL AND STATE FOREST POLICY. Work OF THE BUREAU OF FORESTRY.......... 000 ccc ceeeee 355 Overton W. Price. Work OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN MAPPING THE RESERVES Staite PRaiaN Has eral sean ese etnaG ene 364 Charles D. Walcott. Work oF THE GENERAL LAND OFFICE IN THE ADMINISTRA- TION OF THE RESERVES...........0.. cee eee eees 381 W. A. Richards. ContTENTS xi A FeEperat Forkst SERVICE.........200205 iicacesaatdicsaceiwacavetaudacs 391 Gifford Pinchot. PRoGRESS IN ForEst RESERVATION IN PENNSYLVANIA...... 306 J. T. Rothrock.’ Impromptu ADDRESSES: John. Lacy cseccceiuiekia vs cacieadenianaaameacn eels 403 W. Ay Reeders cesasess ev isasiecsaicaedtcaceceaes 409 Edward Everett Hale.............ccceceeeeeees 412 W. S. Harvey... ........ seen rie tcl stu te arses 413 Aubrey Whitess:csessceswanaees asoaaataeersaee 419 Be Ss PEP OWis seus audu.ga dus qpteeneee bloaeachaaeaeass 424 Mrse Ly Be Walllamsinsis se eneiacaieaenamawie als steers 428 Bilibert: “ROthisawss22ircsusa te seanverewesaeseeeies 435 Ge Ae Sch encheiieis sicieiu 25. sesstsavcebco scores ocravereuas Welaws 437 Rutherford P. Hayes............eeceeceecceeees 439 Flihin:. (Ste war tscsadnne vs serene so orecataee 442 GO Sirield ss ccc. his Ses cians aeiale wnisselcpsod emma eee a ae 444 Charles L.. Pack vice. ve satineseckiciee sun ecowee oe 446 RESOLUTION Sis.ciiy ua wana aus Wee Rete a ee aeaEdee eee awe 448 LAST OF IDEWEGATRS. ociccisi eno #.91aiesoss0:0i8 9 0 oisincaie sie'e jas as aialbis 454 ANNOUNCEMENT oF AMERICAN ForEsTRY ASSOCIATION.... 473 PART I. FORESTRY AS A NATIONAL QUESTION. THE FOREST IN THE LIFE OF A NATION BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT |? IS a pleasure to greet all of you here this ‘“ afternoon, but, of course, especially the members of the American Forest Congress. You have made, by your coming, a meeting which is without parallel in the history of forestry. And, Mr. Secretary, I must take this opportunity of saying to you what you so amply deserve, that no man in this country has done so much as you have done in the last eight years to make it possible to take a business view from the standpoint of all the country of just such ques- tions as this. It is not many years since such a meeting as this would have been regarded as chimerical ; the thought of it would have been regarded as absolutely chimerical. In the old pioneer days the American had but one thought about a tree, and that was to cut it down; and the mental attitude of the nation toward the forests was largely conditioned upon the fact that the life work of the earlier generations of our people had been of necessity to hew down the forests, for they had to make clearings on which to live ; and it was not until half a century of our national life had passed that any considerable body of American citizens began to live under conditions where the tree ceased to be something to be cleared off the earth. 4 PROCEEDINGS OF THE It always takes time to get the mind of a people accustomed to any change in conditions, and it took a long time to get the mind of our people, as a whole, accustomed to the fact that they had to alter their attitude toward the forests. For the first time the great business and the forest interests of the nation have joined together, through delegates altogether worthy of the organizations they represent, to consider their individaul and their common interests in the forest. This Congress may well be called a meeting of forest users, for that the users of the forest come together to consider how best to combine use with preservation is the significant fact of the meeting, the fact full of powerful promise for the forests of the future. The producers, the manufacturers, and the great common carriers of the nation had long failed to realize their true and vital relation to the great forests of the United States, and the forests and industries both suffered from that failure. The suffering of the industries in such case comes after the destruction of the forests, but it is just as inevitable as that destruction. If the forest is destroyed it is only a question of a relatively short time before the business interests suffer in consequence. All of you know that there is opportunity in any new country for the development of the type of temporary inhabitant whose idea is to skin the country and go somewhere else. You all know, and especially those of you from the West, the individual whose idea of developing the country is to cut every stick of timber off of it and then leave a barren desert for the homemaker who comes in after him. That man is a curse and not a blessing to the country. The prop of the country must be the business man who intends so to run his AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 5 business that it will be profitable for his children after him. That is the type of business that it is worth while to develop. The time of indifference and misunderstanding has gone by. Your coming is a very great step toward the solution of the forest problem—a problem which cannot be settled until it is settled right. And it cannot be settled right until the forces which bring that settlement about come, not from the Government, not even from the newspapers and from public sentiment in general, but from the active, intelligent, and effective interest of the men to whom the forest is important from the business point of view, because they use it and its product, and whose interest is therefore concrete instead of general and. diffuse. I do not in the least underrate the power of an awakened public opinion ; but in the final test it will be the attitude of the industries of the country which more than anything else will determine whether or not our forests are to be preserved. It is because of their recognition of that prime material fact that so much has been accom- plished, Mr. Wilson, by those interested under you and in the other departments of the Government in the preservation of the forests. We want the active and zealous help of every man farsighted enough to realize the importance from the standpoint of the nation’s welfare in the future of preserving the forests ; but that help by itself will not avail. It will not even be the main factor in bringing about the result toward which we are striving ; the main factor must come from the intelligence of the business interests concerned, so that the manufacturer, the railway man, the miner, the lumberman, the dealer in lumber, shall appreciate that it is of direct interest to them to preserve through use instead of waste the great resources upon which 6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE they depend for the successful development of their business. This is true because by far the greater part of all our forests must pass into the hands of forest users, whether directly or through the Government, which will continue to hold some of them but only as trustee. The forest is for use, and its users will decide its future. It was only a few years ago that the practical lumberman felt that the forest expert was a man who wished to see the forests preserved as bric-a- brac, and the American business man was not prepared to do much from the bric-a-brac standpoint. Now I think we have got a working agreement between the forester and the business man whose business is the use of the forest. We have got them to come together with the understanding that they must work for a common end—work to see the forest preserved for use. The great significance of this Congress comes from the fact that henceforth the movement for the conservative use of the forest is to come mainly from within, not from without; from the men who are actively interested in the use of the forest in one way or another, even more than from those whose interest is philanthropic and general. The difference means, as the difference in such a case always does mean, to a large extent the difference between mere agitation and actual execution, between the hope of accomplish- ment and the thing done. We believe that at last forces have been set in motion which will convert the once distant prospect of the conservation of the forest by wise use into the practical accomplishment of that great end; and of this most hopeful and significant fact the coming together of this Congress is the sufficient proof. I shall not pretend this afternoon to even describe to you the place of the forest in the life of any nation, AMERICAN Forest CoNGRESS 7 and especially of its place in the United States. The great industries of agriculture, transportation, mining, grazing, and, of course, lumbering, are each one of them vitally and immediately dependent upon wood, water, or grass from the forest. The manufacturing industries, whether or not wood enters directly into their finished product, are scarcely, if at all, less dependent upon the forest than those whose connection with it is obvious and direct. Wood is an indispensable part of the material structure upon which civilization rests; and it is to be remembered always that the immense increase of the use of iron and substitutes for wood in many structures, while it has meant a relative decrease in the amount of wood used, has been accom- panied by an absolute increase in the amount of wood used. More wood is used than ever before in our history, Thus, the consumption of wood in shipbuild- ing is far larger than it was before the discovery of the art of. building iron ships, because vastly more ships are built. Larger supplies of building lumber are required, directly or indirectly, for use in the construc- tion of the brick and steel and stone structures of great modern cities than were consumed by the compara- tively few and comparatively small wooden buildings in the earlier stages of these same cities. It is as sure as anything can be that we will see in the future a steadily increasing demand for wood in our manufac- turing industries. There jis one point I want to speak about in addition to the. uses of the forest to which I have already alluded. Those of us who have lived on the great plains, who are acquainted with the conditions in parts of Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas, know that wood forms an immensely portentous ele- ment in helping the farmer on these plains battle 8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE against his worst enemy—wind. ‘The use of forests as windbreaks out on the plains, where the tree does not grow unless men help it, is of enormous impor- tance, and, Mr. Wilson, among the many services performed by the public-spirited statesman who once occupied the position that you now hold, none was greater than what the late Secretary of Agriculture, Mr. Morton, did in teaching, by actual example as well as by precept, the people of the treeless regions the immense advantage of the cultivation of trees. When wood, dead or alive, is demanded in so many ways, and when this demand will undoubt- edly increase, it is a fair question, then, whether the vast demands of the future upon our forests are likely to be met. You are mighty poor Americans if your care for the well-being of this country is limited to hoping that that well-being will last out your own generation. No man, here or elsewhere, is entitled to call himself a decent citizen if he does not try to do his part toward seeing that our national policies are shaped for the advantage of our children and our children’s children. Our country, we have faith to believe, is only at the beginning of its growth. Unless the forests of the United States can be made ready to meet the vast demands which this growth will inevitably bring, commercial disaster, that means disaster to the whole country, is inevitable. The railroads must have ties, and the general opinion is that no efficient substitute for wood for this purpose has been devised. The miner must have timber or he cannot operate his mine, and in very many cases the profit which mining yields is directly proportionate to the cost of timber supply: The farmer, east and west, must have timber for numberless uses on his farm, and he must ‘be protected, by forest cover upon the head- AMERICAN Forest CoNGRESS 9 waters of the streams he uses, against floods in the East and the lack of water for irrigation in the West. The stockman must have fence posts, and very often he must have summer range for his stock in the national forest reserves. In a word, both the pro- duction of the great staples upon which our prosperity depends, and their movement in commerce throughout the United States, are inseparably dependent upon the existence of permanent and suitable supplies from the forest at a reasonable cost. If the present rate of forest destruction is allowed to continue, with nothing to offset it, a timber famine in the future is inevitable. Fire, wasteful and destructive forms of lumbering, and the legitimate use, taken together, are destroying our forest resources far more rapidly than they are being replaced. It is difficult to imagine what such a timber famine would mean to our resources. And the period of recovery from the injuries which a timber famine would entail would be measured by the slow. growth of the trees themselves. Remember, that you can prevent such a timber famine occurring by wise action taken in time, but once the famine occurs there is no possible way of hurrying the growth of the trees necessary to relieve it. You have got to act in time or else the nation would have to submit to prolonged suffering after it had become too late for forethought to avail. Fortunately, the remedy is a simple one, and your presence here to-day is a most encouraging sign that there will be such fore- thought. It is the great merit of the Department of Agriculture in the forest work that its efforts have been directed to enlist the sympathy and codperation of the users of wood, water, and grass, and to show that forestry will and does pay, rather than to exhaust itself in the futile attempt to introduce conservative 10 PROCEEDINGS OF THE methods by any other means. I believe most emphat- ically in sentiment, but I want the sentiment to be put into codperation with the business interests, and that is what is being done. The policy is one of helpfulness throughout, and never of hostility or coercion toward any legitimate interest whatever. In the very nature of things it can make little progress apart from you. Whatever it may be possible for the Government to accomplish, its work must ultimately fail unless your interest and support give it permanence and power, It is only as the producing and commercial interests of the country come to realize that they need to have trees growing up in the forest no less than they need the product of the trees cut down, that we may hope to see the permanent prosperity of both safely secured. This statement is true not only as to forests in private ownership, but as to the national forests as well. Unless the men from the West believe in forest preservation the western forests cannot be preserved. We here at the headquarters of the National Govern- ment recognize that absolutely. We believe, we know, that it is essential for the well-being of the people of the states of the great plains, the states of the Rockies, the states of the Pacific slope, that the forests shall be preserved, and we know also that our belief will count for nothing unless the people of those states themselves wish to preserve the forests. If they do we can help materially; we can direct their efforts, but we cannot save the forests unless they wish them to be saved. I ask, with all the intensity that I am capable, that the men of the West will remember the sharp distinc- tion I have just drawn between the man who skins the land and the man who develops the country. I am going to work with, and only with, the man who develops the country. I am against the AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS II land skinner every time. Our policy is consistent to give to every portion of the public domain its highest possible amount of use, and, of course, that can be given only through the hearty codperation of the west- ern people. I would like to add one word as to the creation of a national forest service which J have recommended repeatedly in messages to Congress, and especially in my last. I wish to see all the forest work of the Government concentrated in the Department of Agriculture. It is folly to scatter such work, as I have said over and over again, and the policy which this administration is trying to carry out through the creation of such a service is that of making the national forests more actively and more permanently useful to the people of the West, and I am heartily glad to know that the western sentiment supports more and more vigorously the policy of setting aside national forests, the creation of a national forest service, and especially the policy of increasing the permanent use- fulness of these forest lands to all who come in contact with them. With what is rapidly getting to be a practically unbroken sentiment in the West behind such a forest policy, with what is rapidly getting to be a practically unbroken support by the great staple interests behind the general policy of the conservative use of the forests, we have a right to feel that we have entered on an era of great and lasting progress. Only entered upon it; much, very much, remains to be done; and as in every other department of human activity our debt of gratitude will be due, not to the amiable but shortsighted optimist who thinks you have made a good beginning and the end may take care of itself; still less to the man who sits at one side and says how poorly the work is being done by those who are doing 12 PROCEEDINGS OF THE it; but to the men who try, each in his own place, practically to forward this great work. That is the type of man who is going to do the work, and it is because I believe that we have enlisted the active, practical sympathy of just that kind of man in this work that I believe the future of this policy to be bright and the permanence of our timber supplies more nearly assured than at any previous time in our history. To the men represented in this Congress this great result is primarily due. In closing I wish to thank you who are here, not merely for what you are doing in this particular move- ment, but for the fact that you are illustrating what I hope I may call the typically American method of meeting questions of great and vital importance to the nation —the method of seeing whether the individuals particularly concerned cannot by getting together and cooperating with the Government do infinitely more for themselves than it would be possible for any gov- ernment under the sun to do for them. I believe in the future of this movement, because I think you have the right combination of qualities—the quality of individual initiative, the quality of individual resource- fulness, combined with the quality that enables you to come together for mutual help, and having so come to work with the Government; and I pledge you in the fullest measure the stpport of the Government in what you are doing. THE GENERAL NEED OF FOREST PRESERVATION BY JAMES WILSON Secretary of Agriculture and President of the American Forest Congress Il MAKE you welcome to the Federal seat of Gov- ernment, to consider the state of our forests, and of our lands that cry aloud for want of trees and the peculiar forest conditions that cannot exist without their presence. Forestry is not a local question. It is as wide as American jurisdiction. It is not a class question; it affects everybody. It is not limited by latitude or longitude, by State lines or thermal lines, by rivers or mountain ranges, by seas or lakes. Steel has taken the place of wood for fencing to a large extent. It has taken the place of wood for ships to some extent, it is being introduced in house-building, and is replacing wood extensively in the making of machinery and for other purposes. Coal and gas are taking the place of wood as fuel, and cement is taking its place for building. The use of wood, notwithstand- ing these substitutes, increases every year and our forests steadily vanish before the axeman. The extension of railroads, the settlement of the public domain, the building of cities, towns and vil- lages, the use of wood in paper-making and the open- ing of mines, call for more wood every year, and the forests respond to the demand. There are but a few large reserves left from which to draw supplies. The extreme east, the extreme west, and the Gulf coast are now sources of commercial supply. The industries 14 PROCEEDINGS OF THE of our country will be carried on at greater expense as wood becomes scarcer and its substitutes become dearer. Agriculture, commerce and mining will great- ly miss the cheap supply of wood to which they have been accustomed. The nation is awakening to the necessity of planting trees and making the most of those that are mature. Our institutions of learning are taking up the study of forestry. State societies are inquiring. The ex- periment stations of the several States and Territories are making research. The Department of Agriculture is training a Bureau of forest experts in woodcraft to serve the nation, the States, companies and indi- viduals along forestry lines. There are hopeful forestry signs: A disposition among lumber companies to hold cut- over lands, protect them from fire, encourage a new growth, and harvest the young forest, requires the es- tablishment of forestry schools in colleges and univer- sities where the science of forestry is being taught in the light of experience. The employment of foresters by large private own- ers, who find that educated supervision is a prime necessity. Reforesting of large areas is being carried on by the Bureau of Forestry and by several States, for the purpose of giving object lessons to our people with regard to methods of planting and varieties of trees. The farmer is inquiring and planting for wind-breaks, fuel, and in many cases he is planting valuable varieties for coming generations. Scientific study is preparing a reliable foundation for practical forestry, with regard to the principles that govern the life of trees in different conditions of soil and climate. Codperation between the Department of Agriculture AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 15 and the States, and with companies and individuals, is progressing rapidly. Our trained foresters are get- ting into touch with the college and experiment station forces of the States, with companies that hold wood- land for present and future use, and with individuals. The Congress is giving liberally to forest research, enabling us to do systematic work with wood in all its uses. The future requires planting in the uplands, at the sources of all our streams, that should never be de- nuded, to make the hills store water against times of drouth and to modify the flooding of the lowlands. We have to tell the people of the lower Mississippi every few years to raise their levees to hold the floods that exceed themselves as the forest ceases to hold waters that in previous years were directed into the hills and held back. Every tree is beautiful, every grove is pleasant, and every forest is grand; the planting and care of trees is exhilarating and a pledge of faith in the future; but these xsthetic features, though elevating, are inci- dental; the people need wood. They have had it in abundance and have been prodigal in its use, as we are too often careless of blessings that seem to have no end. Our history, poetry and romance are inti- mately associated with the woods. Our industries have developed more rapidly because we have had plenty of cheap timber. Millions of acres of bare hillsides, that produce nothing profitably, should be growing trees. We are beginning a meeting which is national in its significance. Never before in this country, nor so far I know in any other country, has a body of men representing such great and varied interests come to- gether to discuss, temperately and foresightedly, the policy and the methods under which the highest per- 16 PROCEEDINGS OF THE manent usefulness of the forest can be maintained. That we, men as varied in our occupations as are the industries and interests we represent, are drawn to- gether by this common cause, may well mark the beginning of a new era in our treatment of the forest. Your presence here is itself the best possible proof that forestry is rapidly taking its appropriate place as an active and indispensable factor in the national economy. ‘The era of forest agitation alone has en- tirely passed. We are talking less and doing more. The forest problem, as President Roosevelt has de- scribed it, is recognized as the most vital internal problem in the United States, and we are at work upon it. # Free discussion here will aid greatly towards the best solution of this problem. Above all, this Con- gress affords us an opportunity to formulate a forest policy broad enough to cover all minor points of differ- ence, but definite and clear cut enough to give force and direction to the great movement behind it. In the very nature of things, these minor points of difference will continue to exist; and this is necessary for the highest effectiveness of our forest work in the long run. But we are facing a problem which can be met squarely only by vigorous and united action. I look for excellent results from the deliberations of this Congress, for more light upon vexed questions, and for the statement of new and useful points of view. But above all, I hope from our meeting here there will come a more complete awakening to the vastness of our common interest in the forest, a wider under- standing of the great problem before us, and a still more active and more earnest spirit of codperation. Because of your individual achievement in your chosen fields this is a great gathering and a most AMERICAN Forest CoNGRESS 17 effective one. It is upon you and others like you that the future of our forests mainly depends. Unless you, who represent the business interests of the coun- try, take hold and help, forestry can be nothing but an exotic, a purely Government enterprise, outside our industrial life, and insignificant in its influence upon the life of the nation. With your help, it will become, and is becoming, one of the greater powers for good. Without forestry, the permanent prosperity of the in- dustries you represent is impossible, because a perma- nent supply of wood and water can come only from the wise use of the forest, and in no other way, and that supply you must have. I am glad to see the irrigation interests so strongly represented here, because forestry and irrigation go hand in hand in the agricultural development of the West. The West must have water, and that in a sure and permanent supply. Unless the forests at the head- waters of the streams used in irrigation are protected, that is impossible, and irrigation will fail. Unless we practice forestry in the mountain forests of the West, the expenditure under the national irrigation law will be fruitless, and the wise policy of the Gov- ernment in the. agricultural development of the arid regions will utterly fail. Without forestry, national irrigation will be merely a national mistake. The re- lation in the arid regions between the area under forest and the area in farms will always be constant. We can maintain the present water supply of the West by the protection of existing forests. In exactly the same way, we can increase this supply by the for- esting of denuded watersheds. The full development of the irrigation policy requires more than the protec- tion of existing forests—it demands their extension also. 18 PROCEEDINGS OF THE In the value of its invested capital and its product, lumbering ranks fourth among our great industries. But in its relation to the forest it stands first. To bring the lumberman and the forester together has been the earnest and constant endeavor of the Depart- ment of Agriculture. Ten years ago, or even five years ago, we did not fully understand each other. To-day, in every great forest region in the United States, lumbermen and foresters are working together in active, hearty, and effective cooperation on the same ground. It is true that the area under conservative forest management is still small, but the leaven is working and the inauguration of néw, more conservative, and better paying methods has fully begun. What the general adoption of conservative lumbering will mean to the individual lumberman, to the lumber industry, and to the country as a whole, is beyond estimate. And it is coming, because it will pay. The vast area of the timber lands of the United States is mainly in your hands. You have it in your power, by putting forestry into effect upon the lands you own and control, to make the lumber industry permanent, and you will lose nothing. by it. If you do not, then the lumber industry will go the way of the buffalo and the placer mines of the Sierra Nevada. But I anticipate no such result. For the fact is that practical forestry is being adopted by American lum- bermen. In its results it will surpass the forestry practiced in any other country. The development of practical forestry for the private owner has been more rapid here than in any other country, and I look for a final achievement better than any that has been reached elsewhere. The regulation of grazing upon the public forest AMERICAN Forest CoNGRESS 19 lands is a forest question, and like all other national forest questions its settlement should always be for the best interests of the people most deeply interested. Forest reserves are essential to the permanent produc- tiveness of that portion of the public range which they enclose. The question of grazing has from the be- ginning been the chief problem in the management of the forest reserves. The principles which control the conservative use of the public range are identical with those which control the conservative use of the public forests. The objects are a constant supply of wood and water on the one hand and of forage on the other. Just as the saw mills must eventually shut down unless forestry is applied to the forest from which the saw logs come, so the horses, the cattle, and the sheep of the West must decrease both in quality and number, unless the range lands of the arid region are wisely used, Over-grazing is just as fatal to the live stock industry as destructive logging is to the lumber in- dustry. The highest returns from the forest can be had only through recognizing it as invested capital, capable, under wise management, of a steady and increasing yield, and the permanent carrying power of the range can be maintained or increased only by the wise regulation of grazing. The relation of railroads to the forest is no less vital than that of the lumberman. The development of systems of transportation upon a secure basis depends directly upon the preservation and wise use of the forest. Without a permanent supply of wood and water, the business of the railroads will decline, be- cause those industries upon whose production that business mainly depends cannot prosper. But the railroads are interested in a still more vital way. As great and increasing consumers of wood for ties, con- 20 PROCEEDINGS OF THE struction timbers, poles, and cars, they are in direct and urgent need of permanent sources of these sup- plies. The problem directly before the railroads is, therefore, the forest problem in all its parts. Much may be done by the preservative treatment of ties and railroad timbers, which not only prolongs their life, but also leads to the profitable use of wood of inferior kinds and a corresponding decrease in the drain upon the forest and the cost of its product. But, important as this is, it merely mitigates the danger instead of removing it. For their own protection the railroads must see to it that the supply of ties and timbers in the forest itself is renewed and not destroyed. The importance of the public forest lands to mining is direct and intimate. Mines cannot be developed without wood any more than arid lands can become productive without water. The public forest lands are, and must continue to be, the chief source of tim- bers used in our western mines. The national forest reserves are thus vital in their relation to mining; and where mining is the chief industry, their resources should be jealously guarded against other and less productive use. Forest reserves impose no hampering restrictions upon the development of mineral wealth, either within their borders or their neighborhood, and they alone can give the western mining industry a permanent supply of wood, and so assure its safety now and its largest development in the future. I am particularly glad that this Congress will in- clude a full discussion of national and State forest policy. The forest movement in several States has already resulted in the adoption of definite State forest policies. In many others, the time is ripe for useful work because of the existence of a strong sentiment for the best use of the forest. The forest problems AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 2i in different States cannot all be solved in exactly the same way. The methods will in each case have to be worked out on the ground where they will be used. But we have before us here the same opportunity in State forest matters as in other phases of the forest problem, for full discussion of methods and results. Above all we must find the most effective means of working together towards the same great ends. THE FOREST POLICY OF FRANCE. BY Mr. J. J. JUSSERAND Ambassador from France I AM very happy to be enabled, by the flattering invitation of the Hon. Secretary of Agriculture, to add French congratulations to the American con- gratulations and American advice which this Congress has just received from the most popular and most eloquent voice in the United States. The subject of your studies is one indeed which appeals most powerfully to man’s mind, not to say man’s heart. The forest is the great friend which supplied the early wants of mankind, giving the first fuel, helping to the rearing of the first real house. And now, after the lapse of thousands of years, the forest continues the great friend, so adaptable it is to our wants. The more we invent, the greater become our new needs, and the more necessary is the forest for us. Railroads are called in French “chemins de fer,” but for all the iron in them, where would we be without the forest? It supplies the dozen million cubic meters of wood spent every year in the world for railways. The forest has one singular and providential advan- tage over most of the earth-produced elements of our industries. When we have exhausted an iron mine, a gold mine, an oil well, a supply of natural gas; when the oil has been carried in immense pipes from Chicago to New York and from thence to our private lamps, it is finished; we can consume the thing; we cannot make it. Not so with the forests. It is in our hands AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 23 to improve or impair them, to kill them or to make them live. As to which of these fates is in store for American forests your presence here supplies a suf- ficient answer. But is there need to do anything, or have we plenty of time to think of it? The country is immense, its resources prodigious. The nation is a young one; should not something be allowed to youth? Certainly, anything, except what might maim and cramp a splen- did future. That something is allowed, especially in the matter of forests, cannot be doubted. One of the first things which struck me, coming over to America, was how much was allowed. Going north, west or south, sights of the same sort met my eyes and my French eyes opened with surprise. Going to Saint Louis last year, I noticed large spaces where big trees had been cut, the stumps remaining as high as a man’s shoulder. So much wood lost, I thought; so much land untillable because of those stumps remaining in place! Coming from Canada on another occasion the train was fol- lowing a succession of what should have been beautiful valleys. But they were valleys of the shadow of death. The view was saddened by the corpses of innumerable trees which had been cut, for what cause I do not know; was it for their bark, or for something else? I could not surmise. But the fact was that they were there, crumbling to pieces, rotten and unavailable, spoiling the landscape, and making the soil useless by their thousands of dead bodies. Going to Louisiana, in another case, my heart bled truly at seeing the blue sky blackened by the smoke of forests in flames. This terrible mode of clearing the ground seems to be still in use; and I noticed places where the fire, being not violent enough, had not cleared the ground, but had 24 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ruined and killed the trees, so that it was havoc pure and simple. All this, of course, are a foreigner’s impressions, and perhaps they may be considered unreasonable. You are young and wealthy; you can afford to spend. You can afford to spend to-day, and to-day is certainly as bright as it can be. But, as you know, squandering habits, when once taken, are most difficult to check, at a moment’s notice, just at the time wanted; and, as your eminent President remarked, the nation should think of to-morrow. In France, we think much about to-morrows, because we have known so many yesterdays. Our case is very different. We have not your boundless resources; we must husband what we possess. Our land is limited, our mines of small importance; our fields have been furrowed by the plough for eighteen centuries more than yours; the accumulated public debts, left by past regimes or caused by present necessities, weigh on our shoulders; and yet with this weight, at this day, we stand, and, if I may believe what I hear reported, our friendship is still worth having, as well worth as it was ever in times past. There is only one explanation: What we do, we try to do it with method; what we do, we do with care. We have no other secret. There is nothing lost in France, nothing thrown away—not a rag, not a bit of bread, not a stick of wood. Many think we are a laughing, singing nation. If we were such, and nothing more, we should have long since disappeared. We are a living example that people may love to have their laugh and their song, and yet keep their forests in good order. Method and gloom do not go necessarily together. That great philosopher, Bacon, who was no particu- AMERICAN Forest CoNGRESS 25 lar friend of the French (he ended badly, you know), paid- us, in one of his essays, this half-hearted com- pliment: “The French are wiser than they seem.” Well, such as it is, I accept his saying; to have wisdom is the thing, and it little imports whether it is apparent or concealed. Roots are not visible, and you know, you foresters, that it is the root that feeds. Our policy in the matter of forests is a time-honored one. Like the rest of the inhabitants of our land, they have their own code of laws, the “Code forestier,” framed and issued in 1827, itself, in its main lines, an adaptation of Colbert’s famous ordinance of 1660, which ordinance, in its turn, reproduced other laws, some dating back from the time of Charles-the-Wise, fourteenth century. We were early struck by the necessity of preserving forests, and more and more so as we acquired a better knowledge of the use and wants of these friends of man. We have a National School of Forestry at Nancy, where the sound principles of forestry are taught. The practical importance of this teaching is testified to by so many foreign students whom we are happy to welcome there, some coming from America —one, an eminent one, whom I would name, if he was not so near me on this platform (Mr. Pinchot). Our forests have not only a code, but an army of their own, an army of six thousand men, foresters, rangers and keepers—a real army, submitted to mili- tary discipline, so much so that in time of war this troop is transferred from the Ministry of Agriculture, where all the forestry services are centered, to the Department of War. Several laws have been passed since the code was promulgated, not at all to relax its rules, but to make them more practical and efficient. In 1860 a law was 26 PROCEEDINGS OF THE enacted making it obligatory for the owner of moun- tains or mountain slopes to reforest them if denuded. The application of this law is one of my earliest souvenirs. In 1860, I was not very, very old, and I went often with my grandfather to see our Govern- ment-ordered plantation. The Government supplied the seed and we had to do all the rest. For years I went to see our trees, and I had difficulty in seeing them, they were so small. Now when I go, the trees can scarcely perceive me, they are so tall. A new law was passed in 1862, giving more liberty to the landowner. He is allowed to refuse to do the work. The Government has then the right to pay him a fair sum for his land and expel him and plant the trees, so important is it considered for the whole com- munity. For the importance of such plantations is more and more apparent. We see destruction and poverty invade the parts where the rules have not been applied; wealth and comfort grow in those where the rules have been followed. Where there is a just pro- portion of forest ground the temperature is more equal, the yielding of water more regular, and, as President Rooseveit has so well shown a moment ago, forests have a most beneficent effect with regard to winds. Observations in the South of France have shown that, since the Esterel has been reforested, the destructions caused by that terrible wind called the mistral have diminished. The seacoasts of France were being gradually invaded by the sand, and the wind carried this death powder further inland, as years passed on. In 1810, we tried forestry, and the forest showed itself, as usual, the friend of man. The sand country has entirely disappeared, as well on the Ocean as on the Channel, and the desolate regions of yore are now wealthy, AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 27 pleasant ones, where people even flock for their recre- ation and their health. The same careful and methodical policy is being introduced in our colonial dominions. There the dif- ficulties are sometimes very great, because the havoc has been more complete. We try, for example, to reinduce trees to give back to Southern Tunis its pristine fertility. Most of it is now a sand desert. What it was in Roman times we know by the ruins and the inscriptions. The capital of the South, Suffetula, as it was called, consists now in scattered ruins in the midst of absolute desert. One of the inscriptions dis- covered contains a description given by an old Roman veteran of what his villa was. He had retired there after his campaigns, and describes the trees, the plots of grass, and the fluent waters which adorned his retreat—now buried under the shroud of the desert sand. The Arab conquest destroyed all the trees there, and killed the forest. The punishment was not long to follow. No forest there. No men. Not long after the conquest, the mischief was already considerable, the land was desolate, and an Arab chronicler, seeing the havoc done, recalled in his book the former times of prosperity, adding: “But in those days, one could walk from Tripoli to Tunis in the shade.” I shall add only one word. There are, as you know full well, two great classes of forests, and no more. There is the wild forest and there is the civilized forest. People who know forests only through books—I mean through bad books, not the books written by members of this assembly—-fancy that the wild forest is the thing. A time there was, too, when people thought that the wild man, the man in the state of nature, was * a nest of virtues, and that, leading a kind of simple 28 PROCEEDINGS OF THE life, he led also, of necessity, a model life. The truth is quite different: Virtue, like all plants of price, needs cultivation; forests need the eye, the mind, and the heart of man. Instead of being full of the most beautiful and useful trees, the wild forest offers, by comparison, a prodigiously small quantity of good trees; many have outlived their period of use, and they prevent the growth of others; many have grown crooked; wicked ones have injured the righteous. Now the question is, which sort of forest is to be favored here? It is a great thing for this country to know what your intentions are, and what you mean to do. In doing it, in fulfilling your duty as good foresters, it so happens that you will, at the same time, second what is uppermost in the mind of every good American—that is, to help, so far as is in you, to the spreading of civilization. THE ATTITUDE OF EDUCATIONAL IN- STITUTIONS TOWARD FORESTRY BY B. LAWTON WIGGINS, LL. D. Vice-Chancellor, University of the South. HE attitude of at least one educational institution toward forestry will be best appreciated through the statement of the following few facts: The University of the South has at Sewanee, Ten- nessee, what is perhaps the largest university campus in the world. It comprises 7,250 acres of land, of which 6,500 acres are wooded. In 1808, Mr. Gifford Pinchot, Forester of the United States Department of Agriculture, inspected the university domain and made with the university one of the agreements which the Bureau of Forestry has for codperating with timber- land owners in the management of their tracts. To be acceptable to the university, the scheme of management had to provide for good net financial returns, for we are in the position of most small owners of timberland —unable to leave much merchantable timber in the woods or to reinvest much of our profit in forest improvements. To comply with the requirements of the Bureau of Forestry, the working plan had to pro- vide for leaving the forest in better condition than before; in other words, the working plan had to cover the judicious selection of the trees to be cut, so as to favor the reproduction and growth of the desirable kinds, the avoidance of damage to small growth and of waste in cutting logs, and protection against fire, while at the same time assuring a profit to the university. 30 PROCEEDINGS OF THE And what has been the result? I recall quite dis- tinctly that when a little while previously a lumberman offered $2,000 for the major portion of our timber, there were those in authority who regarded that sum as a fair valuation. We began operations under the direction of foresters in 1900, and have cut a little over two million board feet of logs, at a net profit of about $7,250. Two years more of cutting—and profit— remain. And the condition of the forest is satisfactory to the Bureau of Forestry, which finds that there are plenty of vigorous small trees over the logged area given a new lease of life owing to increased light and growing space, and that reproduction of the best kind has taken place, even little yellow poplars, white ashes, and white elms being found. This has furnished an object lesson for our: imme- diate neighbors and for representatives of the entire South, who visit our beautiful plateau in large numbers every summer. They can see and hear of results from the practice of conservative logging, and readily under- stand the attitude of the University of the South. It is a zealous missionary, preaching everywhere and at all times the gospel of forestry. I speak to you this afternoon not as a trained pro- fessional forester, but as one whose interest in the proper management of timberland has been quickened and strengthened by the above-mentioned association with foresters. President Roosevelt has told us that the forest problem is in many ways the most vital internal problem in the United States; that “the United States is exhausting its forest supplies far more rapidly than they are being produced; that the situation is grave, and there is only one remedy; that that remedy is the introduction of practical forestry on a large scale, which is, of course, impossible without trained men, AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 31 men trained in the closet and also by actual field work under practical conditions.” The economic peril is coming to be realized everywhere—less so in the South perhaps than in any other section, though even there the far-seeing men are now convinced that something should be done to prevent the diminution of water supplies, the occurrence of disastrous floods, and the almost inevitable and speedy exhaustion of the timber supply; and that for this purpose the trained hands and heads of several thousand men will be required to start and continue the work of improving our woods. The calls for the assistance of the Bureau of Fores- try indicate the demand for the services of trained men, and this constant and increasing need is bound to grow larger and more insistent each time a forester has a chance to create practical examples of his useful and necessary sphere in the welfare of the nation. How are they to be supplied? Europe has long since discovered the value and necessity of “forest schools,” not only for turning out trained specialists in the art of forestry, but of diffusing among the people a general and genuine interest in forestry; for creating a healthful public sentiment, which constitutes the best possible protection for the woods; for leading men to regard forests as their friends and to understand their influence in staying spring torrents and preventing summer droughts, and their economic value in supplying lumber and fuel. Recent federal and state legislation evidences a growing public sentiment in favor of forestry, but we must not fail to realize that all laws which are not supported by a general public sentiment are difficult of operation. Ever since the founding of the American Forestry Association in 1882 the need of providing for educa- 32 PROCEEDINGS OF THE tion in forestry has been stressed more and more from year to year. Yet only six years ago Doctor Fernow spoke of the New York College of Forestry as “this novel institution.” 'To the bounty of the State of New York the first professional college of forestry in the United States owed its existence, and to Cornell Uni- versity belongs the credit of administering it. It began its first course, which covered four years of undergraduate work, in 1898 with five students. When it closed in 1902, on account of the omission from the state appropriation bill of the clause providing funds for its maintenance owing to misguided and selfish opposition, it had forty-four students enrolled. All who completed their courses promptly secured good positions. In fact, the pressure for the services of educated foresters was so great that leaves of absence before graduation were allowed to some graduates, and one senior yielded to the temptation to accept a position before completing his course. The Yale Forest School, opened in 1900, was the first graduate school of forestry organized in this country. ‘To quote Professor Graves’ own language: “The organization had in mind the needs of two classes of men required to carry on the work of for- estry in the United States: First, thoroughly trained experts, who are competent to organize and administer the work in government, state, or private forests, or to pursue the necessary scientific study of our forests; and second, men with a general knowledge of forestry and special skill as woodsmen, qualified to act as rangers, inspectors, foremen, etc. The first class of men will be called upon to assist in the organization of the work of forestry on government, state, or private tracts; to direct legislation; to creat public sentiment in favor of forestry; to pursue the scientific AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 33 study of our trees and forests; to solve the difficult problems of the influence of fire, grazing, and excessive lumbering on forests, as well as the problems connected with the protection of the head waters of rivers; and to carry on and direct the practical management of forests of every character and size. In order to do this work intelligently and successfully a thorough special training in forestry is required, in addition to a general education. The forest school has been made a graduate department, to which only college gradu- ates are admitted without examination, in order to attract educated men to forestry and to produce men of the highest possible training for the work of devel- oping the profession. The fact, however, was not overlooked that there is a class of work for which so thorough a training is required, and the summer school is especially designed to furnish instruction sufficiently comprehensive for this work.” Notwithstanding the high standing required for admission, the registration has increased from a begin- ning of five to sixty-three at present. The students have come from thirty-three of the United States and from the Philippines, Japan, South Africa, Canada, and Sweden. In one respect, says President Hadley, the Yale Forest School is a model to the other depart- ments of the university, in that it is in active touch with the demands of practical life and the opportunities for employment therein. It gives the students of Yale an assurance that side by side with their training in general culture and public spirit, they are adapting themselves to speedy usefulness in the complex organi- zation of modern commercial life. The Biltmore Forest School opened in 1897, and is therefore the oldest in the United States. Although not connected with an established educational institu- 34 PROCEEDINGS OF THE tion, it has the great advantage of being located on Biltmore estate, where Mr. Pinchot introduced scien- tific forest management into the United States in 1891, which good work has been kept going by the able founder and director of the school, Doctor Schenck. The two years of graduate forest work afforded by the University of Michigan began in 1903, and the department has grown in every way. Harvard, Maine, Minnesota, and Nebraska univer- sities, and Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts have departments of forestry. Most of the agricultural colleges offer some instruction in forestry in connection with the courses in botany, horticulture, or the like. In several cases high schools are following the lead of the universities, and more would doubtless do so if the teachers were properly equipped. The Secretary of Agriculture declares that the rapid increase of inter- est in forestry throughout the country is nowhere more noticeable than in educational circles. Such is the attitude of many of our educational institutions toward forestry, and yet only a short time ago I heard it argued that instruction in forestry should be given in isolated, independent schools; that it should constitute no part of a university course. Continental Europe settled that question more than a quarter of a century ago, when, says Mr. B. G. Northrup, “a congress of foresters, which was at Frei- burg and attended by nearly four hundred members, representing all parts of Germany, Switzerland, Aus- tria, and Russia, after a long and spirited discussion by prominent professors from both classes of forest schools, decided by an almost unanimous vote (only sixteen dissenting) in favor of combining instruction in forestry with other departments in the university ; AMERICAN Forest’ CoNGRESS 35 and this leads me to the question, “What should be the attitude of our universities toward forestry?” Is not a university a place of universal search for universal truth? Let whoever is disposed to be impa- tient of the progress that is being made reflect upon the history of recent university development. We must look backward in order to look forward. It was not until late in the last century that science received recognition, and provision was made for its teaching. When graduates of American colleges real- ized that they had failed to get what they needed for their life work and that there was a strong prejudice against the admission of applied sciences on a proper basis, they began to endow coordinate faculties, which continued for a long time as separate faculties, and aré not even now completely assimiliated. It was some time also before pure science, which had been taught in a most elementary way, met with a suitable response —that chairs were established and equipments pur- chased. Who does not recall the crusade of science against philology and the conflict which was waged almost unremittingly for half a century or more between the advocates of classical and scientific study ; the latter claiming that we must reconstruct our aca- demic and university systems after the inspiration of modern ideas, and must substitute those studies which would be more efficient in their disciplinary value and more useful by reason of their closer affinities with the practical tendencies of our modern scientific life; the former, while admitting freely the claims of science, maintaining that the classics were needed more than ever to resist the utilitarian and materialistic tendencies of the age, and that an education cannot be full-orbed and rounded off without the classics. Greek and Latin had been supreme for so many centuries that the physi- 36 PROCEEDINGS OF THE cal and natural sciences were not without a struggle admitted to equal rank. This led to a readjustment of the long-established and closely articulated curriculum, which resulted finally in the adoption of the elective system. And this was the beginning of a recognition granted to what one might call the new learning—modern science, economics, political science, and the like, which proved, when properly taught, in no respect inferior to the subjects of the old curriculum, either in training the mind or preparing for future careers. The limitations of the traditional college education of the past, which was intended for only certain of the learned profes- sions—law, medicine, and particularly theology—soon became apparent. The world was moving on. New constituences and new demands were arising, new problems were being projected on the economic and political horizons, new questions were pressing for answer. Must we not readjust our education forces to meet the needs of that large majority of men pre- paring to engage in banking, railways, insurance, trade and industry, forestry, diplomacy, journalism, and pol- itics? Are not these several callings as important to the life of the nation as the traditional professions? State universities derive their support from the taxa- tion of the whole people, representing in a large meas- ure the fruits of the toil and self-denial—whether voluntary or enforced, whether direct or indirect—of the common people. Are they justified in spending so much money to furnish a certain kind of education for the benefit of a privileged class, where there is this growing demand for the diffusion of higher learning, for its much wider application to the daily life and institutions of the whole people? Do not all professions and callings require, and will AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 37 they not more and more require, thought and discip- linary training as well as technical training? Is it true, as Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Schwab have said, that the most efficient school of business is business? If so, ought it not be otherwise? We are told that President Thwing, who has been looking into the matter of salaries received by graduates of regular colleges and scientific schools, finds that in the long run the college graduates do the best; that scientific methods are supposed to fit men for immediate employ- ment; that graduates of these schools seem to find employment somewhat more readily and at somewhat higher pay than the college graduate; but that the difference is not great even at first, and that after a few years the college graduate has the best of it. Only a few years ago a director of the Pennsylvania system of railroads remarked that in future promotions pref- erence would be given college men—men who had been trained in the principles as well as in the practice of the profession, and who had acquired not only the technique, but also the capacity to think and to com- prehend all the problems which might arise. For, as Mr. Laughlin expressed it, “While a school of mechan- ical engineering is required to fit a man for the practical parts of railroading, there exists in that pro- fession a far more important career for the man who is competent to direct the traffic, classify goods, fix rates, watch the coming financial depression, know the signs of coming prosperity, have insight into as well as experience with the questions of labor and the rela- tions of employers to employees, who can understand the duties as well as the privileges of corporations, and who has the masterly mind to direct and carry out great financial operations involved in the management of securities on a scale hitherto unprecedented.” 38 PROCEEDINGS OF THE Purely technical or engineering training will not then suffice the man who aspires to leadership in railroading or in any like calling; he must be schooled in legal, political, and economic science as well. There is no profession I know of that requires wider knowledge than does forestry. All the things which the best railroad man needs, the successful forester must have, with more besides. Since he deals scien- tifically with the soil and a product of it, he must be much of a geologist, botanist, zoologist, and chemist. The harvesting and manufacture of his crop calls for no mean engineering skill and knowledge. The managing of his property is likely to call for legal knowledge. And so on through many other essentials in his education, which only a real university can give him. Another and most important reason why forestry should be a university course and not a separate school is that the forester is above all a man with practical problems to handle—a man who must come in contact with men. So he needs the democratizing influence of university life, the broadening of his point of view from association with men from everywhere and with different aims in life. Without this breadth of view how could foresters properly handle the many prob- lems discussed before this Congress? It will take men far more catholic than those who academically settle affairs on the basis of knowledge acquired in their back yards to give a square deal to all the interests concerned in the creation of forest reserves and in the granting of timber and grazing permits on them; to devise schemes of fire prevention and extinction for all parts of our overburned country; to insure the growing of the right kind of trees in the right places; to improve our already expert logging and milling AMERICAN Forest CoNncRESS 39 operations—no easy task, for the skill of our loggers and lumbermen is proverbial. If I may as a Southerner use my section of the country as an example of the varied problems confront- ing the forester, I will say that we need him to point out our natural forest areas, and thus save us the time, effort, and substance which we otherwise might waste in clearing them only to find through bitter experience that they would grow nothing else than trees; to indicate the methods of logging which would insure the perpetuation of our standard trees, thé yellow poplar, oaks, hickories, gums, cypress, and pines. One has already shown us a way to gather turpentine which has added millions to the revenues of the pine belt through improving the product, and which has greatly lengthened the period during which trees may be bled. We need him to solve our fire problem and devise means for prevention of and protection from this arch-enemy of forest management. His scientifi- cally established facts regarding tree growth, influ- ences, and value present and future will strengthen our pleas to state legislatures for wisely conceived, far-sighted tax laws. So we repeat this question: Why should not our universities offer courses which will fit men for all, instead of a few, professions? I know there are dan- gers to be apprehended, and that it will require the utmost care to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis of a narrow utilitarianism and the pursuit of art and science as ends in themselves; but of the many advantages, not the least will be the introduction of a vitalizing and democratizing element into the student community which will cause our universities to come forth from their cloistered seclusion into a closer touch with the activities of life. 40 PROCEEDINGS OF THE This is the great problem of the twentieth century. It overshadows all others. Signs are not wanting that we shall witness the full realization of all that President Hadley has so admirably expressed in the following words: “Our brotherhood knows no bounds of occupation. The day when people thought of the learned profes- sions as something set apart from all others, the exclusive property of a privileged few, is past. Opin- ions may differ as to the achievements of democracy ; but none can fail to value that growing democracy of letters which makes of every calling a learned and noble profession, when it is pursued with the clearness of vision which is furnished by science or history and with the disinterested devotion to the public welfare which true learning inspires. We are proud to have with us not only the theologian, the jurist, or the physician ; not merely the historical investigator or the scientific discoverer ; but the men of every name, who, by arms or arts, in letters or in commerce, have con- tributed to bring all callings equally within the scope of university life.” We are about to see the proper university recogni- tion given to the callings upon which so much of our national welfare depends—agriculture, the production and harvesting of field crops; silviculture, the produc- tion and harvesting of forest crops. For the fulfilment of this prophecy, the recent utter- ances of our educational leaders and the munificent gifts of our men of wealth give us hope and encour- agement. It is of the very spirit and life of our democracy, and it must come. Of all the great move- ments of the twentieth century, none will prove more characteristic of democracy and more vital and vivify- ing than the establishment of “an elementary school AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 41 in every home, of a secondary school in every city, township or incorporated village, and of a university in every state’”—a university which will be the insepa- rable adjunct as it is the apex of the whole educational system, where all branches of human learning are taught and all professions and callings—law and medi- cine, theology and teaching, commerce, trade, and industry, agriculture and silviculture—are made equal, a federation of them all being recognized as the only basis of educational solidarity. Then there will be coordination and co6peration instead of competition and rivalry. There will be gathered the representa- tives of every class and station, of every calling and profession, of every political and religious creed, con- stituting a body politic, a vertitable democracy, learning the lesson of citizenship as well as of scholarship; lighting at this central fire the Torch of Universal Truth and passing it from teacher to pupil, onward to the end of time. IMPORTANCE OF THE FORESTS TO AGRICULTURE BY HON. JOHN LAMB Member of Congress from Virginia THE preservation of the forests of America is a subject of vast importance, and one that has been too long neglected. Should the deliberations of this Congress result in calling the attention of our landowners, farmers and mechanics to this impending national danger, beyond the power of figures to compute, its members and delegates will richly deserve the gratitude of future generations. Within the lives of many of us the question of the destruction of the forests did not arise. We have seen the log piles, and witnessed the destruction of millions of feet of the finest timber that ever grew, that the land might be cultivated in corn, cotton and tobacco. Some of us have seen this land turned out to grow up in scrub pines and oaks, while fresh forests were denuded of timber that would have enriched the next generation. The unnecessary destruction of the forests in this way has brought untold loss to the Alantic States, from New England to the Gulf of Mexico. It has been estimated that in the State of New York alone between 1850 and 1860, more than 1,500,000 acres of timber land were cleared for purposes of lumber and agriculture. During that decade more than 50,000,000 acres in the whole country were brought under culti- vation. AMERICAN Forest CoNnGRESS 43 The destruction of the forests during the Civil War has not and cannot be computed. This loss affected the agricultural interests in every State that was the scene of operations. ‘The destruction of large forests, the gradual growth of hundreds of years, caused im- mense loss, Both armies contributed to this. Costly bridges, dwellings, and out-houses were consumed by fire. The relaying of railroads and rebuilding of bridges and dwellings demanded a new supply, and helped to drain the country of timber that was left. Native Virginians in some sections refused to remain where all the timber had been swept away. For the same reason emigrants declined to come to some of the finest parts of the State. The menace to health is greatly augmented by the destruction of the forests, and the farmers of this country have suffered and are still suffering, to an alarming extent from this cause. We have no dry statistics on this point, but the experience of many, and the observation of all who travel, will confirm the statement. The counties of Culpeper and Fauquier, in Virginia, were singularly free from malaria while their forests stood comparatively undisturbed. After the destruc- tion of these, through war and other causes, fevers, before unknown, became prevalent. The elderly physicians of Eastern Virginia might furnish an interesting chapter to history on this point; for it is one that deeply concerns the welfare of the farmers of the whole country, who are suffering in many ways from the wasteful destruction of the for- ests. It is to be hoped that our Department of Agriculture will investigate the health conditions that prevail after the removal of the forests from certain localities, and request the medical fraternity to furnish their valuable experiences along this line. 44 PROCEEDINGS OF THE It is well known that a house surrounded by forest trees is nearly always healthy. A gentleman who occupied such a home for ten or twelve years in one of the eastern counties of Virginia had no sickness of consequence in his family and did not pay a phy- sician fifty dollars during that time. He afterwards purchased a large farm, surrounded by large tracts of cleared land with few trees, and lost in a few years several members of his family, and contributed to the doctors a goodly part of his profits. The ceaseless teproduction of the pine forests of the South Atlantic States is all that has saved the farms and farmers of that section from destruction. For over two hundred years there has been a ceaseless war upon the forest. The early settlers cut it down and burned it up, and their children, with few excep- tions, followed their example. Then came the general consumption for rails and wood; the demand for mechanical industry; the destruction for liquidation of farm debts; the sale of cordwood and sawed lumber to northern markets, till every tree of the original growth in most of the States have been re- moved. The second growth of old field pine is now receiving the same treatment, with smaller profit to the seller and poorer results to the consumer. Could the farmers of these States be persuaded to adopt the intensive system of farming, and have their poorer lands grow up in timber, they would improve their own condition, and hand down to their children valu- able possessions. A gentleman of my acquaintance informed me that where he planted corn when a boy, he had cut from the land, a few years ago, cordwood, which he sold for eight dollars a cord in New York city. Many thoughtful persons have claimed that the wood AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 45 and timber interests of some sections of the South have militated against agriculture in various ways— not to mention the effect on the waterfall—and the injury resulting from overflows and freshets. The disastrous results of the latter, caused by the removal of the forests along the banks of the rivers, cannot be learned from any statistics. The report made to our Committee of Agriculture shows a dis- tressing condition, and one that appeals strongly for Federal and State legislation. Many valuable farms have been impaired in value, and some utterly de- stroyed, by the sand and debris washed down by the overflows. Cities and villages that were not affected years ago are now often flooded with water, eight to fifteen feet deep. All this shows the importance of forests to agriculture, and appeals to the American people to spare the trees, and will in time—not far off—compel the State legislatures, as well as the Federal Government, to take action in the premises. We learn from the experiences of other nations the consequences of the continued destruction of the forests. Palestine, Egypt, Italy and France have seen some of their populous regions turned into a wilder- ness, and their fertile lands into deserts. The danger here is greater than many suppose. Immediate action, both for prevention and restoration, is needed. “Bernard Pallissy,” the famous “Potter of the Tuil- leries,” one of the most profound men ever produced in Europe, plead for the wood in France as follows: Having expressed his indignation at the folly of men in destroying the woods, his interlocutor defends the policy of felling them by citing the examples of divers bishops, cardinals, priors, abbotts, monkeries and chapters, which by cutting their woods have made three profits; the sale of the timber, the rent of the 46 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ground, and the good portion of the grain grown by the peasants upon it. To this argument Pallissy replies: “I cannot enough detest this thing, and I call it not an error but a curse and calamity to all France; for when the forests shall be cut all arts shall cease, and they who practice them shall be driven out to eat grass with Nebuchadnezzar and the beasts of the field. I have divers times thought to set down in writing the arts that shall perish when there shall be no more wood, but when I had written down a great number, I did perceive that there could be no end of my writing, and having diligently considered, I found there was not any which could be followed without wood. * * * And truly I could well allege to thee a thousand reasons, but ’tis so cheap a philosophy that the very chamber wenches, if they do but think, may see that without wood it is not possible to exercise any manner of human art or cunning.” . G. P. Marsh, in his valuable work “Man and Nature,” page 232, says: “There are parts of Asia Minor, of Northern Africa, of Greece, and even of Alpine Europe, where the operations of causes set in action by man has brought the face of earth to a desolation almost as complete as that of the moon; and though, within that brief space of time men call the ‘historical period’ they are known to have been covered with luxuriant woods, verdant pastures and fertile meadows, they are now too far deteriorated to be reclaimable by man; nor can they become again fitted for human use except through great geological changes, or other mysterious influences or agencies of which we have no present knowledge, or over which we have no pros- pective control. “The destructive changes occasioned by the agency of man upon the flanks of the Alps, the Appennines, AMERICAN Forest ConcrRESsS 47 the Pyrennes, and other mountain ranges in central and southern Europe, and the progress of physical deterioration, have become so rapid that, in some localities, a single generation has witnessed the begin- ning and the end of the melancholy revolution. “It is certain that a desolation like that which has overwhelmed many once beautiful and fertile regions of Europe awaits an important part of the territory of the United States, unless prompt measures are taken to check the action of destructive causes already in operation. * * * “The only legal provisions from which anything can be hoped are such as shall make it a matter of private advantage to the landholder to spare the trees upon his ground, and promote the growth of young wood. Something may be done by exempting stand- ing forests from taxation, and by imposing taxes on wood felled for fuel or timber ; something by premiums or honorary distinctions for judicious management of the woods. It would be difficult to induce gov- ernments, general or local, to make the necessary appropriations for such purposes. But there can be no doubt that it would be sound economy in the end.” It is claimed that about two hundred square miles of fertile soil are washed into the rivers annually in the United States, while the loss in crops and other property destroyed by floods will run up into the millions. The most of this loss can be traced to the destruction of the forests along the river banks. Forest-covered areas retain a large percentage of the rainfall, while regions where there are no forests allow a much greater proportion of the rainfall to at once find its way into the streams. It is well known that many of our streams are subject to more disastrous 48 PROCEEDINGS OF THE floods and to lower water stages in dry seasons than was the case before the forests were cut off. Whether forests increase the amount of precipitation or not—on this authorities are not agreed—it is very certain from the observation and experience of those who live in the country that local showers are rsore frequent in the neighborhood of dense forests. We may well contend that the forest helps to water the farm; that it protects from disastrous wind storms, both in winter and summer; prevents the spread of disease, besides furnishing an inexhaustible and self- renewing supply of a material indispensable to the successful exercise of every art of peace, as well as much of the destructive energy of war. So important is this subject that the farmers of this country should hail with delight the work of this Congress, and join hands with you in the earnest effort you are now and will hereafter make to save America from the disaster that has overtaken many countries in Europe. Experience has shown that no legislation can secure the permanence of the forests in private hands. The farmers must be educated along this line. The earnest efforts of the Department of Agriculture must be encouraged, and the means necessary for the sending out of literature must be furnished by the Congress. Such Bulletins as Nos. 67 and 173, by B. E. Fernow, of the Division of Forestry, will accomplish a great deal. The farmers’ institutes in the states must take up the subject and help to create a public sentiment that will change present conditions and lead to tree planting on many other than Arbor days. Every word written, printed or spoken on this sub- ject will bring a blessing and the author will deserve public thanks. As a subject of political economy no AMERICAN Forest CoNGCRESS 49 more important one can be brought to the attention of the citizens of this republic. As a people we have solved some vexing problems. Many others confront us to-day, and will tax our patience, courage, and endurance. Profiting by the experience of other countries, impelled by the imminent dangers of the present time, and encouraged by the prospect of laying up for future generations a supply of material necessary to their comfort and safety, we should devote our energies to the work of restoring the American forests. We know that growth is slow, and restoration tedious. We also know that the perse- verance and energy of the American is equal to any task he assumes. “We have 5,674,875 farmers in this country. Could one-third of these be induced to plant half an acre each in forest trees a year, we would have nearly a million acres a year added to the forests. Ina decade at this rate we would have gone very far in solving a problem of great moment, and feel that we had done much towards offsetting the destruction and prevent- ing the coming desolation. The preservation and restoration of the American forests will greatly add to the comfort and beauty of our homes, and tend to keep the youths of the land in the rural districts, free from the temptations and vices of city life. The migration from country to city is an alarming feature of our social life. There are already indications of the returning tide. The preservation of the forests and the beautifying of country homes will strengthen the patriotic sentiment in the country and intensify reverence for home. A lack of reverence is a growing evil in our land. We observe it everywhere, North, South, East, and West. Students, philosophers, and divines inveigh 50 PROCEEDINGS OF THE against it, offering various remedies for the evil. We suggest the preservation of home and home ties, the cultivation of reverence for Mother Earth, and the preservation of the noble forests. It is the earth alone of all the elements around us that is never found an enemy to man. The great body of waters oppress him with rain and devour him with inundations. ‘The air rushes on in storms and prepares the tempest or lights up the volcano; but the earth, gentle and indulgent, ever subservient to the wants of man, spreads his walk with flowers and his table with plenty; returns with interest every good intrusted to her care; and though she produces the poison, still supplies the antidote; though teased more to supply his luxuries than his necessities, yet even to the last she continues her kind indulgence, and when life is over piously hides his remains in her bosom. DEPENDENCE OF BUSINESS INTERESTS UPON THE FORESTS BY HOWARD ELLIOTT President, Northern Pacific Railway EN may, and do, differ widely in their views as to the extent to which Federal control and supervision should be applied to various forms of business in the United States, but there can be less difference of opinion over the idea that the preserva- tion and reproduction of the forests must, at present, be undertaken by the Federal or State Governments, or both, if the work is to be done at all. Possibly as the subject becomes better understood private capital can undertake this work in some sections where the conditions are favorable, but, at the present time, it is probably true that forest reproduction by individuals will not stand the test of yielding an adequate return on the investment. Recognition of these conditions, and the importance of forest preservation to the reclamation of the arid lands have resulted in the adoption of a public Forest Reserve policy which should receive support, suggestion, and approval. Business enterprises that are dependent upon the for- ests should recognize this condition and plan accord- ingly. I feel that I owe some apology for venturing to say anything to this meeting, composed of men who have spent more time than I have, and who know more than I do on the general subject of forestry, and its relations to the welfare of the country, now and in the 51a PROCEEDINGS OF THE future. A very great personal and business interest: in the subject is my excuse for being here. The Northern Pacific Railway Company, of which I have the honor to be the president, traverses states in which there are forest reserves as follows: Existing Proposed Total State. Acres. Acres, Acres. Minnesota ........0.00- ceeceenee 708,840 708,840 Montana .............4. 7,882,400 4,077,700 11,960,100 Tah siccieced cvs oe ve sents 3,955,220 3,501,520 7,450,740 Washington ............ 7,012,960 2,603,480 9,616,440 Total .......... 18,850,580 10,891,540 29,742,120 a total in which the Northern Pacific Railway Com- pany is interested, of nearly 30,000,000 acres. Included in this acreage are lands granted to the Northern Pacific Railway Company, amounting to: Montanay cities saieciis gue ibeanion eau’ 1,507,130.53 Tah: secqaes e008 cs ween his 2 seis Kees sane 228,208.36 Washington co ioie's ss acdc ease Sia dia w baa ctethe vane ea'e's arovesaulaibie 1,292,562.93 Total ahve sas aeuaes cobs awed cha sae es 3 3,027,901.82 These lands were given by the Government in 1864, to induce the building of the road at a time when even the wisest owners of capital hesitated about undertak- ing an enterprise so large, and so doubtful as to the outcome; and the discouragement and losses to those investing in this railroad, until within the last few years, are a matter of common knowledge. During the last five years, of the freight handled by the Northern Pacific Railway, forest product ship- ments were: AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 51b Tons. For the year ending June 30, 1900..............00005 2,207,526 For the year ending June 30, 1901............00.000e 2,741,708 For the year ending June 30, 1902...............0266 3,694,604 For the year ending June 30, 1903...........-0-eee0s 5,090,387 For the year ending June 30, 1004...........0.-eeees 5,285,077 The prosperity and future growth of North Dakota, of Montana, of Idaho, and of Washington, are depen- dent very largely upon the successful irrigation of lands adjacent to the streams and rivers which find their source of supply in the mountains covered by the existing or proposed forest reserves. And the Northern Pacific, in common with all other railroads, is vitally interested in the subject of ties and timber with which to maintain existing railroads, and to build new ones. So the interest I represent is, and will be, affected very directly by the work of the Government in con- nection with the forests, and to-day an earnest effort is being made to arrive at some fair basis of adjustment between the Government and the Northern Pacific Railway Company so as to obtain the best results in the Forest Reserves controlled by the Government, and preserve to the railroad its acreage for its use in ob- taining ties and timber in the future. Hence, when your gifted Forester, Mr. Gifford Pinchot, and your worthy and energetic President, the Honorable Secretary of Agriculture, asked me to participate in this meeting, I hesitated, but finally accepted with some reluctance, feeling that I could bring little that was new to the discussion. I accepted because it seemed ungracious to decline the cordial invitation, and because I wished to express, so far as possible, by my presence here, the interest that the Northern Pacific Railway Company takes in the whole * 51¢ PROCEEDINGS OF THE subject, and to encourage other railroads to do like- wise; to express, further, the willingness and intention of our company to codperate on reasonable lines with the Federal Government for better forest methods and wood treatment, and to emphasize the importance to many large interests and to railroad business particu- larly, of being less wasteful and prodigal with the wooden materials used in commercial enterprises in the United States. The first great business directly dependent upon the forest is that of the lumberman; there is probably in- vested in logging camps, saw mills, planing mills and other enterprises incident to producing forest products in the rough, over $1,000,000,000. Upon this great business, employing many men, and paying out mil- lions annually in wages, depend in turn very many manufacturing enterprises scattered from one end of the United States to the other; depend the wood pulp and paper business of the country ; depend i in part the successful prosecution of many mining enterprises. The transportation business is dependent upon the success of these commercial enterprises, and they in turn are dependent upon a safe, efficient, prompt, and economical system of transportation. Many of the manufacturing interests will be slack- ened, depressed, and perhaps stopped entirely, unless steps are taken to use to the best advantage the forests we now have, and to arrange to reproduce them for use in the future. The railroads represent in round figures an invest- ment of about $13,000,000,000. They collect and dis- bursement annually about $2,000,000,000, of which $800,000,000 goes directly to labor. They carry in a year 21,000,000,000 passengers one mile; they trans- port in a year 180,000,000,000 tons of freight one mile AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 51d at an average rate of three-fourths of a cent per ton per mile, far lower than the rates in any other country in the world; and they do this with wages far higher than in any other country in the world, and with a general service far better than that given by any other nation. An absolutely essential part of a modern railroad is a safe, strong, and good track, and these figures about railroads are given simply to show the magnitude of that business in investment, in wages, in work done, and in the price paid therefor. Anything that tends to make the maintenance and operation of this great commercial tool more expensive must be offset either by a decrease in wages, by an increase in rates, by a decrease in efficiency, by a decrease in returns to own- ers, or by all combined. To have good track the railroads must have some form of support under the rails, and the present prac- tice is a wooden tie. In this item alone, based upon the actual requirements for a period of years by one large system, it is estimated that the total annual con- sumption of ties, for renewals only, in all of the rail- roads of the United States, is at least 100,000,000, to which add 20,000,000 for additional tracks and yards, and for the construction of new railroads, and the total is the equivalent in board measure of more than 4,000,- 000,000 feet. The significance of these figures is more apparent when it is remembered that about 200 ties is the aver- age yield per acre of forest, varying very greatly in different localities; so that to supply this single item necessitates the denudation annually of over one-half million acres of forest. But the cross tie supply is only one of the forest products required by the rail- roads. There are bridge timbers, fence posts, tele- 5ie PROCEEDINGS OF THE graph poles, building timber of all kinds, car material— all of which together, it is estimated, will equal in board measure the cross tie item, so that it is possible that the railroads of the United States, for all purposes, require, under present practices, the entire product of almost one million acres of the forest annually. So the railroad business, as well as the manufactur- ing business, in a number of directions, is interested in, and very dependent upon, the preservation of the for- ests of this country, and in a wise handling of the subject by the Government, both National and State; in the continuance of the supply of timber for use now and in the future; in the revenue derived from the transportation of forest products; in conserving the water supply of the country so that the maximum amount of arid land may be irrigated and thus support a producing and consuming population. Until the time came when the increase in distance from the point of supply of timber, and the increase in the value of the stumpage, resulted in an increase in the cost of all items of forest products, not much attention was paid by business interests, excepting by a far-seeing few, to the necessity for a conservative policy about the forest supply. Happily, before too late, there has been an awakening, the credit for which is due to the persistent efforts of those present. On the part of the railroads, this awakening has taken the practical form of preservation of cross ties and other timbers so as to lengthen the life of the wood ; to a greater use of metal, stone and cement; to the wiser cutting, handling and seasoning of ties and timber, and to a utilization of different kinds of wood for ties, and what is true with the railroad is also true with other important business interests dependent upon wood for their successful operation. AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 5if This is something in which, as you will all know, this country is somewhat behind Europe, but I am glad to say nearly all the railroads in the last few years are thinking, and thinking very hard, on the subject, because the problem of how to support their rails is- more perplexing each year. If the American railroads are to continue to be the efficient commercial tool that they now are; to continue the very low average rates, and the high scale of wages now in effect, the question of the increased cost of ties and timber is of greater and greater importance to those who pay transportation charges ; to wage-earners, and to railroad owners. The fact that so many large interests are so depen- dent upon the wise handling of the forests remaining in the country, will insure a greater codperation in the future than there has been in the past between those who cut down and use the forests for money-making purposes, and those who are studying the subject in order to safeguard the interests of those who come after us. This codperation is very necessary, and the work of the National Government, the various State Govern- ments, the state agricultural colleges, and the forest schools should, so far as possible, be along the same lines. With such operation I have faith that the ingenuity, perseverance and ability of the American man will solve this important question; and that, in spite of a somewhat lavish use of our forest resources in the past, we shall be able, by a greater care in the future, and by a more extended use of materials, other than . wood, preserve for ourselves and for those that come after us, the forests of the country for business, health, and pleasure. PART IL. IMPORTANCE OF THE PUBLIC FOREST LANDS TO IRRIGATION THE CLOSE RELATION BETWEEN FOR- ESTRY AND IRRIGATION BY GUY ELLIOT MITCHELL _ Secretary, the National Irrigation Association T HE connection between a comprehensive system of forestry and irrigation is a somewhat local though vital one, directly affecting as it does but one- half of the territory of the United States—the arid region. Forestry itself, as affecting water supply, is a broad national question, as well as a local one in each state and drainage basin. The forest movement, there- fore, has a country-wide interest, and whereas Cali- fornia is alarmed over the destruction of its mountain forests and the drying up of its streams which form the life-blood of its communities, Pennsylvania and New England are only to a less extent exercised over the threatened danger to their water sources, necessary for city and town supplies and for power development. In the Western half of the United States the destruc- tion of forests has an intimate, immediate bearing upon the capacity of the States to sustain population, for population results from irrigation; irrigation de- pends upon water supply and the water supply is the melting snows caught and held by the forests clothing the great mountain chains of the Sierras and the Rockies—nature’s great storage reservoirs. Three things are necessary to insure a maximum water supply for irrigation: First, prevent wholesale destruction of timbered watersheds. Cc 54 PROCEEDINGS OF THE Second, substitute therefor a. rational system of timber cutting; and, Third, reforest and afforest lands where the value of the increased water supply will warrant this most advanced and expensive feature of the American forest plan. The first of these should receive immediate consid- eration; the present tremendous waste should be checked and the second part of the plan promptly adopted before it is too late, and the third and most expensive part. becomes the only remedy. So far as the Government timber lands are con- cerned, aggregating many millions of acres outside of the national forest reserves, for every thousand dollars now expended in carrying out the first two provisions of the plan—where all- that is required is to properly direct timber cutting to husband the re- sources of nature, new growth—it is probably a con- servative estimate to make that a million dollars, and much time will be required to attain the same results through forest planting. This latter creative plan while less pressing and vital than the need of conserving what we already have, holds out wonderful eventual possibilities. The statement of Mr. Gifford Pinchot, Forester, United States Department of Agriculture, at the Twelfth Na- tional Irrigation Congress, at E1 Paso, Texas, Novem- ber, 1904, that experiments and the observations of years have proven that enormous areas of the West can, by systematic planting, be made into forests with the effect of restoring streams which have disappeared, possibly thousands of years ago, and of creating en- tirely new streams, holds out startling and almost unrealizable probabilities for future agricultural devel- opment to the forest and water student. AMERICAN Forest CoNncREsS 55 What is needed to-day, immediately, is vastly more -strength to the arm of American forestry for the vigorous prosecution of its well matured plans to save what we now possess. The two greatest problems before this country to-day, well worthy the expenditure by the nation of millions and hundreds of millions of dollars instead of thousands and hundreds of thou- sands, are forestry and irrigation. They will return such expenditure, principal and interest, many times over, and the carrying out of such a policy will demonstrate its wisdom within the present generation. It is a question demanding our immediate consideration, and is not, as many patriotic citizens seem to believe, a remote problem which must be solved in the distant future. I make no careless, ill-considered statement when I assert that these two correlated subjects form the most important question before the United States to-day and through whose wise solution the country has more to gain than from any other resource, within her borders or over seas. For can anything be of greater import than the creation of an empire within our midst which will support a population as great as that of the entire country to-day? The work of the Bureau of Forestry of the Depart- ment of Agriculture has come, within the past two years, to be recognized as a practical, hard-headed business proposition. When the present Forester, Mr. Gifford Pinchot, took up this work he gave lumbermen -credit for shrewdness and ability; he did not claim to know more than they about lumbering; but he did contend that lumbering could be carried on profitably without forest destruction. Later, when criticised for his enthusiasm in the setting apart of forest reserves and his supposed substitution of practical lumbering for the esthetic considerations, he made the notable response ; 56 PROCEEDINGS OF THE “I am not a preserver of trees. I am a cutter-down of trees. It is the essence of forestry to have trees harvested when they are ripe, and followed by successive crops. The human race is not destroyed because the individual dies. Every individual must die, but the race lives on. So every tree must die, but the forest will be extended and multiplied. Yet it by no means follows that the face of the land shall be denuded, so that the character of the watersheds shall be altered, with the resulting injury to streams and to agricultural lands depending upon them.” The United States is quite fortunate in the posses- sion of Gifford Pinchot as Government Forester; the President is fortunate in having a man to carry out this advanced forest policy, a man who is striving solely to conserve one of the greatest of America’s natural resources, thus erecting to himself and his period a monument which will endure for all ages. President Roosevelt has uttered some notable truths as to the relation of forest preservation to agriculture and home building. Speaking at Leland Stanford University last year, he said: “In many parts of California the whole future welfare of the State de- pends upon the way in which you are able to use your water supply; and the preservation of the forests and the preservation of the use of the water are insepara- bly connected. Whatever tends to destroy the water supply of the Sacramento, the San Gabriel, and the other valleys strikes vitally at the welfare of California. The forest cover upon the drainage basins of streams used for irrigation purposes is of prime importance to the interests of the entire State.” And, again: “Now keep in mind that the whole object of forest pro- tection is, as I have said again and again, the making and maintaining of prosperous homes. Every phase AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 57 of the land policy of the United States is, as it by right ought to be, directed to the upbuilding of the home- maker. The one sure test of all public land legislation should be: Does it help to make and keep prosperous homes? If it does, the legislation is good. If it does not, the legislation is bad. “Certain of our land laws, however beneficent their purposes, have been twisted into an improper use, so that there have grown up abuses under them by which they tend to create a class of men who, under one color and another, obtain large tracts of soil for speculative purposes, or to rent out to others.” Two bills are pending in Congress to-day, the pas- sage of which will prove a distinct gain to American forestry. They are little understood, probably, by the American people as a whole, yet it is doubtful if there are any pending before Congress fraught with greater import to the nation. One has passed the House and the other one has passed the Senate. ‘The former bill consolidates the entire government forest work, now badly divided and cut up among different bureaus and divisions, into one bureau under the De- partment of Agriculture.* It has the unanimous sup- port and approval of various officials, the heads of departments and the Executive. It should promptly become a law and the country should then stand by its Bureau of Forestry with such support as is neces- sary to carry out its forestry plans in the broadest and most comprehensive manner, for by doing so it will conserve greatly its own wealth. The other measure has likewise_the unqualified sup- port of the President, all forest officials and heads of departments. It passed the Senate without a dissent- *This bill has since passed Congress and was signed by President Roosevelt, February I, 1905. 58 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ing vote. It provides for the substitution of the timber and stone law with a plan to allow the general govern- ment to retain title to all its timber lands, but to sell the timber thereon under such regulations as will insure the perpetual reforestation of these lands, their timber cropping, and the preservation of their water supplies. Under the present law timber land of great value is disposed of by the Government at $2.50 an acre, is carelessly and wastefully lumbered so that entire water- sheds are denuded of their forest cover, destructive fires are allowed to sweep over them leaving them bare and unable to retain the moisture upon which irrigated communities depend. This law was passed to enable settlers to purchase small tracts of timber land, presumably adjacent to their homsteads. Its provisions have been evaded, as the President inti- mates, to stich an extent that enormous tracts of land have passed into speculative ownership without result- ing good to the communities; in fact, with the utmost danger to their prosperity and well being. This measure should likewise receive the prompt considera- tion of that branch of Congress before which it is pending. There is yet another law which stands as a great menace to forest preservation. It is the forest reserve lieu land law, known as lieu land or scrip law. It allows the owner of land within the forest reserves to exchange that land for other unreserved public land of the reserves. Under it vast areas of almost worth- less land, in many cases previously denuded of its tim- ber -by its owners, have been exchanged for the finest timber lands in the Northwest. This law should be repealed, and where private individuals or corporations own land within the forest reserves which they do not desire, it should be appraised by the Government and AMERICAN Forest CoNncRESS 59 the cash value paid to the owner of one or two dollars an acre, or whatever it may be worth, rather than that he should be allowed to exchange it for equal areas of our finest timber lands worth $20, $50, and possibly $100 an acre. The particularly evil feature of this law is that lieu land right is a floating, purchasable com- modity, and has resulted in the acquirement of immense tracts under single ownership.* With these three measures acted upon by Congress the nation will emerge from the present area of lumber waste and timber land speculation into one of forest conservation, husbandry, and thrift which will result in both timber supplies and water resources for the coming generations, where the present outlook indi- cates timber famine and vast loss to irrigation. *The lieu land law was repealed by Congress in March of this year. FORESTS AND RESERVOIRS BY F. H. NEWELL Chief Engineer, United States Reclamation Service Al are aware that the Government, through the operation of the Reclamation Act of June 17, 1902, is building large irrigation works throughout the West. The fund for that purpose now amounts to about $25,000,000. These works, national in char- acter, are being constructed as rapidly as possible. The protection of these works, their future use, their sta- bility through all time, is largely dependent upon the proper treatment of the forests upon the mountains above the reservoirs. In fact there is hardly a project now under consideration whose future success is not closely joined with the questions of the best use and preservation of the forests and to a less degree of the grazing land immediately adjacent. ‘These works are being built to last for all time, and if they are to be preserved in their best condition, it must be after we have solved this question of the best protection and use of the forest. A number of the delegates present have come from the far West. Many others are deeply interested in Western development, not only from general con- siderations, but because the creation of a home in the West means the creation of a home in the manufac- turing districts of the East, and possibly the creation of a home for a man who is employed by the trans- porting interests. The transportation men, so well represented at this Congress, have an immediate and vital concern in this whole subject of conservation of AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 61 water and, growing out of that, the conservation of the forests. It is desirable to review briefly something of what is going on in the Western States and Territories. ‘Take Arizona, for instance: Here the Reclamation Service is building a storage dam at Roosevelt, costing probably $3,000,000. When built it will enable the creation of homes for many thousands of people, and render pro- ductive a large area now desert. In California is the Yuma project, which it is expected will be begun soon; and also another project in the northern part of the State, around the Klamath lakes. For the protection of an Arizona reservoir a forest reserve must be had above the reservoir in order to prevent, as far as possible, the washing of soil which follows upon the destruction of tree growth. In Colorado is the Gunnison tunnel, the contract for which is being let now—a tunnel 30,000 feet in length, to take water from the Gunnison River into the Uncompahgre Valley, a broad, fertile, but arid plain. The head waters of that river must be pro- tected in part by the forests as well as by reservoirs. In Idaho, the same is true; there on the Snake River a dam is being built across the stream. Its utility for all time depends largely upon the good treatment ac- corded to the head waters of that stream. This matter of the development of the West is not a State question, but is interstate. We must build reservoirs in Wyo- ming ; we must conserve forests in Wyoming to benefit the arid plains of Idaho. For Western Kansas, Mr. Reeder has already spoken briefly of the great interest in irrigation, and although having no forests, yet the rivers that come into Kansas, as the Arkansas, depend partly for their continuity of flow on proper treatment of the woodlands on the mountains in the central part of Colorado. 62 PROCEEDINGS OF THE In Montana are similar conditions. The Yellow- stone River, rising in Wyoming, derives a large water supply from wooded areas which must be protected in order that the flow of that stream may be properly safeguarded. In Nebraska, the conditions are similar to those in Western Kansas. The North and South Platte Rivers coming into that State, are dependent for their waters, in part at least, upon the flow from the high mountains of Central Colorado and Southern Wyoming. In Nevada is under construction one of the largest irrigation works in the world, taking water from Truckee River over into the Carson. The in- tegrity of that great system, which will cost at least $3,000,000 and possibly $5,000,000 when it is com- pleted, will depend largely on the conservation of the forest growth in the State of California; there again is the same question of protection of forests in one State to secure the prosperity of the homes in another. In New Mexico is being built on Hondo River, a tribu- tary of Pecos River, a reservoir which receives its waters from forest reserves in central New Mexico. There is in contemplation a great work on the Rio Grande, interstate and international in character; that river in turn must be reservoired and every drop of water held. Here again comes the question, how are the head waters of that river in Colorado to be best protected for the waters which are to be used in Colo- rado, New Mexico, Texas, and Old Mexico? North Dakota is far out on the plains and there are few forests in the State. The great river of the State is the Missouri, rising in Montana. This stream de- pends largely for its flow on the waters from forests at its head. South Dakota has a mountain region of its own and a forest reserve in the. Black Hills. ‘’Coming from the Black Hills are streams, not very AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 63 large but of very great importance in the development of that State. On the Belle Fourche River there is being planned a large irrigation system irrigating vast tracts of land north of the Black Hills, lands which will form homes for thousands of families. Again we have the same old story that we must go back to the forest reserves to see that the head waters are pro- tected. In Oregon we know of the wonderful extent of the forest reserves and of the value of the timber, but even in that State we are asking for better and larger attention to the forest reserves, especially in the Blue Mountain region and particularly on the head waters of the Malheur, Umatilla, and other streams where development to a high degree will be possible. Okla- homa, out on the plains, has, it is true, but little forested area, but even there, are questions of water storageand of the best protection of a little reserve in the Wichita Mountains. In Utah the same is true. There we are studying Utah Lake and the best use of waters which flow through it and out into the Jordan; also the best use of Bear Lake. Here we come back again to the question, What is Mr. Pinchot going to do with the forest reserves? Mr. Pinchot and the engineers of the Reclamation Service are working hand in hand on all the large projects which look to home-making and upbuilding of the country. In Washington’ the same condition exists. The Palouse project, in that State, is for storage of water at the head of the Palouse River and for taking it out to reclaim a sandy desert above Pasco. This will be made one of the most productive sections in the United States. Last, but not least, we come to Wyoming, the central, the pivotal State of the arid region; a State of great elevation. There we must have forest reserves to 64 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ~*~ protect the head waters of the Missouri and Yellow- stone, the head waters of the Platte and all of the innu- merable streams which flow, not only to the East, but also into the Snake and into the Green Rivers to the South. In each of these States is a great irrigation project under construction or under consideration. In Wyo- ming is a large reservoir on the North Platte River— the Pathfinder. The contract for the outlet tunnel will be let in a few days. And in the northern part of Wyo- ming is a project on the Shoshone River with the object of reclaiming vast tracts of arid land. I have cited these cases to illustrate the fact that forest protection has an important practical and defi- nite value, not only to the people of the West, but to the people of the whole country in the upbuilding and making of homes and the creation of a large population which will support itself from the soil. And which will be drawing upon the East for its manufactures and drawing upon all the transportation interests to carry these manufactures backward and forward. Those of you who are interested in the details of this great work of reclamation are cordially invited to go into the details with the engineers of the Reclamation Service who represent the different States and who are now holding a conference to consider some of the larger problems of construction and of management. These works are not built as are those constructed under such appropriations as that provided for in the River and Harbor Bill. They must be built, on the contrary, with the idea of repaying to the government the cost of construction. This involves a financial problem—that of getting back into the reclamation fund the amount which each project has cost. If it has cost $3,000,000 dollars and will reclaim 100,000 AMERICAN Forest CoNnGRESS 65 acres of land, then each acre of land must be assessed thirty dollars, and that thirty dollars must be paid back in ten annual installments of three dollars each. Mean- while the fund is increasing, but every dollar of it must be guarded and the engineers in charge of the work must be business men and financial men as well, and see that the expenditures they make are such that the money will get back without undue hardship to the people who will obtain that land and cultivate it. These great works belong to the National Govern- ment, but when the distribution system is paid for in the ten annual installments, it will be turned over to the people who own the land and cultivate it and will be operated by them very much as a school district is operated, or any other public corporation or munici- pality. During the time of construction and operation of these works up to the period when they are paid for, the engineers who have built them will see that they are operated properly and will gradually pass the control over to the communities until ultimately the community will assume full control. By that time the future owners will be educated to a trtte appreciation of the great works and to a realization of what it means to them to conserve the forests of the head waters. The organization which is carrying on that work known as the Reclamation Service, has been created under the Geological Survey in order to take advantage of the good precedents and business-like ability of that organization. All of us appreciate the enormous bene- fit it is to have, the protection of the older organization which has been in existence a quarter of a century and which has been conducted without favoritism and with- out reference to politics. Building up on that foundation and having the pro- tection of good precedents and good methods, we are 66 PROCEEDINGS OF THE endeavoring to develop a strong organization. We ask you who are interested in forestry and in all its prac- tical developments and ramifications, to stand with us and give us your assistance to keep and protect this young organization along the lines of good, hard busi- ness sense. Not only for the sake of the development of the country, not only for the sake of the reclamation of the West, but for the good example and encourage- ment it affords to other organizations of the Govern- ment, such as the Forest Service, to pursue the same lines in carrying on the work on a thoroughly sound financial basis, of getting back what the service costs and not making it a burden upon the country. It is of the highest importance to demonstrate to the public and to Congress, the fact that public business can be transacted on business lines. There are many good men who scoff at the idea that the public service can be conducted on a sound basis of that kind, but I believe it is possible for the Forestry and for the Reclamation Services to be carried on as a business proposition and pay for themselves and not call upon the Federal Treasury for a cent. And to upbuild and utilize all the resources, if you business men, who are citizens who are interested in good government, will stand with us and insist that these sound principles be carried out. RELATION OF FOREST COVER TO STREAM FLOW BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT Supervising Engineer, United States Reclamation Service THE relation of rainfall to run-off is very uncertain, depending upon the nature of the storms, whether gentle showers or violent rains; the steepness of the drainage basin and its covering, and whether the pre- cipitation is snow or rain. It has been found that in the districts where the forest cover is small the output of the basin occurs in violent floods of short duration. Because these floods are violent, and of large volume, and owing to the fact that the soil of the drainage basins is not hold together by a network of roots, ex- tensive erosions occur in these barren basins and the stream carries much silt in suspension. Where the basin is covered by forest, the mat of twigs and leaves which covers the ground is an absorbent sponge, retaining in itself large quantities of water and pre- venting evaporation from the underlying soil. This permits of a holding back of the floods and the gradual draining off of the water, thus largely accomplishing the purpose of fegulating reservoirs. A striking example of the output of a barren, tree- less, drainage basin is shown in the case of Queen Creek, Arizona, for the year 1896. This stream dis- charges only in violent freshets, recurring usually as great flood-waves, subsiding almost as rapidly as they arise. By making from two to three current-meter measurements of each of these freshets, and keeping 68 PROCEEDINGS OF THE an hourly record of the gauge-height, the discharge was approximated. The floods are usually not to ex- ceed twelve hours in duration. During a larger por- tion of the year the channel is nearly dry. Queen Creek rises in the mountains to the southeast of Phoenix, and flows in a generally southwesterly direc- tion, losing itself in the desert north of the Gila River Reservation. The area of the drainage basin is 143 square miles, of which 61 per cent. is above an elevation of 3,000 feet, and 39 per cent below that elevation. The annual discharge is approximately 10,000 acre feet. The basin is almost entirely bare, there being a few: pinion trees and very little brush or grass. The following table of discharge for the year 1896 for Queen Creek is taken from the Eighteenth Annual Report of the Geological Survey, Part IV, Hydrog- raphy. It represents a typical year’s output: Estimatep Montuiy DiscHarck oF QUEEN CREEK at Wuit- Low’s, ARIZONA. DraINAcE AREA, 143 SQUARE MILES. Discharge in Second feet. Month, 1896. Mas. Min. Mean. Jama ry ogc he didn eters Sisto 2 2.0 2.0 February. .............. 2 2.0 2.0 March................. 2 2.0 2.0 Aptils cies. sey ancaxeces 2 1.0 1.5 May iededosisde vn sxee cae I I.o 1.0 JUNG nas s eee seavdedeees I 1.0 1.0 July scseiee ses delaucvats ecco 9,000 0.0 121.6 AUBUSticany sin ci a meas 1,433 0.6 13.1 September............. 3,428 0.5 17.1 October. ...........000- 1,188 0.5 13.3 November.............. 80 0.6 1.3 “ December.............. 207 0.6 2.0 9,000 .0 15. AMERICAN Forest CoNnGRESS 69 In contrast with the Gila River and Queen Creek in Arizona, is the discharge of Cedar Creek Washington, for the year 1897. The point of measurement of this stream is at Clifford’s Bridge, in Section 19, Township 22 North, Range 7 East, Willamette Meridian. The drainage area is estimated to be 143 square miles, and it, therefore, is the same as the area of the basin of Queen Creek. The basin of Cedar Creek lies on the western slope of the Cascade Mountains. It is heavily timbered and, in addition, the ground is covered with a very heavy growth of ferns and moss. The precipi- tation for the year 1897 was about 93 inches in the lower portion of the basin, and is estimated to have been as great as 150 inches on the mountain summits. The rainfall of the Queen Creek basin is estimated to be about 15 inches. The maximum flood discharge in 1896 on Queen Creek was 9,000 cubic feet per second, and the maximum flood discharge on Cedar Creek in 1897 was 3,601 cubic feet per second. The mean discharge for Queen Creek was 15 cubic feet per second, and for Cedar Creek 1,089 cubic feet per second. While Queen Creek is frequently dry, the minimum discharge of Cedar Creek during the period in question was never less than 27 per cent of the mean for the year. These two streams represent extreme types. The radical difference in their char- acter is believed to be largely due to the difference in forest cover. The discharge of Cedar Creek for the year 1897 is believed to be fairly representative. The following table of discharge is taken from the Nine- teenth Annual Report of the Geological Survey, Part IV, Hydrography. It will be noted that the vertical scale showing the discharge is twice as large on the Cedar Creek diagram as on that of Queen Creek. If they were on the same scale the contrast would be greater: 70 PROCEEDINGS OF THE Estimatep Montuiy DiscHarcE of CEDAR River NEAR SEAT- TLE, WASHINGTON. DraiNace AREA, 143 SQUARE MILEs. Discharge in Second feet. Month, 1897. Maz. Min. Mean. JaNUaLYois wt anauia ens 2,812 815 1,430 February........:.... 2,415 823 1,303 March esos arose 1,366 723 gor April. ...........2.255 2752 790 1,599 Mayie cs cesisinrakeaaans 2,143 939 1,562 JUNCs aoe xeinekinscesa vs 1,410 780 1,060 Jil Ysera eae ates sce Yad 2,284 572 1,135 August...........000. 561 342 427 September............ 418 311 350 October.......c0.0005 433 2094 339 November............ 3,155 323 1,318 December............ 3,601 674 1,639 Potal siecue vida deoiet 3,601 204 1,089 The amount of solid matter carried by a stream is a very serious problem in connection with the construction of storage reservoirs thereon. The most astonishing stories are told of volumes of sediment carried by the rivers of southern Arizona from their barren drainage basins. It is said that when these floods first appear, discharged off of ranges that have been travelled by the large herds of cattle in quest of grass, the soil which has been exposed to the direct action of the sun, being exceedingly light and dry, is washed off in quantities that are enormous. In order to determine the amount of silt in the Gila River at The Buttes, which stream has a similar basin and regimen to that of Queen Creek, the Geological Survey has made observations by taking samples of the water daily, and permitting the mud to settle in graduated tubes. The amount of mud is then determined by AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 71 reading its height upon the graduations. The mud which is deposited has then been treated in the case of numerous samples to a temperature of 212 degrees Fah., and the final amount of solid matter determined by weight. Observations were continued from July 29, 1895, to December 31, of the same year. Begin- ning on January 1, 1899, and continuing until July 31, 1899, similar observations were made at the same station, the amount of mud and solid matter being determined as previously. During the first period the volume of water discharged at The Buttes was 360,523 acre feet, and it was found that this contained 37,984 acre feet of silt by volume wet. This reduced to 7,704 acre feet of solids. The average amount of light sedi- ment during this first period was 10% per cent by volume wet, and the amount of solids a little over 2 per cent. The total amount of water discharged during the second period in 1899 was 118,981 acre feet, which contained 1.6 per cent of solids, or 8 per cent of mud by volume wet. Frequent observations were made, showing 20 per cent of silt by volume wet during the high stages of the stream, and in one instance 27 per cent was observed. ‘The average amount of silt for the twelve months’ observation was 10 per cent by volume wet, and the amount of solids 2.per cent. No other stream in the United States is known to carry such a high per cent of sediment. This is in striking contrast with the clear streams of our northern forested basins. The water supply used for domestic purposes from Cedar Creek, Washington, does not require filtering or settlement. The serious nature of this silt problem can readily be appreciated by those who have studied the storage of water for irrigation. It is probably the gravest of all the engineering problems related thereto. Forestry 72 PROCEEDINGS OF THE should assist greatly in removing difficulties of this nature. Mr. Marsten Manston made certain stream measure- ments on the Yuba River, California, for the Geological Survey. In an article, entitled “Features and Water Rights of Yuba River, California,” Bulletin No. roo, United States Department of Agriculture, in discussing the stream flow from certain portions of this basin, he makes the following interesting comparison between a forested and denuded basin. Both of these catch- ment areas are situated on the westerrr slope of the Sierra Nevada, adjoin each other, and have exposures of marked similarity. “On the south fork of the north fork we have a watershed area of 139 square miles, which was gaged on September 19, 1900, after three successive seasons of deficient rainfall, and gave a minimum run-off of 113 cubic feet per second or 0.8 cubic foot per second per square mile. This area is well covered with timber and brush, and in one hundred and twenty days gives a minimum run-off of 1,441,152,000 cubic feet. The drainage basin of the north fork is more heavily timbered than the basin of the other forks, and conse- quently has a deeper soil, and although only one-tenth the total drainage area, it furnishes 75 per cent of the low-water flow of the entire drainage basin above Parks Bar. “On the south fork, above Lake Spaulding, there is a watershed of 120 square miles, which has heretofore been described as comparatively bare of timber, and the timbered areas which once existed have been cut off. The run-off of this area is practically nothing for one hundred and twenty days each year, due to this absence of forests and brush. If this area were afforested and gave a minimum run-off of 0.8 cubic AMERICAN Forest ConcrREss 73 foot per second per square mile, the discharge would be roo cubic feet per second, or equivalent to 1,036,- 800,000 cubic feet effective storage capacity, a dis- charge more than equivalent to one-half the storage capacity of all the reservoirs above Lake Spaulding dam. These aggregate 1,375,000,000 cubic feet, and the low-water discharge of 100 cubic feet per second for one hundred and twenty days is equivalent to a storage capacity of 1,036,000,000 cubic feet. As the basis of the above estimate is the extreme low-water discharge, it is safe to assume that by afforesting the watershed, this costly and extensive system of reser- voirs might be safely drawn upon for double their present capacity. When this reasoning is applied to the entire 1,357 square miles, instead of to small fractions thereof, the force of the argument becomes more apparent. “Tt would appear from the foregoing that the solu- tion of the problem of storage of flood waters is not in the retention of a small percentage of the storm waters behind dams, but in applying storage over the entire watershed by the systematic protection and extension of forest and brush-covered areas.” Professor James W. Toumey, a collaborator of the Bureau of Forestry, has selected certain small and adjoining drainage basins in the San Bernardino Mountains in a portion of the catchment area proposed to be utilized by the Arrowhead Reservoir Company. Throughout this area this corporation for a term of years has been making exhaustive hydrographic studies of the available water supply. A large number of rain gauges have been established and stream measurements are carefully made over weirs by skilled engineers. Automatic clock registering devices have been installed to give a continuous record of the flow at these various 74 PROCEEDINGS OF THE stream gauging stations. It is proposed to divert the water flowing from a number of these small mountain basins which are situated on the northerly slope of the San Bernardino Range by means of gravity canals and tunnels to the southern side of the range and into the San Bernardino Valley. This Arrowhead Reservoir Company has placed its hydrographic data at the disposal of the Bureau of Forestry, which organiza- tion made a forest study in connection therewith. The data that is presented by Professor Toumey is perhaps the most precise and definite information on the sub- ject of related stream flow to forest cover that we have so far been favored with in the West. His conclusions, while they were to be expected, are grati- fying in their definiteness. We can do no better than to quote from Professor Toumey in extenso: “Because rainfall is most abundant where forests grow, many believe that forests exert an important influence on the amount of precipitation. A more reasonable inference, however, is that rainfall is the great factor in controlling the distribution and density of forests. “Precipitation occurs whenever the air is suddenly cooled below the dew-point. The most effective cause of this is the expansion of air on ascending, This upward movement is caused very largely by cyclonic storms. Whether forests have any appreciable effect in cooling the air to below the dew-point is uncertain. From the known effect of forests on the temperature and relative humidity of the air, it is reasonable to infer that they may have some effect, at least to a small degree, and consequently that they have some influence in increasing precipitation. The present evi- dence, however, derived from many series of observa- tions conducted in Europe and elsewhere, is so con- AMERICAN Forest ConcrREsS 75 flicting that a definite answer to this question, having the stamp of scientific accuracy, is not possible. “In a careful study of the behavior of the stream flow on several small catchment areas in the San Ber- nardino Mountains, it has been found that the effect of the forest in decreasing surface flow on small catchment basins is enormous, as shown in the follow- ing tables, where three well timbered areas are com- pared with a non-timbered one: PRECIPITATION AND RuN-oFF DurING DECEMBER, 1899. Areaof Condition Pre- Run-off Run-off in catchment as to cipita- per square percentage of basin. cover. tion. mile. precipitation. Sq. miles, Inches. Acre feet. Per cent. 0.70 Forested. 19+ 36— 3 1.05 Forested. 1gt 73+ 6 1.47 Forested. Igt 70— 6 53 Non-forested. I3- 312+ 40 “This is the stream discharge during a month of unusually heavy precipitation. “At the beginning of the rainy season, in early December, the soil on all four of these basins was very dry as a result of the long dry season. The accumulation of litter, duff, humus, and soil on the forest-covered catchment areas absorbed 95 per cent. of the unusually large precipitation. On the non- forested area only 60 per cent. of the precipitation was absorbed, although the rainfall was much less. 76 PROCEEDINGS OF THE RAINFALL AND RuNn-orf DurInG JANUARY, FEBRUARY, AND Marcu, 1900. Areaof Condition Pre- Run-off Run-off in catchment as to cipita- per square percentage of basin. cover. tion. mile. precipitation. Sq. miles, Inches. Acre feet. Percent. 0.70 Forested. 24 452— 35 1.05 Forested. 24 428— 33 1.47 Forested. 24 557— 43 53 Non-forested. 16 828-— 95 “The most striking feature of this table as compared with the previous one is the uniformly large run-off as compared with the rainfall, This clearly shows the enormous amount of water taken up by a dry soil, either forested or non-forested, as compared with one already nearly filled to saturation. During the three months here noted, on the forested basins about three-eighths of the rainfall appeared in the run-off. Rapipity oF DECREASE IN RuUN-oFF AFTER THE CLOSE OF THE Rainy SEASON. Areaof Condition Pre- = April May June catchment as to cipita- run-off run-off run-off basin. cover. tion. per sq.m. persq.m. per sq. m. Sq. miles. Inches. Acrefeet. Acre feet. Acre feet. 0.70 Forested. 1.6 153- 66— 25— 1.05 Forested. 1.6 146— 70— 30— 1.47 Forested. 1.6 166— 74— 30— .53 Non-forested. I 56— 2— o “The above table clearly shows the importance of forests in sustaining the flow of mountain streams. The three forested catchment areas, which, during December, experienced a run-off of but 5 per cent. of the heavy precipitation for that month and which AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 77 during January, February, and March of the following year had a run-off of approximately 37 per cent. of the total precipitation, experienced a well-sustained stream flow three months after the close of the rainy season. The non-forested catchment area, which, during December, experienced a run-off of 40 per cent. of the rainfall, and which during the three fol- lowing months had a run-off of 95 per cent. of the precipitation, experienced a run-off in April (per square mile) of less than one-third of that from the forested catchment areas, and in June the flow from the non-forested area had ceased altogether. ANNUAL RAINFALL AND RUN-OFF ON ForESTED AND Non- FORESTED CATCHMENT AREAS IN THE SAN BER- NARDINO MountTaINs, CALIFORNIA. Areaof Condition Pre- Run-off Run-off in catchment as to cipita- per square percentage of basin. cover. tion. mile. precipitation. Sq. miles. Inches. Acre feet. Per cent. 0.70 Forested. 46 731 28 1.05 Forested. 46 756 30 1.47 Forested. 46 904 30 .53 Non-forested. 33 I,192 69 “In conclusion, it may be said that although the forest may have, on the whole, but little appreciable effect in increasing the rainfall and the annual run-off, its economic importance in regulating the flow of streams is beyond computation. The great indirect value of the forest is the effect which it has in pre- venting wind and water erosion, thus allowing the soil on hills and mountains to remain where it is formed, and in other ‘ways providing an adequate absorbing medium at the sources of the water courses of the 78 PROCEEDINGS OF THE country. It is the amount of water that passes into the soil, not the amount of rainfall, that makes a region garden or desert.” The drainage basin of the Sacramento River in- cludes the greater part of northern California. It has been occupied by Anglo-Saxon settlers for the last fifty years. During the first portion of the American occupation of this State, sea-going vessels are reported to have proceeded up stream as far as the present city of Sacramento. The tidal range of the river was observed also at this point. Placer mining was the first industry. This work consisted in washing the oriferous gravels found along the western foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. The resulting debris was dis- charged into the streams and has to a very material extent filled their channels, so that to-day the head of tidal water is many miles below Sacramento, near the upper end of Grand Island, and only flat bottom river steamboats are able to ascend the Sacramento River as far as the city of that name. This stream condition has been still further aggravated by the destruction of extensive areas of forest, both by fire, lumbering, and sheep grazing. Yet the lumber in- dustry is but in its infancy in this section, and plans are being perfected to cut down great areas of virgin forest. Extensive forest reserves have been provis- ionally set aside, covering most of the remaining tim- bered portions of the basin. These contemplated re- serves have been greeted with a storm of public protest from central and northern California that has been hard to allay. In February, 1904, northern Califor- nia was visited by heavy rain storms. While the precipitation was great, according to the statement of Professor McAdie, of the Weather Bureau, it was by no means the heaviest rain which has occurred in this AMERICAN Forest CoNnGRESS 79 section, and it was one that could reasonably be ex- pected to be exceeded in violence in the future. How- ever, with the combined conditions of reduced forest cover and filled river channels, a flood condition was produced in the Sacramento Valley last February which has no known equal in the previous history of the State. Fully 800,000 acres of valley lands were submerged and the damages are estimated to have reached into the millions. All this is in spite of the fact that over twenty million ($20,000,000) dollars had been expended in the construction of levees to prevent these overflow conditions. A great State con- vention was called in San Francisco to consider the disaster that threatened the commonwealth. Eminent engineers have been brought to California from the lower Mississippi basin and elsewhere in the East to study this great overflow problem. Organizations have been perfected to urge, if not demand, both from the State and from the nation, relief from impending disaster. It is contemplated that a comprehensive levee system must be constructed the entire length of the valley at enormous expense. What a beautiful assemblage of contradictions this situation presents to the forester! A great intelligent State with popular sentiment, at least in the injured section, set against the creation of forest reserves in this basin! The assemblage of conventions and engi- neers to devise plans to prevent flood overflow at a contemplated expenditure of millions. Doubtless with the channels of the stream in the condition that they now present a levee system will be required, but the greatest and most lasting preventative for these con- ditions would be the adequate protection of the forest reserves. It may be stated that while there is no definite scien- 80 _ PROCEEDINGS OF THE tific information that forests increase rainfall, yet we have certain striking instances presented where the rainfall is greater on adjacent forested areas than on those that are denuded. At least in the arid regions it may be stated that the total annual output from a de- forested drainage basin is greater than from a tim- bered area, but that the regimen of the stream is dis- tinctly to the disadvantage of all who are interested in the use of the watered resources of the country, whether he be navigator, irrigator, or water-power investor. From the denuded area the floods are greater and the drought is more intense. To remedy this condition, one naturally turns to the storage reser- voir for relief, yet even in this extremity one is con- fronted with adverse conditions. The violent flood from the bare basin rushing through the mountains carries with it eroded sediment, which it deposits in the first pool of still water that it encounters. The result is the reduction of the storage capacity of the reservoirs along its course. Forests are the natural and greatest storage reservoirs and regulators of water supply. On few streams do we find reservoir capaci- ties even approximating the total annual output of the drainage basins above them. Accepting the facts as outlined above, the great importance of preserving the forests, particularly in the semi-arid regions of our country, is most manifest. In southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico particularly, we are so closely bordering on a condition of desert that when the forest is once destroyed the difficulty of reproduc- ing it renders the task well nigh hopeless. We should, therefore, all join with the Bureau of Forestry in its effort to “save the forests and store the floods.” RIGHTS OF WAY IN FOREST RESERVES BY MORRIS BIEN Consulting Engineer, United States Reclamation Service THE Forest Reserve Act of June 4, 1897, contains two provisions which affect rights of way within the reserves ; namely, that actual settlers residing with- in the boundaries of the reserves shall for purposes of egress and ingress, be permitted to construct wagon- roads and other improvements necessary to reach their homes and utilize their property, under rules and regu- lations to be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior, and also that all waters on the reserves may be used for beneficial purposes under the State laws or under laws of the United States and the rules and regulations thereunder. In the administration of the first of these provisions, for wagon-roads and other improvements, the General Land Office regulations provide for the construction of private wagon-roads and county roads wherever they may be found necessary and useful; no right, however, can be acquired upon the public lands for such roads as against the United States. No public timber, stone, or other material can be taken for the construction of such roads, without permission from the Secretary of the Interior, the application giving necessary details concerning the extent, location, and estimated value of the material to be taken. The second provision, concerning the use of the waters, merely confirms the application to forest re- 82 PROCEEDINGS OF THE serves of the laws then existing, but did not make ap- plicable to such reserves any laws which did not then apply to reservations. These laws were of several kinds, and provided for rights of way and for irriga- tion, electric and other purposes. A subsequent act, approved February 15, 1901, pro- vides for right of way over forest and other reserva- tions in general and certain national parks in Califor- nia, for electrical plants, telephone and telegraph lines, canals and other water conduits for any beneficial use of water. These acts provide that the allowance of such rights of way within the reservations shall be subject to the approval of the department having supervision over them. At the time of the passage of the Forest Reserve Act, there was no provision for right of way for railroads through such reserves. Consequently, it be- came necessary for each railroad company desiring to cross a reserve to obtain a special act of Congress, and during the years 1898 and 1899 several such acts were passed. In each of them was incorporated a provision, which was first inserted at the instance of the General Land Office, that no timber shall be cut by the railroad company for any purposes outside the right of way actually granted. By the act of March 3, 1899 (30 Stat., 1233), au- thority is given to the Secretary of the Interior to approve rights of way in the form provided by existing law, for wagon-roads, railroads, or other highways across any forest reservation, when in his judgment the public interests would not be injuriously affected. From that time on, there was no need for a special right-of-way act across a forest reserve. Nevertheless, during the session of Congress in 1901-2, a bill was introduced providing for right of AMERICAN Forest Concr#ss 83 way for the Central Arizona Railway Company through the San Francisco Mountains Forest Reserve in Arizona. In reporting upon this bill, the General Land Office referred to the legislation of 1899, and stated that there was no need of such law, and that it would be better for application to be made in the regular way, subject to the general regulations in force. The bill was, however, passed without change, and was presented the President. At this stage, those interested in the matter, fearing that it would be vetoed, secured the passage of a resolution (April 12, 1902; 32 Stat., 1767), asking for the return of the bill. This was not done, but the bill was vetoed by the President April 23, 1902. At the next session of Congress a bill of an entirely different character was introduced. This provided simply that the company would be granted right of way upon compliance with the general regulations of the department. Such a bill was of no practical use, but it was not objectionable. It be- came a law February 25, 1903 (32 Stat., 907). Every application for right of way over a forest reserve for any purpose is reported on by a forest superintendent or supervisor, who is required to make a statement in detail upon every point affecting the interests of the government in regard to the preserva- tion of the reserves. A bond is required from the applicant that he will pay to the United States, for any and all damage to the public lands, timber, natural curiosities, or other public property on such reservation, or upon the lands of the United States, by reason of such use and occu- pation of the reserve, regardless of the cause or circum- stances under which such damage may occur. Such a bond is required in every case except those of small importance, a definite limit being fixed in the regula- tions. 84 PROCEEDINGS OF THE The applicant is required, also, to file a stipulation that the right of way is not so located as to interfere with the proper occupation of the reservation by the Government; that no timber will be cut from the reserve outside of the right of way; that the applicant will remove no timber within the right of way, except only such as is rendered necessary by the proper use and enjoyment of the privilege; that he will also remove from the reservation, or destroy under proper safeguards as determined by the General Land Office, all standing, fallen, dead timber, as well as all refuse cuttings, etc., for such distance on each side of the line as may be determined by the General Land Office to be esesential for the protection of the reserve from fire; also that the applicant will furnish free of charge such assistance in men and materials for fighting fires as may be-spared without serious injury to the appli- cant’s business. With a careful scrutiny of all applications by forest officers on the ground, and a thorough enforcement of rules, regulations, and stipulations such as those indi- cated, it is believed that the occupation of the reserves for these necessary rights of way can be permitted without detriment to the Government interests. The present laws relating to rights of way upon the public lands, as well as upon forest reserves, are such as to facilitate the operations of speculators to obtain, secure, and retain controlling points for the use of water for railroad, irrigation, power, and other pur- poses. The railroad and irrigation acts provide for a forfeiture at the expiration of five years from the date of location, but such forfeiture cannot be declared except by Congress or through courts. Inasmuch as there are many thousand miles of rail- road and irrigation rights of way which are now American Forest Concress 8s subject to forfeiture, the declaration thereof by pro- cedure in the courts is practically out of the question, except in a few specific cases where the interests of the public or of bona fide enterprises demand action. It is important, however, for the proper development of the entire West, that these abandoned rights of way should be cancelled at the earliest possible date, for the reason that as soon as any bona fide enterprise is started, these rights, which are practically dead, are at once revived, and make enormous claims for the rights which they hold and which cannot be set aside without such delay as to seriously jeopardize the pro- posed development. Congress should declare the forfeiture of all rights of way now subject to forfeiture, and authorize the Secretary of the Interior to declare the forfeiture of other rights already granted and to be granted in the future, upon the expiration of the time allowed for construction by the law. This, however, would remedy only one feature of the difficulty. It would be just as easy, as the laws now stand, to tie up these rights, for five years at least, in the future. In order to meet this phase of the situation, it is recommended that a reasonable charge be made for the use of these rights of way upon public lands and forest reserves. This charge should be suf- ficient to deter the application for these rights merely for speculative purposes, and yet not so great as to interfere with future development of railroad, irriga- tion, and electric enterprises. The time has now come when the value of these lands to the public is so great that their further disposi- tion should be most carefully scrutinized. The great increase in recent years in the number of these appli- cations shows very impressively the need of such safe- D 86 Proc#EDINGS OF THE guards to protect the interests of the public in the future. These considerations apply with particular force to the forest reserves, because no claim should be allowed to attach to lands within them except for actual use for public benefit, and it is exceedingly urgent that this Congress make a special effort to impress upon the Congress of the United States the necessity for immediate action along the lines indicated. IRRIGATION CONSTRUCTION AND TIM- BER SUPPLIES BY ARTHUR P. DAVIS Assistant Chief Engineer, United States Reclamation Service THE relation of scientific forest protection and cul- ture to irrigation may best be discussed and appreciated by considering its importance to the suc- cessful operation of the Reclamation Act, which has become by the logic of events, the main exponent of irrigation development. The broad object of that law is the creation under irrigation, of the maximum number of prosperous homes. These homes will depend in a great degree upon the forests, which are secondary in importance only to the supply of water and land. The main reasons for the economic importance of the scientific culture and preservation of the forests, are the protection and regulation of the water supply, the preservation of the lumber industry, and the con- tinuation of the supply of wood for fuel and numerous other domestic requirements. In all these the irrigator is intensely interested, and all have an important bear- ing upon his future prosperity. The utility of the forest cover in conserving the water supply is generally recognized, and its impor- tance is becoming more and more appreciated. The protective effect of the mluch of leaves and twigs, and the dark coolness of the forest shade, appeal to all as beneficial regulators of run-off, and preventatives of evaporation. Nor does it require scientific demonstra- ela 8S PROCEEDINGS OF THE tion to convince the settler of the importance to his welfare of a continued lumber and fuel supply. The great value to the settler and the settler’s live stock, of the shade and shelter afforded by the trees of the forest and woodland are fully appreciated. Even the aesthetic and sanitary value of forests are not over- looked. ‘ Related to the above is the influence of forests on irrigation construction. This may not be obvious to the average person, but the tendency of modern con- ° struction is to the use of the more permanent materials, less subject than wood to destruction and decay. This is facilitated by the development of the useful proper- ties of concrete, iron, and steel, and their combinations. The Reclamation Service in particular is endeavoring to build, “not for a day, but for all time,” and the wooden gate, the wooden flume, and other structures so much in evidence in the past are to be entirely superseded by more permanent materials. To this end, massive gates of cast iron and bronze, set in abutments of concrete, are being introduced. Experiments have been made on reinforced concrete for use in pressure pipes and flumes, and the wooden dam is being superseded by that of concrete, masonry, or earth. To the same end the proportion of tunnels is increased, underground conduits being the safest and most permanent yet devised. The effect of such a policy upon the consumption of wood is not, however, so great as might be supposed, especially in the construction period. The require- ments for timber are still very great for piling and subaqeous structures to which wood is well adapted, and for buildings and the large class of temporary structures required on great irrigation works. No satisfactory substitute has yet been found for timber in AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 89 tunnels and every structure of concrete requires wooden forms. So numerous and so great are the indispensa- ble uses of timber in such works, that the existence of a supply of timber near a projected work frequently has an important bearing upon its feasibility and cost. Nor is this fact often appreciated fully. We are ac- customed to estimate the utility of a lumber supply on the basis of its selling price, rather than of the cost of obtaining the supply elsewhere. For example, the cost of sawing and hauling timber to the point of use on a certain large project in the west is about twenty- five ($25.00) dollars per thousand. Were it not for the small forest from which this supply is obtained, it would be necessary to import lumber from a distance at a cost of over fifty ($50.00) dollars per thousand, and this represents the real utility of the local supply as a factor in the construction. It is not too much to say that the feasibility of some important irrigation works depends upon the proximity of ample timber supplies. The development of irrigation will in the future lead to the rapid opening and development of timbered areas. which are now merely in their natural state. This fact emphasizes the necessity of placing the forests at once under the rigid scientific supervision of trained government experts. If left to the manipulation of sel- fish interests as in the past, the result will be lavish and wasteful use, and probably destruction of the forest. Every tree that will make lumber will be cut, the best parts hauled away, the branches and part of the trunk left on the ground to feed the fires that will soon follow and destroy all that the axe has left. Temporary profits will be reaped by a few, and the community will be robbed of its natural heritage. Eventually, the forest must be replanted and restored at enormous go PROCEEDINGS OF THE expenses of time and money, which can all be saved by a wise supervision without diminishing the present utility of the forest, nor destroying its future value, by merely protecting and fostering the tendency of na- ture. Such policies of protection would have popular sup- port, but the local communities have not the means, authority, nor skill to insure proper supervision, which much be provided by the Government under the policy already proposed, the efficacy and wisdom of which has been so thoroughly demonstrated both at home and abroad. The policy that provided for present needs without mortgaging the future. FOREST AREAS OF CATCHMENT BASINS (Impromptu Address) BY H. M. WILSON United States Geological Survey AM very much interested in one feature of the dis- cussion that has been brought before you to-day, and that is the relation of run-off from catchment basins to the forested areas of those basins. There is nothing new on this subject, however, which it seems to me I can bring before you. I heartily concur in the general opinion expressed by two of the speakers, Messrs. Lippincott and Davis, upon the effect of forests in regulating the discharge of streams and thus adding to their usefulness as providers of water for irrigation and upon the effect of this regulation in preventing disastrous floods which, by eroding the surface of the soil, carry vast amounts of sediment to the streams below and destroy both them and the surfaces which they erode. ‘There are other features, however, of the subject of forest influence on water supply which are frequently noted in connection with the preservation of forests, which it might be well for me to qualify. We are familiar with the old-time claim of the effect of forests in increasing the rainfall and all of the foresters present who have looked into the subject, I am sure, believe now that whereas it is possible that forests may have some effect upon the amount of pre- cipitation, there is as yet no definite information avail- able from any source, either of experiment or investi- gation, which goes to prove it. And that feature of the subject of the effect of forests on water supply is one which I think the Weather Bureau, or possibly the 92 ProcEEDINGS OF THE Bureau of Forestry, should have an opportunity to investigate in a way in which it has never as yet been investigated, so that we may learn positively if there is any such effect; and it is not a form of investigation that is difficult to carry out. It has been attempted in haphazard ways over limited areas in Europe, but never by the wholesale method of detailed regional study. There is another feature of the subject that occurs to me, and that is the claim not infrequently made that forests increase the discharge from streams, and that claim is also not infrequently put forward by over- zealous friends of forestry. And that, too, may be correct, though from any investigation or any research yet made into the subject I fail to find that there is any clear evidence that forests do increase the amount of water available for discharge by streams, and for the uses of man. And that is another investigation which might readily be undertaken in this country by the proper Government officials or others and thrashed out to a definite conclusion, and which might react very favorably upon the subject of forest preservation. I can conceive now that the Reclamation Service or the Hydrographic Branch of the Geological Survey, over which Mr. Newell presides, might undertake such ex- periments as those of Professor Toumey, of the Bu-. reau of Forestry, which Mr. Lippincott illustrated here in the upper diagrams. I can conceive that Mr. Newell’s bureau, with the facilities that it has, might readily be encouraged to take up the question of the discharge of streams from forested and from non- forested areas of like conditions and show what Euro- peans, the people of India, and older countries inter- ested in forestry, have not yet been able to show, whether or not forests have any actual effect in in- creasing the water supply. FORESTS AS A FACTOR IN SHAPING THE PHYSIOGRAPHIC FORM OF MOUNTAINS BY J. W. TOUMEY Professor of Forestry, Yale Forest School THE effect of forest cover upon the surface flow of water has been for many years an inviting field for speculation and research, both in this country and abroad. Since the extended researches of Ebermayer of Bavaria, more than a quarter of a century ago, most writers in this field have placed special emphasis upon the effect of forests in providing a larger and better absorbing medium. It has been argued that the chief influence of the forest upon the flow of streams, lies in the fact that it provides a looser and deeper soil, cov- ered with a variable depth of humus and litter, into and through which the precipitation freely seeps. Therefore, a much larger part of the rainfall is taken up by forest soil than by soil in the open, and there is less to pass directly into the streams by flowing over the surface. As a result, the flow of streams in for ested regions are more sustained than similar strea flowing from naked drainage basins. There is at the present time no serious opposition to the view as here set forth. In recent years, how- ever, special emphasis has been placed upon the follow- ing, viz., that the proportion of the rainfall that reaches the streams and the manner of its reaching them de- pends chiefly upon the physiographic features of the 94 PROCEEDINGS OF THE region. The contention is made that when other con- ditions are similar, it is the physiographic form which most largely determines the amount of run-off in proportion to the precipitation and the fluctuations in stream-flow as well. I wish to emphasize the fact that the physiographic form of the drainage basin, more particularly those features which most largely influence stream-flow, have been brought about by forest growth acting through long periods of time. In checking wind and water erosion at the sources of our mountain streams, the forest produces a much greater effect upon physiographic detail than generally recognized. On the summits of mountains and on ridges, where the forest has a density of .8 or greater, and where the forest floor has been undisturbed by fire and grazing, the wealth of litter, humus, and min- eral soil takes up practically all of the precipitation ; which, seeping through the soil, reappears on the sur- face at lower elevations without bringing silt and other eroded material with it. Erosion, therefore, in such regions is very slow as compared with non-forested regions. Vertical corrasion in the channels of the intermit- tent and permanent streams is also a slower process, because there is but little grinding material carried by the moving water. On the other hand, when summits and ridges have been without forest cover for long periods, there is not only an almost total absence of litter and humus, but ‘a scant covering of mineral soil as well. The absence of an absorbing medium causes the larger part of the rainfall to flow over the surface from the place of fall- ing. This surface flow causes rapid erosion. The forest, in preventing the transportation of soil AMERICAN Forest CoNnGrRESS 95 at the sources of mountain streams, ultimately brings about a very different physiographic configuration from that of non-forested areas under otherwise similar conditions. In well timbered mountain summits and ridges are usually broad and rounded. On the other hand, non-timbered summits and ridges are inclined to be sharp and jagged, with very precipitous slopes. The former have a convex physiographic form, while the latter have a concave. This condition can be observed in all the mountain ranges of the West. Even in the same range, these features above or below timber line have sharp ridges and concave lines, while in the dense timber the ridges are rounded and the form is convex. I am well aware that convexity in physiographic form is indicative of youth, while concave physio- graphic form indicates age. Although in a broad way this is true, the concave or old type is reached at a com- paratively early age on elevations that do not bear a forest cover, while it is almost indefinitely postponed on elevations that sustain an uninterrupted forest growth. The convex configuration of forested summits and ridges is the ideal type for the retention of a maximum amount of the precipitation on the higher portions of the drainage basin to ultimately seep through the soil and give the streams a sustained flow. The concave configuration, which is so character- istic of non-timbered mountains, permits the precipi- tation for the most part to escape over the surface, not only on account of the absence of an absorbing me- dium, but because of the more precipitous slopes. The former condition causes a large percentage of the rainfall to be retained at high elevation from whence, through seepage, it gives perennial flow to mountain streams. The latter condition results in the 96 PROCEEDINGS OF THE greater part of the precipitation rushing over the sur- face to lower levels. Only a small percentage of the rainfall is retained at the higher elevations, hence there is but little seepage to feed the streams and they become dry soon after the flood waters subside. I cannot here enter into the various observations and researches made under my direction during the past four years, which bear upon the relation of forest cover to stream flow. These investigations and the conclu- sions which they appear to warrant are soon to be pub- lished in bulletin form by the Bureau of Forestry, U. S. Department of Agriculture. The single point that I here desire to emphasize is this: forest cover in mountain streams, through its influence upon erosion, has a very appreciable effect upon physiographic form, and this effect of the forest working through long periods of time, is of the utmost importance in its influences upon the flow of mountain streams. PART Ill THE LUMBER INDUSTRY AND THE FORESTS THE LUMBERMAN’S INTEREST IN FORESTRY BY N. W. McLEOD President, National Lumber Manufacturers’ Association S UCH an assemblage as the one before me would have been quite impossible ten years ago. The lumberman and the forester were then far apart. So long as forestry was regarded as merely scientific, but little progress was made; but as it came largely through the influence of our Bureau of Forestry, to be more clearly understood as a musiness matter, the prospect has brightened rapidly. The very fact that this American Forest Congress has assigned one ses- sion of its meeting to the discussion of the lumber industry and the forests is excellent evidence that the development of forestry is in the right direction. And in developing an American system of forestry founded upon sound business principles and adapted to local conditions, the Bureau of Forestry is doing a very important work. For a number of years at the annual meetings of the various lumber manufacturers’ associations, the Bureau has been represented by some well equipped member of its staff, who delivered an address of interest and value to practical lumbermen. The Bureau has in a large measure succeeded in convincing the lumbermen that forestry is not antagonistic to the lumbermen’s interest, but in line with it. At present while forestry is accepted tentatively, the individual is backward about inaugurating an innovation in his 100 PROCEEDINGS OF THE own operations, as any plan that requires years to prove profitable; the commercial mind is slow to em- brace. The facts that must deeply impress the individual are those which influence matters of personal interest. The lumberman centers his attention on that part of the forest which he can profitably convert into money. The young, immature trees are obstacles to him, which increase the cost of transporting timber to the mill. Tle forester, on the other hand, considers young trees as the basis of future returns. In order that the best results may be obtained, the forester must understand the economic problems that confront the lumberman. The manufacturer of lum- ber faces the necessity of providing raw material (standing timber) for from five to twenty years, de- pending on the size of his plant, in order to justify his investment. He usually has maturing payments on his timber land, that have to be met from the returns of operation. This necessity has generally precluded in the earlier years of a lumberman’s operation serious consideration of anything but the production of the lumber at the lowest possible cost. The practice of forestry would increase the cost of production per unit on account of the less amount of timber imme- diately available from a given area. The percentage of increase in cost of production would be very slight where there is a heavy stand of timber, but in a light stand the percentage of increased cost would be quite large. The individual operator has always had to consider—first, the necessity of employing a larger investment; second, competition of manufacturers, who are operating regardless of the principles of forestry. This competition during periods of general commercial depression might force the manufacturer AMERICAN Forest CoNnGRESS 101 who is practicing forestry to run his plant at a loss, or suspend operations until the conditions of supply and demand were favorable. About two years ago a number of gentlemen who were large holders of timber lands made an effort to consolidate practically all of the larger yellow pine holdings of the South into a single timber company, contemplating the cutting and sale of timber to lumber manufacturers under the application of forestry. That is, that the amount of timber in one year should not exceed the amount produced, except where the land would produce greater returns as agriculture, when it would naturally be cut clear. If this plan could have been put into operation, the increased cost of transporting the mature timber over larger areas made necessary by the application of forestry, would have been more than equalized by the advance in the value of stumpage, on account of the smaller amount imme- diately available. It was found, however, that the general public, as well as many timber owners, did not understand forestry sufficiently well to look favorably upon an investment of either capital or timber on the scale proposed. A meeting such as this gives promise that the for- ester will increase his knowledge of economic problems before the manufacturer, and that investors and hold- ers of timber learn that the forester does not desire to place obstacles in the way of profitably converting the forests into lumber, but by forestry to protect them from fire, disease, and useless waste, thus making forest investments safe and permanent. That forestry is practicable upon large timber hold- ings, either in private or Government ownership, is unquestioned by all who have given the matter careful 102 PROCEEDINGS OF THE thought. Lumbermen who have studied the timber situation realize that in the future, as in the past, the largest returns will not be obtained through their manufacturing plants only. The great fortunes that have been made in the lumber business have been ac- quired by the owners of large bodies of timber lands, and this condition will continue. For the purpose of illustration, let us consider the supply of timber as represented by one circle, and the annual consump- tion by another circle. The circle representing con- sumption is annually increasing, as the result not only of increase in population but of a material increase in per capita consumption of wood. On the other hand the circle representing supply is annually decreasing, and unless the forests are reserved for use, instead of being sacrificed for the sake of the cost of immediate production of lumber, the circle of supply, as far as it can be considered a commercial factor, must disappear. If this be true, all Govern- ment timber lands should be withdrawn from sale or entry and placed under conservative forest manage- ment, all mature timber being for sale, provided proper protection is given the young timber. In this way, at least, a partial supply of timber for future generations can be perpetuated. THE CHANGED ATTITUDE OF LUMBER- MEN TOWARD FORESTRY BY J. E. DEFEBAUGH Editor American Lumberman R ECALLING the history of the lumber industry of America and of forestry in this country, we are filled with mingled emotions of pleasure and surprise as we attend the sessions of this Congress and behold the character and diversity of this assembly. It reminds me of the story told by Dr. Henry Van Dyke of the little girl who asked her father: “Papa, where were you born?” “Tn Boston, my dear,” he answered. “And where was mamma born?” “In San Francisco, my dear.” “And where was I born?’ “Tn Philadelphia, my dear.” “Well,” said the little one, “isn’t it funny how we three people ever got together!” There are present, through the most altruistic mo- tives, not only men to whom forestry is a science and an occupation, but men whose business is the cutting of the forest, and men who are neither lumbermen nor professional foresters, but who occupy high places in our national life and are interested in the forestry movement because it is for the national good. There is to participate in the proceedings of this convention the most distinguished forester in the nation 104 PROCEEDINGS OF THE and consequently the most distinguished forester in the world—the President of the United States. To him who in the love of nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language— and Theodore Roosevelt has held communion with nature possibly more extensively and certainly more intensively than any of the rest of us here. He has learned to know nature, and consequently the forests, from their romantic and practical sides, and he has demonstrated his practical sympathy with the forestry movement as has no other in this country. Another high forester, who has been an efficient stimulus to forestry and along effective lines, is the President of the American Forestry Association, the Secretary of Agriculture, James Wilson. Of him Senator Mark Hanna, the sincerely lamented states- man from the Buckeye State, said to a great audience of lumbermen assembled in this city’ two years ago: “Uncle Jimmy’ knows his business and he has taught the people of this country on the farm, in the forests and in the mines—all of the great productive interests of the United States—more in the five or six years he has been at the head of that department than all the rest of the scores of the departments put together. He is the right man in the right place. And it makes no difference what changes may come in the political atmosphere here, we will keep him here if we have to run him on a separate ticket.” Another forester among us, of national reputation, and a fame peculiarly his own because his work has been and is largely altruistic, has given a large per- centage of the present impetus to forest work—Gifford AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 105 Pinchot, the chief forester of the Government. A man of culture, he has decided to make his life work one for which not only the present but future genera- tions will ‘“‘rise up to call him blessed.” All within sound of my voice, therefore, are for- esters; and so I feel some confidence in a kindly reception of this effort. The subject has been a cause for comment, not only in the lumber trade but among all interested in forestry: “The Changed Attitude of Lumbermen Toward Forestry.” I think, however, it is hardly adequate to assume that only the lumberman’s position has changed; the change has been as great, or greater, in the conditions surrounding us, and in the attitude and policies of specialists in forestry. No reasonable man would be disposed to denounce the early settlers of the timbered portions of North America for cutting away the forests. Cleared land was necessary for the growing of food products which were essential to the sustenance of life. A man with a family, by a courageous enterprise or by the force of circumstances projected into the wilderness, would not hesitate to cut down and clear off the tree growth as rapidly as his strength permitted. Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and the pioneers in our forest areas had to clear the land or starve. Moreover, in the early period of settlement he was considered the greatest benefactor to the state and to the community in which he lived who slashed down the most forest and cleared the land most rapidly and thoroughly. At first there was no thought of the future value of timber; at the moment it was a cumberer of the ground, like ledges of rock and the loose stones of the glacial drift: It was thought to be a fortunate possi- bility that a portion of the cumbersome forest growth, 106 PROCEEDINGS OF THE that must be cleared from the land anyway to make room for towns, villages, highways, and farms, could be utilized. In the process of clearing farms, if any of the timber could be sold and shipped to the European and seaboard markets or used for local improvements it was a clear gain, profit accruing from a gratuitous resource, like game from the woods or fish from the waters. There was no thought that the trees would in time acquire a distinct and appreciable value simply because they had become scarce. Another reason why the early lumberman from his own viewpoint saw no particular value in standing timber was that he found it hard work to make a profit when he had an unlimited privilege to cut all the timber in sight. In the beginning of operations in the three northwestern white pine states—from 1830 to about 1845—all the mill operators had to do to secure logs for sawing was to obtain from the Indians the privilege to cut timber, which permits were usually sanctioned by the Government. A few goods given to the Indians were sufficient to secure all the logs necessary to supply any of the mills of that day. Tim- ber that would run 60 per cent uppers could be secured in exchange for whiskey that would run go per cent adulteration. The early operators penetrated the deep woods far from settlement, going along the lake shore and up the rivers 100 or 200 miles from any considerable base of supplies, and after great hardship and excessive labor, and often loss by flood and fire, managed to saw a little lumber in the primitive saw mills of that day and raft it out to the market. It goes without saying that these early operators had no thought for the preserva- tion of the forests. They took the nearest and best trees for their purpose, as they needs must if they were to make any profit in their enterprise. AMERICAN Forest CoNncrEss 107 After the pine lands had been surveyed and settle- ment had developed a general demand for lumber, pine holdings began to have a specific value—but at first it was a acreage price at Government figures. It was cheap property and so esteemed. ‘The main thing with the lumberman was the expense involved in building mills, in cleaning out streams for the floating logs, putting in camps, and all else that was involved in logging, milling, and marketing. As to pine stumpage, the mill operators from 1850 to 1880 thought there was no limit to it. Its possible exhaustion was considered so far in the future as to be a negligible quantity in the equation. The location of a mill at an advantageous site for floating logs down to it and for shipping lumber when produced was the prime consideration. The investment was in these things; the value of the raw material on the stump was the minor factor in the problem. And yet with stumpage worth but $1.25 an acre lumbermen found it difficult to make profit in their business from 1850 to 1857, and, in the latter disastrous year and the several years following, hundreds of them in Michigan, Wisconsin, and along the Mississippi River went to the financial wall. After the civil war there was a revival, with some few successes and some slight increase in timber values. In 1873 came another financial revolution and more depression in the lumber business, accompanied by many bankruptcies. Not until 1879-80 did the northern pine business reach a plane of commercial activity where stumpage values began to be considered. At that time the pine owners who had hung on to their stumpage despite hard times, low prices, and meager profits in lumber production began to realize that they possessed wealth in their pine trees. Then standing pine began to be 108 PROCEEDINGS OF THE closely estimated and the value of an acre of land was determined by the number of thousands of feet of logs that could be cut from it. But, as in nearly all cases where their is an advance of stumpage values) there was not a commensurate rise in the value of sawed product. Operators with large holdings of standing timber were made rich by the advancement in the value of their stumpage, while they found it necessary to pursue the strictest business methods and use the most economical appliances in order to produce lumber at a profit on the basis of stumpage values. Conse- quently there followed the utmost utilization of the pine on a given area of land. As the years passed standing pine continued to advance in price in greater ratio than sawed product, and the effort to convert every possible tree into salable lumber increased. A great change was induced, a change from the old method of cutting all the larger trees and those nearest the water, as was done in the ’40s and ’sos, to the latter-day practice of scraping the land of every tree that would produce mechantable lumber, down to those that would turn out only a 4x4, with possibly bark on one or more corners of the piece. Sometimes have been cut in this way trees whose product would not pay the saw bill. Yet there was produced from them a product useful to the community at large which from the lumberman’s point of view would have been wasted had they been left in the woods, and his natural desire for thrift and economy led him beyond the point where his operations would result in profit to himself. The development of railroad logging has also had its notable influence in this direction. ‘The expense of building logging railroads into the timber is so great that only comparatively solid bodies of timber will carry it. When the merchantable timber is taken out AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 109 the road is also taken up and moved elsewhere; and it is desirable that before this is done the logging shall be thoroughly completed. Under such conditions it often is very unlikely that even if the smaller trees be left upon the tract there will ever again be a sufficient stand of timber to justify the rebuilding of the logging road. The point aimed at in this cursory review of the evolution of the pine lumber industry is to show that the lumbermen all along pursued a strenuous course in their endeavor to make a profit in their business. In their enterprise they had to be pioneers in a vast wil- derness; they had to cover wide extents of territory in carrying out their plans; they were forced to clear out streams, build dams, put in booms, erect mills, and latterly construct railroads, build and purchase vessels, equip lines of barges, and establish docks—all of which required capital and necessitated great economy, business acumen, and thoroughness in order to secure profit in operation. It was a business that required much money and credit and considerable time before any profitable results could accrue. Is it any wonder, then, that the lumbermen looked upon their stumpage, or any stumpage, as merely raw material from which, if conditions were favorable, they could extract a money profit? Fifty years ago in this country a general application of forestry methods would have been absurd. There were some cases where forests in particular places should have been preserved, but up to that time and even later the forest as a whole was an encumbrance. ‘In-the eastern part of the United States, which had the people, not only the lumberman but the settler also was engaged in removing the forest, with the difference, however, that the settler was making little or no use of it, but merely destroying it to get it out of his way. 110 PrRocEEDINGS OF THE Modern civilization cannot exist in the shade nor live on mast. The forests had to be cleared away in order to give place for growing corn and wheat. So there was the peculiar combination of dependence upon the forests for fuel and building supplies and at the same time the obligation to remove them to make room for other crops. The lumberman, therefore, was not a devastator, but performed a useful function in the community at a profit to himself by removing that which had, as it stood, little or no value. The public cannot with justice condemn the lumberman for chop- ping down the trees when it recalls the conspicuous example set by the Father of his Country. Furthermore, until recent years the Government, which owned the forests in the unused areas of the United States, placed no special value on them. It invited acquisition by any one, including the lumber- man ; consequently the lumbermen came into possession of much of the.timbered area and practically all the pine, hemlock, and similar woods which grow in solid forests. There was thus set up a property interest which had to be treated like any other private interest. Many had their fortunes invested in timber and the only way in which they could realize on the investment was by manufacture. It is true that with recent years standing timber has come into greater prominence as an opportunity for investment, and there are now large holdings in the hands of capitalists who have never owned nor operated a saw mill and perhaps never expect to do so. Such owners hold their timber for an enhancement of values'as would an investor in real estate, but they expect to hold only so long as it seems more profitable to hold than to sell. They are not holding their timber for posterity, but only for the best marketing oppor- AMERICAN Forest CoNncrREsS II tunity. The same question of present versus future markets confronts the timber owner who is also a manufacturer, modified somewhat by the inclination to keep the mill in operation. It determines somewhat the capacity of the mill to be built upon a given site with a known amount of tributary timber, and after it is built determines whether the output shall be restricted or pushed to the limit according to the cur- rent market demands. That is the point of view of any other owner of pine timber or of any other sort of timber that has tangible value. The tree represents a definite asset to be converted at the earliest favorable opportunity, and without reference to any possible interest that posterity might have in its being per- mitted to remain on the stump. The increase in value of all timber holdings within recent years makes advocacy of forest preservation, as far as merchantable timber is concerned, properly a plea for so managing the forest as to get the greatest amount of commercial product from it at the present time without impairing any more than necessary its productive capacity for the future. The holder of a timber estate is actuated by exactly the same consid- erations as the holder of other property—he wishes it to produce more money than he has put in. If he can be convinced that the timber is such that its growth will give him greater earnings on his investment than its cutting at the present time he may be induced to hold it; but he is not likely to let his forest stand solely for the benefit of posterity, or unless it is practically shown that this procedure will lead to enhancement in the value of his estate. In so far, however, as the timber is already matured the time of its harvest is already at hand. The owner, of course, desires to harvest it in the most economical manner; and if 112 PROCEEDINGS OF THE timber owners and lumbermen can be instructed in this particular and induced to practice timber management in accordance with the plan advocated by trained for- esters much will be accomplished in the direction of prolonging existing timber supplies. But it should be admitted by everybody that the money value of standing timber will inevitably determine the disposi- tion of it, except where it has been reserved by the Government. If there has been any tardiness in recognizing the necessity for forest regulation and reforestation it should be understood that the forestry idea has been slow in gaining ground even with a disinterested gen- eral public, a fact chargeable neither to the lumbermen nor to the forestry advocates. We have heard much of the “wasteful methods” of the lumbermen, but in the early days of lumbering there was no waste that was not necessary, or, rather, no waste that was not more economical than to save. No property owner can afford to spend dollars when he will receive only cents in return. Under the condi- tions, the waste in tree tops, tall stumps, thick slabs, edgings, and trimmings and much sawdust was, from a financial standpoint, no waste at all. The lumbermen did with their property only what would yield the best returns, To an industry established on such a basis there catne the advocate of forest preservation. Originally —during the early agitation of the subject and up to within fifteen or twenty years—forestry advocates were manly of two classes, either sentimentalists or technicists; the latter being trained in the forest meth- ods of the old European countries where conditions were entirely different from those that obtained in the United States. The former scolded or tearfully implored, while the latter proposed the impossible, AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss tt3 Listening to the abuse that was showered upon them; to the seemingly impracticable theories; to the petitions which, if granted, would have wiped out their properties, is it any wonder that lumbermen were at first indifferent or even were aroused to hostility? Some of them were incensed, others threatening, and others were amused by unjust criticism. Beware the wicked lumberman, That wasteful, hasteful artisan. But while the logger you discuss A glance take at the rest of us— The camper with his cheery blaze That blows around in many ways; The hunting man with pillar bright Of smoke by day and fire by night; The farmer with his log heap high, His stump-fire when the weather’s dry, His fancy, solid walnut fence— He worries not about expense. Oh, when the logger you condemn Consider well the rest of them. Consider the farmer of the field Who loves the flaming torch to wield; The campers toil not, neither spin, Yet pretty blazes they begin— Nor Solomon, in all his ease, Burned money up like one of these! However, a change in conditions was going on. Up to the point where the natural growth of the forest would more than take care of the needs of a community the surplus was valueless and would better be disposed of in some manner than preserved at any material cost. But when we reached the stage where the forests were 114 PROCEEDINGS OF THE reduced to the point where the natural annual increase would not more than take care of the present and prospective needs of the country, then values advanced and the lumbermen have come to see some practicality in the proposition that methods of forest preservation should be introduced. Like all methods that effect great changes in society or economics, the forestry idea in the United States has been an evolution. It must be confessed that foresters of the present day discard some theories that were considered important by American forestry experts of thirty years ago. There’s that dear old rainfall theory once held in such esteem By which a dampness was produced by such a simple scheme. As Aaron smote the rock of old and found a water power So might we plant a tamarack and start a summer shower. Behold the forester of,old, the optimistic fellah— Aplanting trowel in one hand, in the other an umbrella. Our duty is not particularly to refrain from chop- ping down trees ripe for the ax ,but to be active in replacing them. Coincident with this duty is that of cutting only mature timber, where that is possible, and of guarding timber tracts from fires and other destructive agencies that often are due to carelessness. There is nothing truer than the old saying that you cannot eat your cake and have it, yet it never restrained very many people from eating the cake, for the cake must be eaten to be enjoyed. The thing to do is not AMERICAN Forest CoNCRESS 115 to weep over the cake after it has disappeared, but to get out the recipe book and make another. No one will question the soundness of the lumber- man’s belief that his method gets the greatest use out of the tree. Though the old theory is now seriously questioned if the standing tree encourages the summer shower, the sawed shingle is necessary to protect the head of the man from the thunder storm. Nothing in the world can suffer a better fate than utilization. When the tomato was the ruddy “love apple” of our youth it was a beautiful object, but who will deny the more potent attraction of the tomato stew? We are compelled to admit that the mature tree must come down. Once down, that particular tree is eliminated. I am reminded of the question asked of the Swiss guide by the tourist. He was gazing over the edge of the precipice and remarked to the guide: “I suppose people often fall from here?” “No,” replied the guide, “only once.”