Ay rth ait $. £24 re re fats, + nth ete PRE I g PAF \ ee clad Aer ee gern AES ee Nag oe a” . > OE A a GW tomy AO > > 5p gw bef i { aa elegy a Alaa 4 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 Gift, 2 0'05 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 HHonorary 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. HowARD ELLiomTT, : President, Northern Pacific Ry. JOHN Hays HAMMOND, Mining Engineer. T. J. GRIER, Supt. Homestake Mining Co., Lead, S. Dak. FRED WEYERHAEUSER, St. Paul, Minn. N. W. McLEopD, President, Nat’]1 Lumber Manu- facturers Association. V. H. BECKMAN, Editor, Pacific Lumber Trade Journal. R. A. LONG Bresitent: Southern Lumber Manufacturers Association. GEORGE K. SMITH, Secretary, Nat’l] Lumber Manu- facturers Association. GARRET SCHENCK, President, Great Northern Paper Co. THOMAS F, WALSH, | President, National Irrigation Association. H. B. F. MACFARLAND, President, Board of District Com- missioners. W.S. HARVEY, Vice - President, Pennsylvania Forestry Association. JOHN JOY EDSON, President, Washington Loan & Trust Co. ALBERT SHAW, Editor, Review of Reviews. WHITELAW REID, Publisher, New York Tribune. REDFIELD PROCTOR, United States Senator from Ver- mont. HENRY C. HANSBROUGH, United States Senator from North Dakota. NATHAN B. Scott, United States Senator from West Virginia. THOMAS R. BARD United States’ Senator from Cali- fornia. JAMES W. WADSWORTH, Member of Congress from New York. JOHN F, LACEY, Member of Congress from Iowa. FRANK W. MONDELL, Member of Congress from Wyo- ming. CHARLES D. WALCOTT, Director, U. S. Geological Survey. GIFFORD PINCHOT, Forester, U. S. Department of Agriculture. F. H. NEWELL, Chief Engineer, U. 8S. Reclama- tion Service. GEORGE H. MAXWELL, Executive Chairman, The Na- tional Irrigation Association. B. L. WIGGINS, Vice-Chancellor, the South. GEORGE P. WHITTLESEY, Director, American Forestry As- sociation. University 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. EB. S. GOSNEY, 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, Forestry. Bureau of H. S. GRAVES Director, ‘Yale Forest School. FILIBERT ROTH, Director, Forestry Department University of Michigan. F. V. COVILLE, Botanist, U. S. Department of cA ieee Wo. L. HA Ass’t apcater: Bureau of Forestry JAMES B, ADAMS, In charge of. Records, Bureau of Forestry. HERMANN VON SCHRENKE, Expert, Bureau of Forestry. H. M. SUTER, Editor, Forestry and Irrigation. C. J. BLANCHARD, Statistician, U. S. Reclamation Service. CONTENTES: PART OE FORESTRY AS A NATIONAL QUESTION Toe. PORES IN’ THE Lier OF A NATION |c6 oi ijc lui ce ane ke 3 President Roosevelt. THE GENERAL, NEED OF ForEST PRESERVATION............- 13 James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture. dire: MORES T EGEICN, Oby FRANCE Coe Shows eee etek A 22 J. J. Jusserand, Ambassador from France. ATTITUDE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS TOWARD FoRESTRY 29 B. L. Wiggins, Vice-Chancellor, University of the South. IMPORTANCE OF THE ForEstS To AGRICULTURE............ 42 John Lamb, Member of Congress from Virginia. DEPENDENCE OF BusINESS INTERESTS UPON THE FoRESTS.. 51 Howard Elliott, President, Northern Pacific Railroad. PART:“Ve IMPORTANCE OF THE PUBLIC FOREST LANDS TO IRRIGATION. THE CLosE RELATION BETWEEN FoRESTRY AND IRRIGATION 53 Guy FE. Mitchell. Miensis AND) RESERVOIRS. : i. 60204 bone cl cok whe dbo baeek es 60 F. H. Newell. RELATION OF ForEst CovER To STREAMFLOW.............. 67 J. B. Lippincott. mieceTS OF .WAY IN: FOREST) RESERVES. 00). 4 050235 SP e5 81 Morris Bien. Vili ConTENTS IRRIGATION CONSTRUCTION AND TIMBER SUPPLIES......... 87 Arthur P. Davis. IMPROMPTU ADDRESSES: a ME? Walean era oo cae keke eee ee tee eee QI he AS. TOURER eth talerch, Ge ncale Boe pane cole ae eee 93 PART ai: THE LUMBER INDUSTRY AND THE FORESTS. THE LUMBERMAN’S INTEREST IN FORESTRY............-- 99 N. W. McLeod. CHANGED AT?riTUuDE OF LUMBERMEN TOWARD ForEsSTRY.... 103 J. E. Defebaugh. Is ForEstrY PRACTICABLE ON LonNG LEAF PINE LANDS?.... 124 John L. Kaul. : Is ForEstRY PRACTICABLE IN THE NORTHWEST?........... 132 Victor H. Beckman. INTEREST OF LUUMBERMEN IN CONSERVATIVE FORESTRY..... 137 ‘F. E. Weyerhaeuser. IMPORTANCE OF FoRESTRY TO WOODWORKING INDUSTRIES... 142 M. C. Moore. Is Forestry PRACTICABLE IN THE NORTHEAST?........... 147 John A. Dix. Our Paciric Coast Forests AND LUMBERING AS DIFFER- ING FROM OTHER FORESTS. .../... 00s 1:60 oe merece George P. Emerson. , Risk IN VALS OF STUMPAGES os i0 (525 cece ae ce eee 163 James T. Barber. IMPORTANCE OF LUMBER STATISTICS... 00.000 c0cecccs sees 166 George K. Smith. OPppoRTUNITIES FOR L,UMBERING IN THE PHILIPPINES.....- 173 George P. Ahern. Tur LuMBER DEALERS’ In’rEREST IN Forest PRESERVATION 189 George W. Hotchkiss. CoopERACE AND Its RELATION TO FORESTRY.........-+---- 194 John A. McCann. CoNTENTS ix PART IV. IMPORTANCE OF THE PUBLIC FOREST LANDS, TO GRAZING. PracticAL RESULTS OF THE REGULATION OF GRAZING IN MEE POREST RESERVES | c50 o'r oh ceuite ae ae esas 210 A. F. Potter. Tur Protection oF Home BUILDERS IN THE REGULATION OF GRAZING ON FOREST RESERVES: ...- 0.0.5.2 .8.% 218 E. S. Gosney. Tur ApVANTAGE 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 PURPOSE Sse Acs had aie oe Ain A ORNS GN ge conte 232 Francis E. Warren. Surep GRAZING IN THE Forest RESERVES, From a Lay- RAIN S) (STA NDPOUNTU ? idee ne aka bm Sit tan aero ae 242 L. H. Pammel. PEMEPROMEP TU ADDRESS 6 50d 2 os sins Walnteys & pe ee ee eles ofgce steel rele 249 R. H. Campbell. PAE E V- RAILROADS IN RELATION TO THE FOREST. Wuat INFORMATION 18s Most URGENTLY NEEDED BY RAIL- ROADS REGARDING TIMBER RESOURCES........... 253 Charles F. Manderson. Work OF THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD IN PLANTING TIM- BER) PDR CROSS? LIBG. 6 (steer eee at acmustee eas 260 Joseph T. Richards. Is rt PRACTICABLE FoR RarLroaps To Horp Forest LANps FoR FuTURE SUPPLIES OF TIMBER?.............- 265 L. E. Johnson. x CoNTENTS RESULTS IN THE PRESERVATIVE TREATMENT OF RAILROAD TIMBERS To PROLONG DURABILITY.............. 276 Herman von Schrenk. LETTER BROM “Wire JAMES Jf SELILD C2 os ethan see ssc ke noe 290 PART VI. IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC FOREST LANDS TO MINING. THE DEVELOPMENT OF Water Power As RELATED TO POREST UR ESERVES. (ues Poult Paco e eee 293 A. L. Fellows. WILL THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE ForEst RESERVES ON A CONSERVATIVE BAsiIs RETARD THE DEVELOP- MENT OF: NEINENG! (7.24 25 3o 7. oss eee 302 Seth Bullock. IMPORTANCE OF THE PuBLic Forest LANps To MINING.... 307 Po Grier. MINING IN "tae BOREST RESERVES. 00 6. Joie... oe eee 318 F. A. Fenn. THE VALUE oF Forestry TO COMMERCIAL INTERESTS...... 332 George H. Maxwell. TRCPROMPIY “ADDRESS. 5), oa.) diss kuch so ke Rano eee Cee 349 David T. Day. PART VII. NATIONAL AND STATE FOREST POLICY. Work OF THE BUBBAU OF FORESTRY: .oo0 00 boc. > oe ee 355 Overton W. Price. Work OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN MAPPING THE RESERVES ¢ o usuies win eahdoed kek oa aie nie ena ae 304 Charles D. Walcott. Work oF THE GENERAL LAND OFFICE IN THE ADMINISTRA- TION “OE EE! FRESE RVR 06 oe Goo G fips ale eee 381 W. A. Richards. CONTENTS xi Av PEDERAT, FOREST: SERVICE. 1) 055056) h 20s an a ALAR 301 Gifford Pinchot. PROGRESS IN FoREST RESERVATION IN PENNSYLVANIA...... 306 J. T. Rothrock. IMPROMPTU ADDRESSES: WON ccLACy oka une enacaeeuslechae amen mares 403 Ws CNG RECR Chi orate Mie ates ire oa BET ope ako See 409 Baward Everett: ‘blales: Shciucee ie ie ee Ane 1 i Res ties ig ss pute a es ye he feet Estar aio Canta 413 Aubrey White........ Staite er tama retaace see erate 419 es, Ee, PCA ONT Ss Fo 05.2 kU PEER ee ae OLED wate A24 IVES ol Ee ON RERPATIEG y o.c, crake cue torical en bossa ete 428 | Des) cra sna 02 ol «Roe pee tn ary ec Rn aa ahat Gr cap yrL ay aS ESN 435 (BEE easel hr (c) - SNOMO te Blame Nel OMA SE aE RUN HABE FCs Celera A 437 Ruthettord Py Prayesss Vis oes o eae oc eae 439 PARE SLO MELG SA Bee CE ks a eee nae 442 Cai Cha OMIPlGS: oa ceiesia es tana ee ae halts 4AA Chmibles Wa alge GEN Pe oe es eee Niue state a Ou 3 446 CLES SOU SITS. is RR DAR eRe pea he tee’ eee aA pe as eI a BL pain 448 et Ee ET REA TRS: rue rads a eee Mole eicieinte havigies. 66 aaa Sas 454 ANNOUNCEMENT OF AMERICAN ForEstRY ASSOCIATION.... 473 PART I. FORESTRY AS A NATIONAL QUESTION. ner aes | - ie fie FOREST. IN. THE, LIFE? OF A NATION BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT T 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 CONGRESS 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 is 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 Fast 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 cooperation 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 cooperation 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 cooperation of the west- ern people. I would like to add one word as to the creation of a national forest service which I 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 support 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 | 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. Cooperation between the Department of Agriculture AMERICAN ForREST 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 esthetic 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 cooperation. 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 new, 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 a 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 | 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! CONGRESS 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 itcan 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 ForEsStT 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 16609, 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 E'sterel 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 couid walk from Tripoli to Tunis im 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 ; any 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. FE 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 1898, 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 erowing 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 CONGRESS a3 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 are 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 crowing of the right kind of trees in the right places ; to improve our already expert logging and milling AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 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, the 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. Huis 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 AI 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 cooperation 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) (i 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 CoNncrREss” 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 reproduction 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 CONGRESS 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 eround, 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 Furope, 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 CONGRESS 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. “Tt 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 @peration, FF) * * “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 raore 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 CONGRESS 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 MM 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. Ts iS CCo=.6 1 RAE Roe LD pave CANN 708,840 798,840 Blea iahc tie 2 eed teat ra eee es 7,882,400 4,077,700 11,960,100 TAAWO (ie beck viahoseie was aie 3,955,220 3,501,520 7,450,740 WiasiNetae) (ice soc sae 7,012,960 2,603,480 9,616,440 OPA Gs sige ea eve 18,850,580 10,891,540 20,742,120 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: Mbdeyrstenrneg 2 0 oor Gs ghd gC Ri seiola a otaeiteanlate Wi wie eh eee 1,507,130.53 TUNG N ie an ce Ye tact Ue hres shats, Seah alar eael a ea 228,208.36 AV US TANT DOME 5s !0o55 Jane Wwe Robie mien cle Ane chee cele aoe te 1,292,562.93 ALTE Sar ects eran Woe aC a eae eA ne 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 CONGRESS 51b Tons For the year ériding June 30, 1000... 6.1 csi cece ees ce 2,207,526 Hor the year ending June 30, 1901... ..5.2.00...-05000 2,741,708 Hor the year etiditia June’ 30, T1002. . 5s bss gs od oe os 3,694,604 Hor the year ending June’ 30, 1003....5.5. 00.5.3 es 0008 5,090, 387 For the year ending June 30, 1904. .........2+.20220+ 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 51c PROCEEDINGS OF THE subject, and to encourage other railroads to do like- wise ; to express, further, the willingness and intention of our company to cooperate 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 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 21I,000,000,000 passengers one mile; they trans- port in a year 180,000,000,000 tons of freight one mile AMERICAN ForEsT CONGRESS 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- 51e 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 cooperation 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 odperation 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 BE 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. C 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 El 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 thotisands 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 CONGRESS 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 zsthetic considerations, he made the notable response ; 56 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ‘“T 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 CoNGRESS 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 such 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 CONGRESS 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 anacre. 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 FO NEWELL Chief Engineer, United States Reclamation Service LL 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 “Pails: 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 CONGRESS 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 true 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 regulating 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: ESTIMATED MoNTHLY DISCHARGE OF QUEEN CREEK AT WHIT- Low’s, ARIZONA. DRAINAGE AREA, 143 SQUARE MILES. Discharge in Second feet. Month, 1806. Max. Min. Mean. Faniaey tse ee ei. 63.0 2. 2 2.0 2.0 Bemridatys cto ae iM hss 2 2.0 2.0 OCIA hae eyo es whe era We oe 2 2.0 2.0 Pea RN A RR 2 1.0 Ls UWL aN eA Pea ele a I 1.0 1.0 June: :: Ree I 1.0 1.0 EGS OS og ol encase baretane, OOD 0.0 121.6 PUUGUSE sos Se Seren CEASS 0.6 13.1 September. 2s. 0. ee aes | dee 0.5 rt Gerber. nt. oe ee leo 0.5 13.3 November si.2). 0k oes 80 0.6 1.3 December ci Vee ae 207 0.6 2.0 9,000 0 15. AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 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 EstiMATED MontTHLY DISCHARGE OF CEDAR RIvER NEAR SEAT- TLE, WASHINGTON. DRAINAGE AREA, 143 SQUARE MILEs. Discharge in Second feet. Month, 1897. Max. Min. Mean. Jamar eee tebe fire 2,812 815 1,430 PEWMUATY Se ob dee dhe 2,415 823 1,303 DR GGH EY coMiuceiata sete 1,306 723 QOI Vet 11 5 aR a AOA Cpe isd ~ 790 1,599 Treen ie ee Sake: corel toate te 2,143 939 1,562 AMER awk dec nate ete 1,410 780 1,060 Mya ie hata saoevaiachave 2,284 572 1,135 WAGOUSES Ne oye eae ge 561 342 427 HepreINbehs Cobo cuss 418 311 350 REE ONC jest siah Scjoneteiaee 433 294 339 Nivenmiber oii c's nie dia 3,155 323 ~ 1,318 WRereniber es sissies Sets. s 3,601 674 1,639 otaheiak fore ete OOK 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 I, 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. 100, 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 western 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 CONGRESS 73 foot per second per square mile, the discharge would be 100 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. “It 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 raimfall 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 CONGRESS 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. Percent. 0.70 Forested. Igt+ 36— 3 1.05 Forested. 19+ 73+ 6 1.47 Forested. 19+ Fi 6 6 53 Non-forested. 13— 212+ 4O “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 RuN-orr DuRING JANUARY, FEBRUARY, AND MarcCH, 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. Per cent. 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. RAPIDITY OF DECREASE IN RuN-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. Acre feet. Acre feet. Acre feet. 0.70 Forested. 1.6 153— 66— Pee 1.05 Forested. 1.6 146— 70— 30— 1.47 Forested. 1.6 166— 74— co 53 Non-forested. I 56— 2— 0 “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 a9 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 NOoN- FORESTED CATCHMENT AREAS IN THE SAN BEr- NARDINO MouNTAINS, CALIFORNIA. Areaof Condition Pre- Run-oft 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 7a 28 1.05 Forested. 46 756 30 1.47 Forested. 46 om pe4 36 53 Non-forested. 23 1,192 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 Galifornia 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 CONGRESS 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 1goI-2, a bill was introduced providing for right of AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 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 CoNnGRESS 85 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 PROCEEDINGS 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- 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 tunnelsand 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 fo) ested regions are more sustained than similar strear 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 CONGRESS 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 “ean apes e oath gs = cad a (35 oy etree 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 L. ¢ 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. T!-2 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 ForREST CONGRESS IOI 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: “TWncle 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 CONGRESS 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. Inthe 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 90 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 CONGRESS 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 ’5os, 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 CONGRESS 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. iio PROCEEDINGS 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 CONGRESS III 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 came 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 CoNncRESS 113 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— A planting 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 CoNnGRESS 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.” historical fact. "The boy is one of the honored mem- AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 227 bers of this Congress. His companion was one of California’s most able and eminent men, a mental athlete who failed, after thirty years of experience and observation, to classify the great San Joaquin Valley as agricultural. In view of such experiences, what must we expect of any expert or commission charged with the classification of the vast areas of arid lands. What could the expert have told you of the oil wells of California and Texas thirty years ago? With the rapid development of irrigation and water storage with governmental aid, and with the develop- ment of water from beneath the surface scarcely be- gun, the future possibilities of the deserts, valleys, and plains of the Western domain are yet beyond our comprehension, and the Government should hold fast these titles for the home-builders of the future which will come with these developments. Through each step of this evolution we must re- member the absent home-builders of little means and limited opportunities, and zealously protect their op- portunities for the future against the encroachments of the strong and aggressive, if we expect them to raise up patriotic sons and daughters who will perpet- uate this as a just and free government; the grandest heritage we can leave to our posterity, to humanity. ADVANTAGE OF COOPERATION BE- TWEEN THE GOVERNMENT AND LIVE STOCK ASSOCIATIONS IN THE REGULATION AND CONTROL OF GRAZING ON FOREST RESERVES BY FRED P. JOHNSON Secretary National Live Stock Association ASSUMING that it is conceded that the forest re- serves may be used in an economical manner for the grazing of live stock, the absolute necessity of an efficient control and regulation of this privilege, for the protection of the reserves, must be admitted. To those not familiar with the vast areas the forest reserves cover, the task of providing an efficient patrol to guard them and prevent their injury, may seem a mere matter of detail. Those who are familiar with these conditions, on the contrary, are inclined to the belief that the whole United States Army would hardly furnish enough men to give the adequate protection needed. While, under the present system of patrol, a small army of men are in service, the protection af- forded is only nominal. How then can the stockmen be allowed to graze in these reserves with the assurance that they will be rightly used, and not only the grazing, but the forests as well, be protected from misuse and vandalism, for there is vandalism in grazing as well as in the destruction of forests? From my knowledge of the stockmen in the West, I can assert that there is no class of men more vitally AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 229 interested in sane and reasonable forest protection than the stockmen. If given an opportunity, no class of men could furnish more absolute and reliable protec- tion for these reserves. But would they do it? Yes, if properly approached in the matter. The western stockman is of a peculiar disposition, due probably to his environment. Restless and impa- tient under any attempt to bind him to iron-clad rules and regulations, yet, when approached with a request for help and assistance, even though he may derive no benefit, he is quick to respond. It has been the failure of governmental departments to understand this phase of his character that has resulted in much opposition to forest reserves. As the pioneer, who braved the dangers and hardships of the frontier to open the way to civilization, he has felt that he had acquired some moral rights which even the Government should re- spect, and to have a stranger ride up to him while on the range and dictate to him things that he may or may not do, even though spoken in the name of the Govern- ment, is galling to his pride and that feeling of absolute freedom which has been bred into his nature. Ap- proached by the proper officials with an explanation of the necessity of the forest reserves; the good that will eventually result to him from their establishment, and a request for assistance in maintaining them and carrying out the plans of the Government, would meet with immediate and hearty response. All over the West there are organizations of stock- men who have associated themselves together for the protection of their interests and for the improvement of conditions in their industry. These organizations are composed of the leading and progressive stockmen in the various districts. These are men who are build- ing homes in the desert and they are profoundly inter- 230 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ested in anything that affects the prosperity of their locality. Here, already organized, is an army of men greater than any the Government could press into service for this purpose, ready, willing, effective, and to be had for the asking. The Government has only to request that in return for the privilege of grazing on these reserves, that the organized stock association assume the task of protecting them, fostering the vege- tation and preventing fire and vandalism. It is pos- sible that many of them do not thoroughly understand the problem the Government has undertaken to solve; then they should be enlightened, and it would be found that there would be no more enthusiastic supporters of the reserves than the stockmen. It must not be understood that I advocate the com- plete turning over of these reserves to the stock interests. The Government control and supervision must be absolute, but the organized stockmen could be sworn in as forest officers. They should have at least an advisory voice in the making of the rules and regu- lations and in return should be given as much freedom in the use of the reserves for grazing purposes as would be consistent and in keeping with the objects to be attained. The advantage of such cooperation between the government and stockmen must be evident. The advantage to the Government is to enlist the active assistance of men who live on the ground, as it were, in the advancement of the forest reserve idea. Under such an arrangement the reserves would have a better protection than could possibly be obtained in any other way and at the minimum cost for administration. In- stead of the antagonism of a large class of citizens who really have rights that the public is morally bound to respect, you will have their enthusiastic support. This, AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 231 in my mind, is worth much. On the other hand, the stockmen are made to realize that these reserves are being maintained for the benefit of the community in which they live, and they, having secured a personal interest in the success of the idea, will do their utmost to build up the reserves along the lines desired. While they are given the right to use the reserves for grazing purposes, the privilege will not be abused under such conditions, for the community, being interested, will permit no abuse. The time to inaugurate the proposed plan is at hand, since the reserves have passed into the control of the Department of Agriculture, through the recent passage of a bill by Congress transferring the administration of the reserves from the Department of the Interior. The Department of Agriculture is closer to the stock- man than any other department of the Government, and now that the transfer is accomplished it will be an easy matter to secure this codperation. It is unnecessary in a paper of this kind to go into the details of a plan to secure this codperation. It is a perfectly simple matter, and where there at present does not exist live stock associations to take up this work, they would be quickly organized when it was understood that the Government was willing to recog- nize them and accept their assistance in the building up of the reserves and in the maintenance of their safety and integrity. As to the question of the wisdom of adopting the policy suggested, it seems to me that there can be no negative argument worth considering, none at least from those who understand the actual conditions in the West. NECESSITY OF USING THE FOREST RE- SERVES FOR GRAZING PURPOSES BY SENATOR FRANCIS E. WARREN President National Woolgrowers’ Association FOREST protection in the United States by Govern- ment interposition is of recent origin, dating from March 3, 1891, when in the act to repeal the timber culture laws, a section was placed conferring upon the President authority to set apart and reserve public lands, wholly or in part covered with timber or under- growth, whether of commercial value or not, as public reservations. If the law authorizing the creation of forest reserves had been enacted half a century earlier, the people of the United States would to-day be richer than they are by billions of dollars, the value of countless acres of timber wasted in the ruthless rush for earlier devel- opment of the country and destroyed by fire for want of adequate protection, mainly the latter. The forestry reserve law which took the place of the timber-culture law (under which nine millions of acres of public lands passed into the ownership of individuals), is simple in terms and occupies but brief space in the statutes. But its effect has been far-reach- ing, and under it has grown up in the brief period it has been in existence a new and important branch of governmental administration. The forest reserve law has been taken advantages of during every year since its enactment for the creation of forest reserves, excepting during the years 1894, AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 233 1895, and 1896. During the other eleven years the law has been in operation the several Presidents have issued proclamations creating fifty-nine forest reserves, embracing 62,763,494 acres, an area so great that com- parisons are necessary in order to obtain an adequate conception of it. If the various reserves were assembled in one com- pact tract, the aggregate area would be greater than that of the great State of Wyoming; greater than the area of Michigan, of Oregon, of Utah, of Minnesota, or of Nebraska. It would be greater than the com- bined area of all the New England States, with New Jersey and Delaware thrown in for good measure, and it would be greater than New York and Pennsylvania combined. The primary object of the creation of forest reserves was that the timber supply of the country might be husbanded and preserved, and that the denudation of the great timbered areas of the country, which was progressing with fateful rapidity, might be choked. But with the creation of the reserves a more important object was evolved, and that is the preservation of the water supply. I cannot better describe this object than by quoting from the message of President Roosevelt to Congress at the opening of its present session: “This” (the preservation of the water supply) “is their most important use. The principal users of the water thus preserved are irrigation ranchers and set- tlers, cities and town to whom their municipal water supplies are of the very first importance, users and furnishers of water power, and the users of water for domestic, manufacturing, mining, and other purposes. All these are directly dependent upon the forest reserves.” The beneficial object of the withdrawal from unre- 234 PROCEEDINGS OF THE stricted public use of the forest lands of the West and their creation into reservations, has the endorsement of residents of Western States, even though the public land area of those States is seriously diminished. The Western people, patriotic in all things, acquiesced in the intrenchment upon their States for the general public good. Although the creation of forest reserves and forest regulations often work hardships to individ- uals and to communities, there is no branch of the Government which has more loyal support from West- ern citizens than has the forest service. That there have been earnest complaints concerning it cannot be denied. That these complaints were just is evident, for the two great administrative arms of the Government, the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture, have taken cognizance of them, and have provided remedies for many of the complaints, until now there is a fair degree of harmony between the people directly concerned by forest reserve regulation and the forest service. The complaints which have attended the administra- tion of the forest reserve law grew out of the mistaken notion of many minor officials, and of some whose places were quite high on the official roster, that the reserves and what they contained were to be withdrawn from public use. They acted in their dealings with those living on or near the reserves on the theory that the timber, the grass, the water, and even the air, was reserved for the use of the Government and such of its official servants who might happen to have their abiding place, temporarily or permanently, on the reserves. Happily, this idea of withdrawing the reserves from all use has, year by year, lost its potency. Investiga- tion, examination, and experience demonstrated that AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 235 the reserves, by judicious use, could best be preserved, and the welcome words of President Roosevelt, in his latest message to Congress, coincide with the views which have been held by Western citizens since the creation of the reserves, and they illustrate also how closely and clearly the President is in touch with West- ern needs and interests. In his message he said: “Tt is the cardinal principle of the forest reserve policy of this administration that the reserves are for use. Whatever interferes with the use of their re- sources is to be avoided by every possible means.” The most serious complaint lodged against the administrative regulations of the forest reserve was in reference to the restriction (in the earlier days of the reservations, amounting to almost prohibition,) of live stock grazing on the reserves. While the restrictive regulations were applied to all classes of live stock, they were particularly and almost viciously severe in reference to sheep. And, while it may not be germane to my subject, it might be noted that the poor sheep and the still poorer sheepman have been the object of hostility of mankind almost since the beginning of recorded time. The first attempt to put a sheepman out of business was when Cain slew his brother Abel, who “was a keeper of sheep.” Even the great John Randolph, it is said, declared “that he would walk a mile out of his way any time to kick a sheep.” And this innate antipathy to sheep and sheepmen found expression in the earlier regulations which the officers of the forest service saw fit to put into effect for the care and protection of reserves. With little or no practical knowledge of the subject, they held the sheep to be the most destructive animal in existence. If allowed within the forest reserves, it was charged, 236 PROCEEDINGS OF THE this ravenous creature would not only eat the grasses found there, but would feed on the shrubs and shoots, and if hunger were not fully appeased by this diet, would climb the trees and devour the tender branches. If allowed to cross the reserves, it was claimed that the sharp hoofs of the sheep would cut and pack the spongy forest soil so that floods and serious soil erosion would follow and forest reproduction would be en- dangered. Then, too, it was charged that the herders would leave camp fires uncared for and that fire and destruction would follow in the wake of the shepherds and their flocks. It took many years for the Western stockmen to convince the officials in Washington that sheep do not climb trees and do not eat coniferous plant or tree growth, which forms the greater part of timber of Western reserves. It took much effort to convince them that grazing off the heavy growth of weeds and wild grass in the many parts of the reserves was the best protection that could be provided against the spread of fires. It has taken much demonstration to convince them that it was more to the interest of the stockman than any other class to protect the reserves against fireand that scarcely an authenticated case could be found where a forest fire originated purposely or carelessly with a stockman. There have been exceptions to this class of officials. Two notable ones occur to me at this time, the present Commissioner of the General Land Office, and the Forester of the Department of Agriculture. Following the advent of these officials into the forest service have come reforms along practical lines which have the sanction and approval of the President and the warm welcome of the woolgrower and stockman. These reforms have been along the lines of more AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 237 stringent regulations for policing and patrolling the reserves, more liberal regulations for permitting set- tlers to obtain timber for their own use, more liberal regulations concerning live stock grazing and sheep- crossing permits, careful investigation of the character of the lands before including them in forest reserves and in the investigation of lands previously included with a view to restoring them to public entry and set- tlement, if found more valuable for grazing or agri- culture than for growth of timber. These reforms followed the earlier onerous regula- tions and were the result of petitions for relief sent to the Department of the Interior from individual settlers and ranchmen, stock associations, stockgrowers, and irrigation congresses, and of personal requests for a more liberal attitude towards Western people made by members of the Senate and House of Representa- tives from Western States. During the year just closed sheep were allowed to enter and graze in twenty-one forest reserves, and cattle and horses in fifty-five, while in 1901 but eight reserves were opened to sheep and thirty to cattle and horses. In 1904 there were issued 843 sheep grazing permits allowing 1,806,722 sheep to enter and graze on the reserves as against 391 permits and 1,214,418 sheep in Igot. During last year 5,874 permits for cattle and horses were issued and 620,657 head of this class of live stock allowed to graze as against 1,926 permits and 277,621 head of stock in 1901. During the year ending June 30, 1904, 919,225 additional sheep were allowed to trail across the reservations in going to grazing grounds or shipping points outside of the reserves. To more correctly make known the necessities of using the forest reserves for grazing purposes a refer- 238 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ence to forestry in my own State—Wyoming—would not be out of place, as conditions there are typical of conditions generally. | When Wyoming was admitted to statehood in 1890 its area was 62,641,920 acres. Since that time over ten per cent. of the area of Wyoming has been with- drawn from public settlement and created into forest reserves. The State has given up for the general public good an area larger than the State of Massachu- setts, larger than New Hampshire, or New Jersey, or Vermont, or Maryland. There has been no serious complaint on account of the great area thus withdrawn and reserved, but there has been complaint as to indis- criminate early withdrawals of great tracts of land not forest, but grazing lands. There has been complaint also that grazing restrictions in the reserves were too severe and that a much smaller number of live stock was permitted to enter the reserves during the grazing seasons than the parks and open spaces in the reserves would carry without detriment. There has been com- plaint that the bureaucracy of the forest reserve admin- istration caused unnecessary delay in the granting of timber cutting permits and that many matters that should be settled by local officers had to be referred to Washington, thus causing much needless delay and inconvenience to the ranchman and stockman. Some of their complaints have been given due con- sideration and reforms inaugurated to remedy them. The Commissioner of the General Land Office, in charge of the administration work of the service, and the Forester of the Department of Agriculture, in charge of the scientific features of forestry, took cog- nizance of the complaint that lands were included in reserves regardless of their character and conjointly conducted investigations and examinations to remedy this evil. AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 239 An investigation was made of the Yellowstone re- serve, the largest in the United States, which required 110 days and 1,800 miles of travel by a skilled engineer and forest expert and their assistants. As a result of their investigation they recommended the elimina- tion from the reserve of 559,350 acres of grazing and agricultural lands and the addition of 130,560 acres of outside timber lands, making a net reduction in the reserve of 428,800 acres. This recommendation was approved by the Commissioner of the General Land Office and the Forester, and the change in the reserva- tion area directed by presidential proclamation. A similar investigation was made of the Big Horn forest reserve, Wyoming, which was reduced in size by eliminating 65,000 acres. I am of the opinion that still more liberality could be shown in granting grazing privileges without detri- ment to the objects for which the reserves were created and with great benefit to those living within the vicinity of the reserves. Wyoming has many resources. It is one of the leading coal producing States of the Union. It has shipping mines of copper and iron. It produces oil of superior quality and in great quantity. Its building stone is used in many outside States, and it has as many farms in proportion to population as any State in the Union. But the chief industry of Wyoming is the raising of live stock, and under the conditions which have prevailed for nearly half a century, grazing on the public domain constitutes the principal method of live stock raising. To arbitrarily withdraw from general public use an area of over 7,000,000 acres, which is perhaps twenty per cent. of the public grazing lands of the State, would seriously endanger this great live stock industry if needlessly severe regulations were 240 PROCEEDINGS OF THE kept in force for the control of the reserves. It is, therefore, a necessity that good judgment be exercised in granting grazing privileges so that the fullest measure of capacity of the reserves may be accorded the live stock interests, at the same time guarding against forest injury. In my opinion the reserves of Wyoming, the forests of which are all of coniferous growth, would bear without injury a decided increase of live stock during the grazing season. Complaints have been made justly from time to time of the refusal to allow stock to be trailed across the reserves for shipment or to reach grazing grounds on the public domain. These complaints have, in a large measure, been remedied, but there is still room for improvement. The conditions in Wyoming apply generally to the entire Western country, and the needs of the sheepmen and other live stock owners in relation to the forest reserves are general and may be summarized as fol- lows: First: Thorough and complete topographic exami- nations should be made of all forest reserves with a view to restoring to the public domain all grazing and agricultural lands, and all lands covered with timber of non-commercial value and valueless as a protection to watersheds or the headwaters of streams, or for the protection of water supplies for cities and towns. Second: Adequate public trails should be established across forest reserves so that sheep and other live stock might be moved across the reserves to reach graz- ing grounds, markets or shipping points, with the least possible inconvenience to owners. Third: The grazing capacity of each reserve should be estimated by local officials, who should take into consideration the actual conditions of grass growth AMERICAN Forest CoNncrRESS 241 each year, and the reserves should be opened during the grazing seasons to the full capacity of the reserves, consistent with their preservation and the prevention of over grazing. Fourth: The administration of the reserves should be placed, as far as possible, in the hands of local officials, and the rangers, supervisors, and superinten- dents should be, when practicable to obtain them, local men familiar with local conditions and requirements. Fifth: Grazing privileges on the reserves should be confined to stock owned by taxpayers and ranch owners in the State in which the reserve, upon which the grazing is sought, is located. I am satisfied that the inclination of the present officers of the Government in charge of the forest ser- vice is favorable to the granting of these several neces- sities of the grazing interests, and I believe now that a law has been enacted by Congress for consoli- dating the control of the reserves under the De- partment of Agriculture, the needs and necessities of stockmen in relation to forest reserves will receive earnest and impartial consideration. SHEEP GRAZING IN THE FOREST RE- SERVES FROM A LAYMAN'S STANDPOINT BY L. H. PAMMEL Professor of Botany, Iowa College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts HAVE, been somewhat interested in forest matters for a good many years, not only from the stand- point of the subject of this article, but also from the standpoint of a botanist. I have followed somewhat closely the range problems for fifteen years, and my work has brought me in contact with it from Texas to Montana. I have been deeply interested in this prob- lem, for the Iowa farmer needs to recuperate his stock for feeding purposes from the great arid regions of the West. No stock equals the western range animals for feeding purposes. It is, therefore, to the interests of the Mississippi Valley that good conditions shall be maintained on the Western ranges. I shall not stop to review the various interests concerned in connection with the forest reserves of the West. Four interests must be considered (1) grazing, (2) timber supplies, (3) irrigation, (4) mining. Each must be brought together in one harmonious whole. The breaking of any one of the links in the chain cannot but affect the others. During the early development of the West one interest only was the dominating one, that of mining. It was soon found that some lines of agricultural pursuits were needed to give stability to the country. Then came a conflict between the different lines of agriculture—the irrigator, the sheep AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 243 herder, the cattleman, all seemed to be in irreparable conflict. Happily, however, through the efforts of Mr. Gifford Pinchot some of these matters are being settled in an amicable way. It has been my good fortune to have spent some time in the Rocky Mountain region of Colorado, Wy- oming, Utah, and Montana, partly to investigate some of these problems and partly as a layman to enjoy the benefits of the mountain air and to study the flora. What were some of the conditions in the great pas- ture fields of the Rocky Mountains and adjacent re- gions from 1897 to IgoI? The cattlemen were dissatisfied because their ranges were more or less injured,-the irrigator complained of lack of water. The sheepmen alone entered no general complaints except where the competition was too strong among themselves. The open ranges which had offered abundant opportunities at first became poorer and poorer and the sheep had to seek greener fields in the mountains during the summer. What was more natural than that they should make use of the forest reserves, where in small parks and meadows grew an abundance of nutritious grasses. When the permits were first given it was supposed that grazing would be confined to the parks and meadows. But the spirit of this regulation was probably never adhered to, since the competition among sheepmen was so strong that they had to seek all kinds of feed for fear of their flocks reaching the point of starvation in some cases. It was my privilege to examine three of the forest reserves, the Uintah, Big Horn, and Bitter Root. The Bitter Root forest reserve, in Montana, is a ragged range containing a large amount of timber and several important streams, the water of which is used to irrigate the fertile fields in Montana and Idaho. 244 PROCEEDINGS OF THE The timber in this region is somewhat different from that occurring in the Uintah Mountains. There are large bodies of murravana and pinus vexilis. Spruces, balsam and the Douglas fir are found at different alti- tudes. This region is very different from the Uintah Mountains topographically. Sheep grazing has never been permitted here, and there are few parks. It is essentially a forest region. Let us first, therefore, con- sider the importance of the mountains in respect to the water supply for irrigation. No better natural reservoirs can be found anywhere in the Rocky Mountains than the many lakes located at the sources of the larger streams rising in the Uin- tah Mountains. In addition there are many basins or ancient glacial lakes that contain vegetation well adapted to hold the moisture and thus release it in the form of springs. The flow of water from these springs is regulated by the amount of water held in the soil or retained by the humble plants growing in forest, meadow, and park. Hundreds of these mead- ows occur in the reserve, their continuity being broken only by stretches of forest. A study of these mead- ows shows a large number of plants important in the conservation of moisture. ‘Through decay these plants form a rich humus which, owing to the peculiar physi- cal conditions, undergo decomposition slowly. Hence this soil is highly retentive of moisture. The bogs always carry an abundance of moisture and the meadow, under natural conditions, generally contains water, but under overgrazing or the effects of forest fires the meadows are damaged to such an extent that the water during the summer months is continually diminishing. The present diminished water supply is due in part to injudicious grazing. Is the water supply less than AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 245 formerly? So gaugings of the streams have shown, as does the testimony of old settlers. Two factors have been important in bringing about these changed conditions. First, an unusually large part of the re- serve has been burned over. Prior to 1879 small patches had been burned over by the Indians and trappers. Large areas were burned by the Indians in 1879. Since then there have been many destructive fires, burning many thousand acres, During the early settlement of the country some of these fires were started with the idea of making better grazing, but experience has taught owners of sheep and cattle that the burning of forests does not improve the range. Fires in this reserve, as elsewhere, are started care- lessly. Sheep herders have been given the credit for starting these fires, but I believe they should not be held responsible. More fires are started by hunting and fishing parties than by cattle and sheepmen. Bitter controversy has prevailed for years among cattle and sheepmen and those who use the water for irrigation purposes. The latter nearly always agree with the cattlemen in regard to the destructive work of the sheep in the reserve. In some cases the criti- cisms are justifiable. A few illustrations may be cited. During the winter of 1899-1900 there was an unusually light fall of snow in the mountains with a light rain- fall in the summer of 1900. Forage was scarce, so short that the meadows at high altitudes were stripped of their plants, and the forests were denuded of their undergrowth as much as the meadows. Lower down in the reserves the valleys of all the streams looked like sheep trails with dust rising in clouds even in the woods. The sheep had to resort to willows, potentilla fruticosa, betula glandulosa, quercus, prunus demissa and aspen for their forage. These were I 246 PROCEEDINGS OF THE stripped of their foliage as high as the sheep could reach. The similar species were entirely denuded. Sheep are said not to graze on conifers, but in numer- ous cases the Engelmann spruce, Lodgepole pine, balsam, and Douglas fir were stripped of their foilage as high up as sheep could reach. In that year the grazing privilege was granted to 180,000 sheep, a number far in excess of what the conditions warranted. The number actually grazed was probably still larger. In 1901 and 1902 the conditions were very much im- proved. So many sheep in the reserve cannot help being injurious to the forest. The indiscriminate grazing in the burnt timber destroys the herbaceous plants and keeps the small shrubs in an enfeebled condition and thus prevents the renewal of the forest. In no case did I observe young pines where fires have occurred during the last eight or ten years. But in timber nearing maturity, and even mature timber, the injury was great. The herbaceous plants are in- jured to such an extent that reseeding is impossible. Seven years ago herbaceous plants were in abundance along all of the brooks. Now, however, they are con- fined to the headwaters of the streams and plentiful only just below timber line. Many valuable grasses were once abundant, but now have become rare be- cause the plants do not have a chance to reseed the ground since the roots are destroyed by tramping and close grazing. In order that sheep owners may have a longer lease of the forest reserve the suggestion has been made, by those who are interested in the sheep grazing ques- tion, that every sheep owner who receives the privilege from the Government should be compelled to reseed the ground with grass seed and let the grazing go on AMERICAN ForEst CONGRESS 247 as before. This is not necessary. I believe under existing conditions it is practically impossible for grass or any other plant to get a good start. But given an opportunity the pasture and meadows will recover. After spending three seasons in this reserve, I am convinced more than ever that the number of sheep in it should be regulated by wise and judicious rules laid down by the Department of Agriculture, subject to change as the Department may from time to time deem expedient, or entirely prohibited until the forest is in a better condition. The solution of the problem is a difficult one under the present conditions. Public opinion in Utah and Wyoming is decidedly in favor of unrestricted grazing privileges regardless of conse- quences. So long as the Government pursues the pres- ent policy in regard to the semi-arid lands so long will the question remain unsettled. In my opinion the leasing of the semi-arid lands for a term of years will help partly to solve the question for the forest reserves. The free use of our public domain for every one destroys the range to such an extent that the sheepmen are forced to use the forest areas. Free ranges should be abolished. In the Bitter Root forest reserve, although larger quantities of water are used than formerly, the water supply from the mountains is scarcely diminished so far as I have been able to learn. The most important factor in the Bitter Root forest reserve to be observed is that the young trees are coming up everywhere in great quantities. Grass and various herbaceous plants are abundant and thick. To make the forest reserve more effective, power should be given to the forest supervisor to open roads and trails. In the Uintah forest reserve there can be no doubt that the most important factor in diminishing the water supply is injudicious grazing. 248 PROCEEDINGS OF THE Much forage of good value occurs in all of these reserves and from an impartial standpoint I am in- clined to the opinion this should be used but regulated in such-a manner that forest trees will not suffer. To do this will require good officials, who will harmonize the various conflicting interests. I would respectfully urge the sentiments expressed by Mr. Pinchot and Dr. Roth in their several papers. GRAZING ON PUBLIC LANDS OF CANADA (Impromptu Address) BY R. H. CAMPBELL Secretary, Canadian Forestry Association ] DO not respond to the call for Western men, but am very glad that the discussion has been brought back again to Western conditions, because I am con- nected with the Department of the Interior of Canada, which has the management of the Western lands and deals with the problems which have been specially brought before the Congress this afternoon, and I thought a statement of the method that has been adopted by us in dealing with the Western grazing interest might perhaps be of some interest to the Con- gress. The problem has not become an acute one with us in connection with the forest reservations. The grazing has not injured them seriously, and we have not developed the management of the forest reserves to such an extent that we have given much attention to that subject. Another reason why the grazing in the forest reserves has not been a very pressing subject is the fact that there are no sheep grazed in close proximity to the reserves or within them, and as the chief objection has been made to the grazing of sheep in the reserves on your side of the boundary, I think it is from that the problem has largely arisen. In the lands outside of the reserves we have been following for a number of years a leasing system. We have not laid down the principle, which apparently has been laid down in your administration, that the range is free to any man who wishes to make use of it; in fact, we lay down the principle, in the first place, that no person has the right to make use of the public land 250 PROCEEDINGS OF THE for grazing purposes without special permission from the Minister of the Interior, and then we go on and define the rules by which he may be allowed to make use of that land for.grazing. The regulation that has been followed for a number of years is that leases for a period of twenty-one years may be granted for an area not to exceed 100,000 acres. ‘The rental asked for this lease is two cents per acre. A number of leases have been taken up under this system which have brought in a fair amount of revenue to the Govern- ment. Recently the large influx into and settlement of our West has raised the question of the management of the grazing lands to an important position and made it a more acute one. When grazing leases were first adopted a feeling arose between those holding leases and some of the settlers who wished to go in on these leaseholds. ‘The Government then decided, in conse- quence of the agitation that so arose, to cancel these leaseholds, allowing the holders to purchase one-tenth of the area and thereafter granted leases only subject to a homestead entry. That policy was followed for some time, and then later a number of leases were granted without the provision that homestead entry should be granted within them. Considerable objec- tion was made, and it was finally decided to suspend further action until the matter could be given full con- sideration. It has been under consideration for some time past, and although I am not in a position yet to say fully what will be finally decided, I think that the decision will be that we will stick to the leasing sys- tem. We have found it to work out with a fair degree of satisfaction, and I think that the fact of giving the leaseholder a proprietary right to a certain extent will make him careful to see that the land of which he has control is not overgrazed and is kept in proper condi- tion for all the time that it is held under lease by him. PART V RAILROADS IN RELATION TO THE FOREST WHAT INFORMATION IS MOST URG- ENTLY NEEDED BY RAILROADS RE- GARDING TIMBER RESOURCES BY GENERAL CHARLES F. MANDERSON General Solicitor, Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Company A SHORT time before the year 1860 there crossed the Missouri River, on the line of latitude of the most progressive development and most intelligent progress, to make a home in the then Territory of Nebraska, a young man, who joined to physical strength and virile force a keen appreciation of the needs of the future and a determination of purpose only equalled by the intelligence which guided that purpose, and the abounding faith that led to the desired result. Settling upon broad acres of virgin soil, he found himself in a treeless region, on the eastern edge of what the geographers of the day were pleased to call the Great American Desert. He was one of the leaders of that hardy band of men by whose aggressive power that desert land, the range of the wild buffalo and the hunting ground of the wilder Indian, was to be developed into an agricultural garden, whose products in a single year, in less than fifty years of development, were to very nearly equal in value the annual output of all the gold and silver producing mines of the world. For had this pioneer lived to 1904 he would have seen from the yield of the fields of vast extent of corn and small grain, from the domestic animals ready for the world’s market, a product valued at $500,000,000, or over three times the value of all the gold and silver 254 PROCEEDINGS OF THE produced that year in the United States. The youth who thus settled, less than half a century ago, near the banks of the turbid and oft times turbu- lent Missouri, looked about him with sorrowful and, I fear, regretful gaze. On all that broad expanse of un- dulation no tree to gladden the sight, no shade to offer its restful protection to contemplative man or reminat- ing beast. He called to mind the groves of his native state; he thought of the spreading oaks, the leafy maples, and the stately pines of Michigan, and probably from the longing homesickness there came the inspira- tion that ripened into the motto of his life: “Plant trees.” From that inspiring thought came a transfor- mation delightful to contemplate. Standing now on the eminence where he built his home, on every side are to be seen the sylvan evidences of his industry and foresight. Lofty trees, many of them true monarchs of the forest, wave their graceful tops as the wind makes music in the branches, singing ever a grateful requiem to the builder of Arbor Lodge. The example he set has not been lost. Groves innumerable now dot the landscape, once so bare. Countless millions of trees have been planted as a result of his. persistent inculcation of the benefits of tree-planting, and in every State and Territory of the United States, except Dela- ware and the Indian Territory, by legislative enactment or executive proclamation one day in each year is set apart as a legal holiday in which the people are encouraged to plant trees. It is a monument to his memory more enduring than marble, more lasting than brass. Need I give the name of the founder of Arbor Day to you—lovers of trees that you are? The names of J. Sterling Morton and James Wilson are indissolubly linked together in the annals of forest development. May their tribes increase! | AMERICAN ForEST CONGRESS 255 The President is quoted as saying that the forest question is the most vital internal problem in the United States. It is truly so, and we are here assem- bled to give increased vitality to the movement to substitute saving for losing, preservation for assassi- nation, creation for destruction, birth for death. We are here to say to the servants of the people that as compared with the reforming or the deforming of the tariff and its schedules, the extinction or the encour- agement of trade combinations, the regulation or the demoralization of interstate transportation—all ques- tions of importance, we admit—the problem of how we shall conserve the timber production of the country is the paramount issue. By its conservation we are pre- served ; by its destruction we perish. The suggestions as to the best methods of preserving what we have and adding to our store are for you who are experts, and not for me, a mere tyro, to give. My duty at the moment is to show briefly the needs of the railroads as to timber resources. I might spend time in showing the relation that railroad transporta- tion bears to every industry, and that under the methods of modern civilization not one could be suc- cessfully maintained without it; but this would insult your intelligence. The needs of railroads can, how- ever, very profitably be called to your attention. There are in the United States 206,885.99 miles of main tracks, 79,376.03 miles of second tracks and sidings, being a total mileage of 286,262.02. The vast number of trees needed to be felled to maintain this tremendous mileage is so enormous as to stagger belief and exhaust a reasonable amount of figures. The timber goes mainly into ties, bridges, station houses, road crossings, rolling stock, platforms, furniture, and also into many minor uses. Wherever used there comes to it depre- 256 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ciation and decay, demanding renewal and replacement. Let us consider the matter of ties alone, for that will serve as a fair parallel to all other uses for railroad purposes. The average number of ties to the mile of tracks is 3,000; so that 858,786,000 ties have gone into the construction of the tracks. The probable average life of an oak tie is ten years. Pine ties naturally last from four to six years, and when burnetized, creosoted or otherwise treated their average life is probably extended to ten years. It will, therefore, be seen that Io per cent of the ties now in track must be renewed annually, making a yearly demand for replacement of nearly 90,000,000 and in a decade 900,000,000. The average price of oak ties is 55 cents, and of pine ties 38 cents each. ‘Treating for prolongation of life adds To cents to the cost of each tie. The average cost of all ties now going into the trackage of the railroads of the United States is 50 cents apiece, making an annual expenditure of $45,000,000, and $450,000,000 every ten years; and this calculation of cost does not include the labor of placing the ties in the track or the expense of local transportation. Nor does it take into account the gradual but inevitable increase in price as the supply lessens, the demand incident to the build- ing of the new lines of road absolutely demanded by the ever-advancing commerce of the country, both intra and interstate, and the necessary supply of street car lines, both horse and electric; elevated railways, subways, and mine tracks. The demands of these corporations are enormous, and constantly increasing. Add to these requirements the many others caused by the uses heretofore briefly referred to and some con- ception can be had of how capacious is the maw of the great transportation lines of the republic, upon whose successful and steady maintenance all industries AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 257 depend. It may be better that I should state that they are interdependent, for without these industries rail- roads could not thrive, and without the railroads the industries could not survive, and to maintain both industries and railroads the timber and lumber product of the forests is the prime factor and absolute neces- sity. This much for the needs. What of the supply for the needs, the satisfaction of these wants? It is not only the preservation by judicious forestry and intel- ligent lumbering of the store we have, but the planting and husbanding, wherever trees can be induced to grow, of new forests. To this end there must be the arousing of public sentiment, so that in every state and in the nation there shall be taught the lesson that will lead to legislation encouraging timber growth. The labor must not only be one of love, but one of duty. We should rejoice in the fact that in this move- ment, fraught with so much of good to the republic, sentimentalism joins hands with commercialism. “There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,” but there is profit as well. It is difficult, I know, to deter- mine to sow where we cannot reap. The man who plants trees works not for himself but for posterity ; but we should remember that with almost criminal recklessness and censurable disregard of the rights of the future we have destroyed that which a decent regard for the race should have prompted us to pre- serve for those who shall come after us, and certainly from that standpoint we owe much to posterity. The legislation of Congress from 1817, when the first timber preservative act was passed to save live oak and red cedar for naval purposes, to this time has not been marked by great wisdom. It is to be hoped that there may speedily come a repeal of the Timber and 258 PROCEEDINGS OF THE Stone Act, as recommended by the American Forestry Association, and I submit that in view of the evident necessities of the railroads of the west, building pioneer lines, that form the vanguard of civilization, that under the judicious cutting of timber on government lands, by carrying out the natural rule of the survival of the fittest, the requirement that the resulting product can- not be exported from the district or state wherein it is cut may well be repealed and be used wherever upon such railroads the necessity for its use is apparent. The popular demand is that the rates of freight, so greatly reduced during the past few years, should receive still further reduction. This can be obtained only by economy in construction and maintenance, and every measure that tends to that result should receive encouragement. We of the West are watching with concern the inter- esting experiment of that admirable Chief Forester Pinchot in the planting of pine cones and young pines in our sandhill country. If this otherwise useless land can be made to grow merchantable pine it will have justified its hitherto useless existence. The experiments of the Government, of the railroads, and of private parties in prolonging the life of timber are of great importance. ‘The saving of the forests, if the life of a tie can be prolonged, will be very great, for as yet no substitute has been devised for wood ties that is either economical or desirable. ‘They maintain the alignment of the railroad, so essential to safety, better than any metal substitute and give an elasticity to the roadbed most important for the preservation and maintenance of the rolling stock. With metal ties, or a stone base, the rails would be speedily injured, and the heavy Mogul engines used to-day, drawing the heavy trains of large cars needed for the traffic, would AMERICAN ForrEst CONGRESS 259 pound themselves quickly into decrepitude and useless- ness. The change in the character of rolling stock is worthy of consideration. Engines have increased in weight from twenty-five to one hundred and ten tons; freight cars of twenty-eight feet length, with twenty thousand pounds carrying capacity, have increased to forty feet of length with one hundred thousand pounds capacity. But why prolong the wondrous tale of development and progress? We have reached the point from which we must yet advance or retrograde. We cannot stand still. We are considering the main element of that hoped-for progress. Let us take lessons from the nations across the great water. From Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Switzerland let us learn how to establish schools of forestry, how to eliminate waste and mismanagement, and to subrogate private rights to public necessity. From Bohemia let us learn how to furnish fuel and building material for a dense popu- lation and yet retain the area of the primeval forests and add thereto. Let us learn wherever there is a teacher, for there is no lesson more essential to our welfare. Let us adopt the motto of the pioneer Morton and under state and federal guidance and direction “plant trees.” WORK OF THE PENNSYLVANIA RAIL- ROAD IN PLANTING TIMBER FOR CROSS TIES BY JOSEPH T. RICHARDS Chief Engineer, Maintenance of Way, Pennsylvania Railroad System. ig has been largely through the instrumentality of the American Forestry Association that the railroad companies of the United States have been brought to realize the gravity of the situation with reference to a future timber supply, from which is to be furnished the large quantity consumed by the railroads in the production of cross ties. The rapid spoliation of our forests—the sole source of our supply—and the immi- nence of its entire depletion, are only too strongly presented to us by those familiar with the subject. It would take more time than I have at my disposal to obtain statistics to cover the entire field of timber consumption in the United States, or to make any reliable computation of the amount of timber still standing, and available for future supply; but a few figures illustrative of the general character may be of interest as an introduction to what more particularly concerns the Pennsylvania Railroad System. During the past year the Pennsylvania Railroad Company has had the subject considered and a report made by a committee of our transportation association, and I will draw from this report some data for my remarks to-day. The number of cross ties in use on the railroads of the United States is estimated to be about 620,000,000; the number used annually for repairs, and for extensions of track, is estimated to be AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 261 from 90,000,000 to I10,000,000, requiring, we may say, the entire product of 200,000 acres of woodland annually. Each year the timber from which these are manu- factured is farther from the base of transportation, and many of the former sources of supply have already been entirely exhausted. Our Pennsylvania railroads now look chiefly to inland Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky for their white oak ties ; and the longleaf yellow pine of the southern states will soon disappear. Probably another decade may nearly close these sources of supply. The annual consumption of ties on the Pennsylvania Railroad System east of Pittsburg and Erie, for repairs only, is about 3,000,000, this being about the average quantity used every year for repairs in the past ten years. To this should be added, say, one-half million used annually in new work. It is evident, therefore, that at the present rate of consumption the available supply of the present timbers used, especially white oak and yellow pine, will be exhausted to a serious degree before many years, and the time is now ripe for the railroads to consider the question of what course they are to pursue in the future. Under these conditions there are obviously two courses: First, the reduction of the amount consumed, which can be done by the substitution of other material for wood, and by the use of preservative methods for prolonging the life of the ties, and which by increasing its durability will diminish the annual requirements for renewals; and, second, by the adoption of forestry methods having for their purpose the proper care and management of the forests still remaining, and the cultivation of new tree plantations. It is to the latter to which I will chiefly confine my 262 PROCEEDINGS OF THE remarks in connection with this all-important subject. The question of forest preservation and perpetuation is beginning to receive attention in this country through the several State Bureaus of Forestry which have been established, and attention is given to forest preservation by these, as well as by the National Government. The National Government has estab- lished a Bureau of Forestry, which is doing valuable work in the dissemination of useful information and by creating a popular sentiment in favor of the subject, and its cooperation with railroad compa- nies and lumber industries in the introduction of proper methods for the preservation and perpetuation of the timber supply of the country. The necessity or advisability of a railroad taking an active part in forestry operations, looking especially towards its future supply of cross ties for its own use, is comparatively a new idea. As long as twenty-four or twenty-five years ago, on the Pennsylvania lines west of Pittsburg, attention was already given to the subject, and a number of catalpa trees were planted along the right-of-way of one of its lines; but the results obtained were unsatisfactory. More recently, the cultivation of the yellow locust as a tie timber has been brought to our attention, and the cultivation of this tree to a limited extent for the purposes named has been undertaken. Within the past two years we have begun the plant- ing of yellow locust trees on an extensive scale on property owned by the company. ‘The trees thus planted are seedlings two or three years old, and cost, including labor of planting, about eight cents each. Generally speaking, these are planted ten feet apart, thus averaging about 400 to the acre; although in the fall of 1904 we planted 54,871 trees six feet apart and 88,127 trees eight feet apart. AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 263 The total quantity planted to date is as follows: Fall of 1902 at Totals. IWewtott ft tamton ce oe a Safes aks ES O10... 13,610 Fall of 1903 at UPSET CGF US AS apaiee eo tan Mane Sit te 43,304 43,364 Spring of 1904 at PEM OS ie ek Lene, 25,096 PME GON eae s cate} Eanes «Six, eda 20,280 Be ChE Oat eI go a ee 16,537 LAD) 2 Sea PO enenene Ogee 2 een Sep ee ees 8,108 70,021 Fall of 1904 at MTGE RAIS CS ce sbes) ore bad oie here 20,730 LER Sg ROR ES SI et ee a eR 29,505 1 AEST GTS IES RRR ee: oases Paes 50,300 Atglen & Susquehanna Branch, Blah oe inca beh cg hs 53,000 153,535 SIAR ee cat ert rane eh cin eres ata 280,530 All of the above places are in the State of Pennsyl- vania. During the coming year we expect to plant about 800,000 trees additional, likely 200,000 in the spring and 600,000 in the fall. ‘The land on which we planted these trees, except a tract of fourteen acres at Newton Hamilton, which was purchased for this par- ticular purpose, are lands which the company has owned for some time and which were acquired in connection with old or new lines. There is probably no other timber which combines so well the qualities of durability and hardness as does the yellow locust. Evidences of its longevity in use as tie timber are frequent on our road. ‘The resistance of locust timber to cutting under the rail is said to exceed that of white oak, and it has been demonstrated 264 PROCEEDINGS OF THE upon our main lines that it is not so much the decay of the timber as it is the cutting in by the rail which wears out or decreases the life of the tie. The average life of a white oak tie is about ten years; we expect to get additional life out of a locust. The main attention which this class of timber seems to require during growth is that of pruning the lower branches of the young trees, ploughing and harrowing the ground in which they are planted, and keeping the weeds down as far as possible. While it is not likely that the Pennsylvania Railroad Company will at any time undertake to plant a suff- cient number of trees from which to secure its entire supply of cross ties, we feel that the experiment made by it of raising its own tie timber will have a tendency to stimulate outside parties, who are small owners of property, to cultivate this class of timber, and in this way assist the railroad company in the vicinity in which they are located by furnishing cross ties at some future time. In order to supply our entire needs for the year, namely, 3,000,000 for repairs and half a million for new work, and adding thereto 10 per cent for the immediate future increase, making the total annual requirements 3,850,000 ties, we figure that, three ties to a tree, would require about 1,300,000 trees each year to produce the probable number of ties needed. To produce the necessary number of trees of the proper size for tie-cutting each year, in order to harvest the 3,850,000 ties (figuring that it will require thirty years for a yellow locust tree to mature), would require a continuous growth of 39,000,000 trees, 1,300,000 to be planted each year, which, if planted ten feet apart, or about 400 trees to the acre, would entail the continuous use of 97,500 acres, or 152 square miles of ground, for the purpose. IS IT PRACTICABLE FOR RAILROADS TO HOLD FOREST LANDS FOR FUTURE SUPPLIES OF TIMBER? BY L. E. JOHNSON President, The Norfolk and Western Railway | CAN but express my appreciation at being requested to present a subject for the consideration of this Forest Congress, and being asked to answer the ques- tion: “Is It Practicable for Railroads to Hold Forest Lands for Future Supplies of Timber ?” We find that it is one that can be discussed from the standpoint of railroads, and while the question from this standpoint is an important one, is it not a question, by reason of its relation to the public at large, in every industry and occupation, and in the individual and domestic needs of every citizen, from the stand- point of the public at large? | The preservation of forests is not only necessary for supplying railroads with cross ties, with timber for its trestles and cars, but is necessary to maintain the supply of wood for the various manufacturing, building and domestic purposes of the public. It is equally, if not more, necessary to maintain and protect the water supply in streams, the demands on which are increasing by reason of an increasing population, and by reason of the rapidly multiplying requirements for power in its many forms. And it is equally necessary to pre- serve our forests, to prevent floods, and to prevent droughts. All this is well put in the definition of what forestry 266 PROCEEDINGS OF THE is by one of the gentlemen connected with the Bureau of Forestry, in his article in a late Encyclopedia. I refer to the article by Mr. Gifford Pinchot, ‘Forestry in the United States,” Encyclopedia American, Vol. VII, where he defines the subject as covering this broad ground: “Forestry is the art of using the forests continuously to meet the needs of men. In the United States for- estry has to do principally with the supply of wood for various purposes, with the maintenance of water-flow in streams, with the prevention of floods and with the supply of foliage for grazing animals within the forests. Nowhere else are forest problems of more vital impor- tance to the welfare of the people than here, and in no other country of civilization has so little progress been made in their solution. This condition follows natu- rally from the vast area of the United States, its comparatively sparse population per square mile, and from the nature, location, and extent of the forests themselves.” Referring to the same authority, “Some Uses of Wood:” “The yearly product of wood in the United States is about 35,000,000,000 feet. In 1900 the lumber industry employed two hundred and eighty- three thousand two hundred and sixty (283,260) wage earners, to whom it paid one hundred and four million six hundred and forty thousand five hundred and ninety-one dollars ($104,640,591). The perpetuation of this industry is of vital concern to all the people. Its ramifications are as wide as the industrial life of the nation, and its perpetuation is a most pressing concern of the forester. The use of wood for the maintenance of railroad tracks, for example, rises to about 120,000,000 ties a year, together with the vast amounts of bridge timber, piling, etc. Since the use AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 267 of metal ties is believed to be impracticable by Ameri- can railroad engineers, the maintenance of the supply of wood and ties is of vital importance to the railroads, and through them to the nation at large. Ina similar way, the permanence and success of the mining industry is dependent upon cheap and _ accessible supplies of timber. In most portions of the West such supplies can be expected only from the national forest reserves. In the creation of the reserves, therefore, the special needs of the mining and other industries have been kept carefully, and it is also believed suc- cessfully, in mind.” Without regard, therefore, for the necessity of preserving our forests for the other purposes equally important to the country, as the means of supply of wood for industrial and domestic purposes, it would appear that railroads, although they are consumers of an enormous amount of wood, their uses of wood form but a fraction—relatively a small fraction—of the yearly consumption of wood. I will, therefore, under- take to discuss some of the details from my personal knowledge of a railroad extending from tidewater on the east to points in Ohio to the northwest, and through Virginia to the southwest, embracing lines into Maryland and North Carolina, in addition to other lateral lines within reasonable limits of timber for its entire distance. Originally the country passed through by the railroad to which I refer, was well timbered. The first exten- sive depletion of timber land was on the first hundred miles adjacent to the seaboard, where the original timber was cypress and Virginia or loblolly pine. Up to the year 1888 this road used a great many cypress ties, but such timber is no longer procurable. The second growth of Virginia loblolly pine in this same 268 PROCEEDINGS OF THE district is very knotty, and, further, it is not suitable for cross ties until it be treated to improve its lasting qualities. All the balance of the road is in territory where both white oak and chestnut oak is indigenous, and up to quite recently all the cross ties that have been needed have been obtained within moderate hauling distance from the railroad line. The class of ties that have been obtained to date have been of a high grade. After a time of careful watching extending over a period of twenty years, it has been found that the life of these white oak and chestnut oak ties has averaged about nine years. This railroad is, therefore, a road presenting prob- lems that are common to many other roads, and the above question can be, in part, answered by using it as a typical case. At the present time the main line is 1,543 miles; branches, 226; second track, 150; sidings, 652; total mileage, 2,571. The average requirements in oak ties per year for renewals are three-hundred and ten (310) per mile, aggregating in round numbers eight hundred thousand (800,000) per year. At prevailing prices eight hundred thousand (800,000) ties cost per annum about three hundred and fifteen thousand dollars ($315,000), which is shown to be about fifteen per cent. (15) over the cost of a like number ten years ago. This total figure is far below what some railroads less fortunately situated must pay for a like number. Both chestnut and oak timber is of such slow growth that we cannot for a moment consider the attempt to cultivate it for tie timber. While oak will naturally grow for the whole length of this and other railroads, largely by self-sowing, if the soil is left idle, we cannot count on that method to secure timber for many years to come in view of the great expansion in lumber industries adjacent to railroads. AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 269 According to our information, the only tree that has a comparatively rapid growth and which will, according to the best evidence obtainable, furnish a first-class cross tie of long life, is the catalpa. It is claimed that this tree will, in twenty years, make ties that will last fifteen years in track. However, the timber is soft as compared with oak, and will, of necessity, require tie-plates. Assuming the life of a catalpa cross tie as being fifteen years, the requirements per mile per year for renewals would be about 200, making the requirements for the present mileage of the road under consideration, allowing for emergencies, about six hundred thousand (600,000) catalpa ties per annum. Let us now consider the question of cultivating catalpa trees for cross ties. We find that one acre of standing catalpa trees will produce, when twenty years of age, eight hundred and fifty (850) cross ties. There- fore, in order to secure six hundred thousand (600,000) cross ties per annum, about seven hundred (700) acres of land bearing catalpa trees twenty years old will be required each year; hence, there should be planted every year, for the requirements of the railroad, having a mileage of two-thousand five hundred and seventy- one mile (2,571), seven hundred (700) acres of trees, and this planting must be continued for a period of twenty years before any cross ties can be secured. As we are to plant seven hundred (700) acres each year during the twenty years, we must plant a total of fourteen thousand (14,000) acres, or, allowing for some waste land, about fifteen thousand (15,000) acres must be secured. Such a large body of land as this cannot be obtained unless it be in districts where there are at present comparatively large bodies of waste or cheap land. There is no point on this railroad where 270 PROCEEDINGS OF THE such a tract of land can possibly be secured unless it be near tidewater. We, therefore, estimate the cost of establishing such a timber reservation on the line of this road would be as follows: 15,000 acres of land at Srovl ope... $150,000 Interest on this for 19 years up to cutting time at 5 per cent..... 142,500 ‘Total cost tor lands). $292,500 Annual expenditure for nineteen years before any growth is obtained suitable for ties: SPE Tecate Se tne a ord cea eR $1,500 Clearing, draining, &c., 700 acres Pel idl sages pea te PS aca IR Ee ae de ah 10,500 470 trees delivered at $10 per M... 4,700 Planting 700 acres at $5 per acre.. 3,500 Superintendence, &c., ............ 1,800 Total-annuatl ‘cost! ess 3 $22,000 This annual charge of $22,000 for nineteen years aggregates .... $418,000 Interest on this amount for an aver- age term of 9% years at 5 per CSTE cs fo teee reg eae niet teed 198,550 Cost“of Jand ‘as above’... 3 0602's 150,000 Interest on cost of land, 19 years, as aD0VE; at'S per Cent ase sic. 142,500 Totalinvestment upto 20th year $909,050 AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 271 Annual expenditure after the twentieth year and each year thereafter : Interest on investment, $909,050, at EPL CRMC tele she a winstonca so oe $45,452 Mee ise cae cheers G 1,500 Reclearing, &c., 700 acres at $5 .... 3,500 470,000 trees delivered, at $10 per M. 4,700 Planting 700 trees at $5 per acre... 3,500 PHPCLINGENGENCE, WC... ss age ess 1,800 PMNGALCOSE ss oes ety. OAS Cutting and delivering 600,000 cataipa> tiesto; bi icars: at BIS eC PE AN arabe its ASAD HK $120,000.00 istervincil cost of ties after 20 years. 180,452.50 It should be noted that twenty years hence, at the present rate of increase in the cost of oak ties, the cross ties necessary for the railroad in question will cost an aggregate of four hundred thousand dollars ($400,000) in the twentieth year. The saving through this transaction would, therefore, be, per annum, after the twentieth year, four hundred thousand dollars ($400,000) less one hundred and eighty thousand four hundred and fifty-two dollars and fifty cents ($180,- 452.50), equal to two hundred and nineteen thousand five hundred and forty-seven dollars and fifty cents ($219,547.50). The above great difference in figures would indicate an enormous saving possible by railroad companies undertaking to hold large areas of land, either directly or indirectly, to cultivate tie timber alone. And while it was possible a number of years ago for railroad companies to hold large tracts of land, laws do not 272 PROCEEDINGS OF THE give them the right to condemn lands for cultivating timber. Therefore, unless railroad companies have a right to condemn land for such purposes, such large tracts as are required cannot be obtained at prices such as warrant the above estimate. It is evident that some modification of the existing laws would be necessary in order to render it practicable for railroads to hold large tracts of land for future supplies of timber. Further, the investment of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars ($150,00) in land, and an added investment each year for a period of nineteen years, until a total of nine hundred thousand dollars ($900,000) is reached, will require a special arrange- ment on the part of railroad companies in order to look forward to the holding of various lands for such a long period of time. It might be claimed that land could be bought only seven hundred (700) acres at a time. If this plan should be followed, the prices would be advanced by the very improvements under- taken by the railroad company. The only practicable plan of procedure would be to purchase at the begin- ning of the undertaking all the land required by a railroad company. Right here let me repeat that the above calculations are based upon estimates made for a certain railroad; however, they may form a basis for like calculations on any railroad in any section of our country, taking into consideration the environments and conditions. In the above figures no account has been taken of the danger and loss from fires, but the item of superin- tendence is included; and further, an item of profit in the way of securing posts and other timber has not been credited simply with a view of making an estimate that would be safe to cover ordinary emergencies. I have in these estimates only considered one thing, AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 273 namely: ties, for the reason that the use of timber for other purposes in railroad work is rapidly being substi- tuted by steel, brick, stone, and concrete. The above presentation apparently shows a saving to the railroad company to be great and advantageous. On the other hand, the time required to secure the growth, changes in railroad methods, increase in length of railroad through construction, or decrease through sales, and the possible future improvement in the form of con- struction of standard track, throws at once grave doubts upon the advisability of any such plan. These doubts lead me to the conclusion that it is not practi- cable for railroads to hold forest lands for a future supply of timber, but that it is a question of ‘such magnitude that it can best be handled by the investment of private capital, or under the Bureau of Forestry of the United States Government, in connection with appropriate legislation by the State Governments. While railroads can and should cooperate heartily in every way to preserve our forests from waste and destruction, I am forced to the conclusion that no practical results can be obtained without legislation putting the entire subject with Government control. The subject is one of such magnitude, affecting directly and indirectly the needs of every citizen and every community of our country, that any scheme that may be adopted must be comprehensive enough to con- serve all interests and accomplish definite results. Legislation is required to enable forests lands to be acquired or reserved at the headwaters of streams and in other suitable locations. Laws must be enacted to require the citizens to plant and maintain timber under appropriate circumstances. Laws must be enacted and enforced to prevent fires and the unnecessary destruction of trees. 274 PROCEEDINGS OF THE Legislation, too, should be provided to restrict the use of timber as much as possible for the use of our own citizens. The waste of timber should be prevented to the extent practicable by proper laws. And all such laws should, in order to be effective, be administered by officials invested with the authority of law. It would further appear that the large commercial demands consequent upon the great growth of our country, together with the immense quantities of the very best grades of timber which are exported, consti- tute a greater menace to our forests than the consump- tion by railway companies. In this connection, I would like to mention a large quantity of chestnut oak which is felled every spring to procure bark for tanning purposes, much of which is allowed to lie in the woods and rot, although rail- road companies, and I presume others, would be glad to get the material, sawed into merchantable lumber, or have it made into ties. This constitutes a great and wanton waste. We think that we are fully able to verify this statement from the frequency with which we have to decline ties made from timber which has been felled in years other than the current year. In considering this timber question in any of its aspects, we recognize that the study of it, together with a great many other questions of like import, marks a new era in the affairs of this country. Heretofore the American people have been wasteful, and extravagant to an alarming degree, of every product and everything which have been generally used for the necessities and comfort of the people. Nature has been-prodigal in distributing natural resources through our land, and for years we have been simply AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 275 drawing upon these accumulated resources without stint and without regard for the future. Our popula- tion now is becoming so congested and the demands upon the resources of the country are so great that it is necessary for intelligent and conservative people to study the forestry question and other like propositions, to the end that the natural wealth of the country shall not be wasted to such an extent that the conditions of living by our people shall become more difficult. I know of no single question that is entitled to more consideration, by persons influencing large corpora- tions, than the timber and forestry question. Such meetings as the one now being held in Wash- ington will necessarily result in great good in that they will bring to the attention of large numbers of people, and especially people of character and influence, conditions which otherwise might be overlooked or be passed unnoticed. RESULTS IN THE PRESERVATIVE TREATMENT OF RAILROAD TIM- BERS TO PROLONG DURABILITY BY DR. HERMANN VON SCHRENK Bureau of Plant Industry N a discussion of the railroads in their relation to the forest there is no topic which is at this day of such importance as timber preservation. We have heard that there is probably no one interest in this country to-day which can compare with the railroad as a timber consumer, and certainly there is none which has a more direct and vital interest in seeing that a definite and constant supply of all kinds of timber is assured in the future. It is my privilege to point out in a few words what bearing the chemical preservation of wood, with its attendant features, has upon the general problem of future supply, and to what extent the results obtained therefrom may lead to a more economical utilization of forest supplies in general. In dealing with this subject I propose to consider briefly the following points: 1. Why railroads in their capacity as consumers of timber are interested in preservation. 2. Why railroads are interested in preservation from a traffic standpoint. 3. Why railroads are interested in timber preserva- tion from the standpoint of economy. 4. What preservation means. 5. What results have been obtained. 6. Some general conclusions. AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 277 Up to within recent times most of the tie and con- struction timbers used by the railroads were timbers like the white oak and longleaf yellow pine. These were used because they combined great durability with strength and good wearing qualities. They were abundant along the lines of the roads and were obtain- able in large quantities and at a comparatively low cost. A purchasing agent had no difficulty, not more than ten years ago, in getting any number of first-class white oak ties in the middle or central states at from 35 to 60 cents. While the prices for such timbers are not yet excessive Owing to local supplies, it is, nevertheless, becoming increasingly difficult to obtain large regular supplies of such timbers, and with an ever-increasing demand, the question has been asked for several years, and with increasing anxiety, where the tie supply is to come from in the future. It may not be without inter- est to state here that, according to a recent estimate made, about 118,000,000 ties were used for renewal purposes during 1904. As a result of the uncertainty in getting a sufficient number of ties which could be used in the natural condition, many roads turned toward the so-called inferior woods, like red and water oaks, beech, gum, the softer pines, hemlock, etc. None of these woods can be used without preservation, because they decay with great rapidity when in contact with the ground. It is not yet fully realized that when thoroughly treated that a red oak or beech tie becomes the equal, if not the superior, of an untreated white oak tie, as far as resist- ance to decay is concerned. ‘The use of such woods as red oak, beech, loblolly pine, etc., if generally adopted, would bring into the market a large body of timber which would insure a constant supply for many years to come. It is a fortunate circumstance that these J 278 PROCEEDINGS OF THE so-called inferior woods, because of their greater porosity, can be treated with chemicals so as to preserve them very effectively. The use of these woods, which is made possible by preservation, will not only open up a supply now standing in the forests, but it will also make possible the investment in lands producing such timbers. Many of these grow with great rapidity, at least sufficiently so as to make the possibilities of second and third crops a realizable possibility. Some day we may duplicate the conditions now prevailing in eastern France, where the preserved beech ties last until another crop of beech ties furnishes a new supply. Preservation will therefore be an almost indispens- able factor in any consideration of future supply, and when one considers the good results obtained, its importance will be fully realized. The use of shortlived woods for tie and construction purposes when chemically preserved will have a whole- some effect on the utilization of the higher grade longlived timbers. The writer has repeatedly pointed out that the full value of a piece of white oak is not realized in these times when it is used in the form of a tie. White oak is coming to be more and more valuable in the form of lumber and for construction purposes, for car building, in the cooperage trade, etc. A rail- road using white oak for ties at a valuation less than one-half of what it would be as car sills or cooperage stock, is cutting off industries which it should foster along its lines. This is especially true when the road could be using less valuable woods for what must be considered as inferior service, such as ties or piling. These’ woods when treated are just as serviceable and oftentimes better than the more valuable wood. This is a point worthy of serious study from the traffic standpoint. AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 279 Another point which may be alluded to here is the influence which the use of less valuable woods, always after preservation, has on local business and feeling. The less valuable woods are generally distributed along most of the railway lines, and should they come to be generally used, every owner of woodlands would find a local market for one class of his farm product which he now has but little use for. This isnot only true for ties, but for other classes of material. Take fence posts as an example. Many roads now use cedar, shipped long distances from off their lines. If birch, sycamore, maple, red oak, and saplings of other trees, which grow on every farm, were generally used, it would stimulate local interest, encourage home indus- tries, as it were, and at the same time serve to give a large and comparatively cheap supply. That such saplings can be easily and cheaply treated (at a cost of 5 to 6 cents per post) has recently been successfully demonstrated. While the foregoing points are doubtless worthy of consideration, it is, nevertheless, true that the foremost and immediate interest in timber preservation is one which deals with the more economical handling of the timber problem. Timber preservation would not mean anything if it could not be shown that in the long run it is cheaper to use shortlived woods when preserved than unpreserved longlived woods. Without going into details at this point, it may be stated that there is probably no one to-day who does not believe that timber preservation in one form or another pays. The extent to which preservation will pay will depend upon several factors, such as the first cost of the wood, the cost of renewal, the cost of the treatment. In a recent discussion- of this subject it was pointed out that the following table of annual 280 PROCEEDINGS OF THE charges might be taken for various kinds of untreated and treated timbers. TABLE SHOWING ANNUAL CHARGES. Timber and Length of Original Costof Annual Treatment. Service. Cost. Treatm’t. Charge. White oak, untreated...... Ioyrs. $0.85 sae $0.121 Red oak or loblolly pine, UNtEEATER Ses. eee ees 5 yrs. .40 2 eee 124 Red oak or loblolly pine, with zinc chloride treat- CET oc, ie SESE AEE esa 10 yrs. .40 $0.16 085 Red oak or loblolly pine, with zinc creosote treat- MIGUEL Ca ce pees oe Looe 16 yrs. .40 25 005 Red oak or loblolly pine, with creosote treatment... 20 yrs. .40 45 .069 The conclusion to be drawn from such a table is that the treated timber in every case is cheaper in the long run than the untreated timber; furthermore, that the better treatments, although more expensive at first, are very much cheaper in the long run. One ought to add that the treatments given above were selected from a long list, as representing extremes and averages of cost. Having reached the conclusion that timber preser- vation is worth considering; in other words, that it makes possible the utilization of timbers not generally used, and that it pays, one may consider somewhat more in detail some of the problems connected with preservation. One cannot dwell too frequently upon the sentence that timber preservation is not merely an injection of salts or chemicals into wood. I have stated elsewhere that it involves not only the successful injec- tion of chemicals, with all that that implies, but also AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 281 keeping them in the wood, and after the wood has been rendered more or less decay or fire-proof, the protection against wear must be considered. Successful preservation—that is, preservation which will pay—will depend upon: 1. The timber used. 2. The preserving method used. 3. How the preserving is done. 4. The man who supervises the preserving. The selection of timber used should be governed by the available supply. The kind of wood used is after all probably the least important factor, because, when preserved, the indivuality of the wood becomes more or less insignificant. The longest-lived preserved timber, speaking with reference to decay alone, will be the one which will allow of the most perfect and even penetra- tion of a preservative, and which at the same time will hold such a preservative. But we not only want long length of life, but also a timber which, with any given treatment, will bring an increased length of life which shall represent the greatest possible financial return on the original investment, made up of the first cost of the timber and the cost of the preservative process. It so happens that the open-grained porous woods which, when untreated, last but a comparatively short time, give high penetration and comparatively long increase in length of life; while the denser woods, which ordi- narily are called longlived, give a poor penetration and a comparatively short increased length of life as a result of preservation. Recent tests with timber like beech and elm have shown an amazingly high absorp- tion for zinc chloride, amounting to as much as .65 pounds of dry zinc chloride per cubic foot, using a 2% per cent solution of zinc chloride. It is, as has been stated, a fortunate fact that most 282 PROCEEDINGS OF THE of the shortlived woods conform to the requirements for long increase in length of life, just referred to, and that it will pay to use them. Having decided upon the timber available which can be treated, the next problem is, how shall the timber be treated? In other words, what method shall be used? ‘There are a host of processes, beginning with the metallic salts, like copper, zinc, mercury, etc., and ending with creosote or tar oil, either alone or in combination, for all of which certain merits are claimed, omitting, for the present, processes employing chemicals of unknown preservative value. I will not have the time to discuss this important question at any length and will restrict my remarks to a few general considerations which it seems to me should govern in the choice of a preserving process. I regard the choice of a process entirely as one involving a certain risk in investment. One must start, of course, with the assumption that any one of half a dozen processes under consideration will actually preserve the wood for a shorter or longer time. This assumption is not unfair, when one is dealing with preservatives of such known value as zinc chloride, copper sulphate, mercuric chloride, creosote or tar oil, and possibly one or two others. Assuming, then, that these preserve wood, one naturally comes to the question of cost. This one may regard from two standpoints; the first one, which is the usual one in Europe, considers the annual charge; in other words, the saving which can be made in the long run when comparing an untreated with a treated piece of wood. A glance at the table which I presented a few moments ago will show that in the long run the creosoting process in some form is the cheapest, even if it costs more at the beginning; in other words, the annual AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 283 charge on an untreated loblolly pine tie which has to be replaced every five years is $0.12, while for the creosoted tie it is only $0.06. Looking at the problem from the second standpoint, one considers the original investment, and not the annual charge. Taking the same case of loblolly pine, an untreated tie costs $0.40. If this is treated with creosote one must add $0.45 to this cost; in other words, a new tie and 5 cents more; while if one treats such a tie with zinc chloride one adds on only $0.16, or about one-third the cost of a new tie. For the European investor who deals with timbers of a high initial cost a comparison such as the one just mentioned does not occur. The French beech tie cost- ing $1 or more and lasting four years when untreated, will last 25 to 30 years when treated with creosote, at a cost of 75 cents or thereabouts. It is obviously the correct thing for these conditions to use the most expensive treatment. The number of ties treated is comparatively small, the economic conditions are more or less settled, and the investment of 75 cents per tie for treatment is not felt as a hardship. When we turn to our condition in this country we have a different problem to face. While the spending of 45 cents for treatment of a 40-cent tie may give good results, it would be a poor investment, for the risk would be too great. After five or six years the tie sizes may be changed, and by that time only a small portion of the investment made in the treatment would be realized. An investment of 45 cents additional on a 40-cent tie lasting four years would furthermore mean the immediate expenditure of a very large sum of money, which would show no return until more than eight years had elapsed. This sort of investment is not profitable, although it doubtless will come at some future period. 284 PROCEEDINGS OF THE No treatment can be seriously considered which costs more than 25 to 30 cents. Wood is still cheap, and until the original cost of a tie goes to $1 or thereabouts cheaper treatments must prevail. Of those advocated I would advise using the best; in other words, consid- ering the investment from the first standpoint, that of annual charges. This would mean either a cheap — creosote treatment, one using small amounts of oil with as good penetration as can be obtained, or a zinc creo- sote combination, both of which would cost 20 cents or thereabouts. The risk taken would be a small one because the preservatives have a known value and the original amount would not be a disproportionate one when compared with the cost of a new tie. From this brief outline of the kind of preservative to be used, we may pass to some of the results which have been obtained from preservative treatment. While timber preservation has been practiced more or less in this country for many years, it has been carried on in such a way as to give few reliable data. The records which were kept during the early days are very unsat- isfactory, and only very general conclusions can be drawn. In getting together the figures for the coming International Railway Congress, as to results obtained, we went carefully over all records kept by American railroads. As a result of our study, we were able to report an average length of life obtained for hemlock ties laid in Iowa, treated with the Wellhouse process (zinc chloride, glue, and tannin), of 10.6 years; hemlock untreated lasts about four years. About the same length of service was obtained in the southwestern states with mountain pine treated with zinc chloride, glue, and tannin. ‘These results are on the whole very satisfactory, for the length of life of these shortlived AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 285 woods was more than doubled at a cost not quite one-half the original cost of a new tie. Timbers treated with creosote show results in the United States similar to those obtained in European countries. Piling of longleaf yellow pine has been in service in bridges since 1869 and 1870 in several south- ern states, and a recent examination shows that the wood is still sound. There is no longer any necessity for doubting the value of creosote (or, as it should be more properly called, tar oil) as a wood preservative. Where a good quality is used, and with a sufficient quantity injected, an almost indefinite length of life can be obtained. The chief objection against its uni- versal use has been the high cost of the oil and the small quantities available. There seems to be no good reason why more tar oil should not be produced in this country and at lower cost. It is encouraging to note the introduction of by-product coke ovens in which the available tar oils are being saved. More of those by-product ovens should be constructed, and if uni- versally used in coke-burning regions there would no longer be any dearth of oil. There are several new processes using creosote which are so conducted as to use small quantities of creosote, thereby reducing the cost of treatment and bringing the creosoting process within the range of consideration. In speaking of creosote, I cannot omit a word of caution as to the manner in which wood is frequently treated with tar oil. Creosoted wood has a bad reputation in many quarters, for it is said that the treatment with tar oil makes the wood weak, brittle, and brash. That such is frequently the case no one who has had occasion to examine any amount of creo- soted timber can doubt. During the past summer we have been conducting an extensive series of tests at 286 ‘PROCEEDINGS OF THE St. Louis to determine what influence treatment had on the strength of wood fibre. The effect of the usual preliminary steaming was investigated, and also the effect of injecting creosote in varying quantities with- out preliminary steaming. While it is as yet too early for final conclusions, I am glad to be able to state that we have determined very definitely that the injection of creosote into wood has about the same effect as injecting a similar amount of water; in other words, the creosote in and of itself in no way renders wood brittle and weak. We found that the brittleness or weakness was brought about by the steaming operation before the injection of the oil. Steaming at 20 pounds for about four hours did not affect the fibre materially, but when continued for a longer period the wood was weakened. After ten hours of steaming at 20 pounds pressure the wood decreased as much as 26 per cent in strength. The same was true when steamed at higher pressures. These results clearly indicate that where the best results are to be obtained as little steaming as possible should be practiced in treating wood with creosote. This will probably hold for other preservatives as well. A word should be said here concerning some of the problems dealing with abrasion of treated timbers. No process of preserving will pay if the preserved timber is rendered unfit by being worn out prematurely. The question of tie plates and rail fastenings should receive serious consideration in all discussions on pres- ervation. It so happens that many of the shortlived woods are soft and easily worn. Preservation will protect them against decay, but not necessarily against wear. Recent trials with wooden tie plates have proven very encouraging. Some of these, made of cypress, have been in a main line track for eight months AMBRICAN Forest CONGRESS 287 with very satisfactory results. This goes to show that there may be many ways and means for protecting the soft woods against wear. The success of any preservative process will depend largely upon the care with which it is carried out. One must come more and more to the realization that preservation is a dendro-chemical industry, involving a technical knowledge of timber and of chemical processes, all stages of which should be carefully con- trolled. In dealing with timber one deals with one of the most variable classes of material, no two pieces of which are alike at any time, and knowledge and judg- ment are required to obtain the best results under these varying conditions. There are numerous preserving plants now in operation, but of these there is only one, so far as I am aware, where a trained chemist with a good laboratory watches every stage of the process. The wood-preserving industry, although it has been practiced in this country for many years, is still com- paratively a new industry, which is beginning to assume larger proportions. Wherever preserving is carried on it should be with all the care of a chemical factory. The nature of the wood should be known, its stage of seasoning, its absorptive capacities, the absorption obtained in various runs, the temperatures reached during treatment—all these points and many others should be watched and recorded for future reference. This naturally leads one to speak of the person who is to have charge of work of this character. I have repeatedly urged that the preserving problem, in its relation to the railroad and other industries using treated woods is a problem worthy of the undivided attention of a trained technical man. A railroad should have a man who can deal with timber in its broadest sense. I do not mean a pur- 288 PROCEEDINGS OF THE chasing agent, but a technical man, who should have a position equivalent to the consulting engineer, reporting to the vice-president or general manager. He should be able to deal with forest lands in their relation to railroad supplies, with timber inspection, handling, treatment, and its final disposition. He should have authority to make investigations with competent assist- -ants, so as to keep himself posted as to changes in methods, as to timber values, maintenance problems, etc., and his opinion should be that of an expert. So far as I know, only one railroad has so far created a position of manager of a tie and timber department in the sense indicated. It is particularly striking that this should be the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad, a road with the largest experience in timber treating of any in this country. The example which they have set should be followed by others. In discussing preserving problems I have spoken largely of ties and railroad timbers because these forms of timber have so far been most frequently treated. Most of the preserving plants are either directly or indirectly connected with railroad operations. The chemical preservation of wood, whether it be against decay, fire, warping, stains, etc., will probably play an increasingly important part in the development of an economical utilization of forest products. Not only will it affect railway and telegraph interests, but also in a smaller way each owner of forest lands and the smaller user of timber. Farmers have been using longlived timbers for fence posts. These are getting expensive in many parts and have to be shipped long distances. By treating the saplings growing on his own farm, each farmer will be able to make his own posts at slight expense. The lumber interests will be influenced by the more AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 289 general introduction of preserving processes. Woods which have had little value will find a market, and those woods which, in their untreated condition, are low-priced, will appreciate in price when once it can be shown how they can be treated to give them increased lasting power, or make them higher grade. There is as yet no general appreciation of the fact that most kinds of timber can be successfully treated. Treatment is an exception and rarely considered either by the producer or consumer. We have been spoiled by the wealth of timber of superior qualities which we have had for many years, and it may take some time to effect a change. That this change is coming I feel sure of, and can prove it by the following extract from a letter written by a farmer in one of the northern states, who asks: “Please tell me how I can preserve maple fence posts to prevent rot at the ground. If you can’t tell me how to make them last thirty years or more you needn’t take the trouble to reply to this letter.” LETTER FROM JAMES J. HILL Hon. JAMES WILSON, Secretary of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. Dear Mr. Wilson: I wired you to-day my inability to be present at the Forest Congress, which I very much regret. The subject is of importance far beyond the general understanding of the public. The growth of popula- tion in the United States has practically covered all the land which can be cultivated with a profit without artificial moisture. Irrigation and forestry are the two subjects which are to have a greater effect on the future prosperity of the United States than any other public questions, either within or without Congress. Yours truly, (Signed) Jas. J. Hrz1. PART VI. IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC FOREST LANDS TO MINING fre DEVELOPMENT: OF WATER POWER AS RELATED TO FOREST RESERVES BY A. L. FELLOWS District Engineer, United States Reclamation Service IGHT and heat, air and water, all earth’s elements combine in the formation of a habitation fitted for her children. Nature has apparently employed all her many agencies and utilized all her generative forces in heaping up her bounteous and varied stores for the enjoyment of her creatures. Through untold ages she was engaged in preparing a home for her humbler children, and throughout the countless cen- turies that have passed since the earth was first fitted for the sustenance of life, she has continuously been perfecting conditions suitable for higher and yet higher species of living, sentient creatures, until, at the present time, man, that species which we in our self-esteem count highest of them all, holds the center of the stage. Amongst the many secondary agencies which the great all-Mother has utilized in making this earth a habitation and a home for all her creatures, the forest stands almost preeminent. It has clothed the earth as with a garment, protecting it from storms and erosion. It has been the home of almost all varieties of land life from the lowest to the highest. It has saved its denizens from the rigors of the winter’s cold and from the summer’s scorching heat. Not contented with the bestowal of mere temporary benefits, it has stored up in the coal measures the heat and sunshine of summers long past for the use and enjoyment of 204 PROCEEDINGS OF THE the creatures of to-day. It is to-day, as it has always been, a most active agent in the preservation and up- building of the human race and a most important factor in providing in all ways for man’s comfort. It furnishes him with both the necessities and the luxuries of life, nourishing his body and gratifying his soul’s desires. From and through it have come the materials by which man has subdued both the land and the sea and, to-day, it is, as it has ever been, the benefactor of all, of “man and bird and beast.” Others have touched upon its importance as the source of our timber supply, the conservation of water for our irrigation projects, the chief dependence of our range industries, our railroads, our wood-working and publishing interests, and the general welfare of the public. I desire now to invite your attention for a few moment to its importance as a factor in the development of the waste power which lies dormant in all our running streams and upon which the future welfare of the entire country will so greatly depend. The people of the United States are but just awak- ening to the great possibilities existing in embryo in our creeks and rivers. Electricity, that giant dynamic of the present generation and of countless generations yet unborn, is hardly more than in its infancy. Every stream, small or large, has potential power, which can be carried practically unlimited distances, at least sev- eral hundreds of miles, and can be used in any amount desired or in any desired combination with that derived from similar streams, though they may be many miles apart. One of the greatest needs that this country has to-day is a cheaper form of power, so that indus- tries as yet undeveloped on account of the excessive cost of operation under existing conditions, may in their turn add to the national wealth. This is true AMERICAN ForEST CONGRESS 295 along nearly all industrial lines, but the need is perhaps more pronounced in mining regions than it is else- where. By far the greater number of our ore deposits are of such low grade or are located so unfavorably with reference to the utilization of coal or the other more usual methods of power development that their economical operation is out of the question. In many of our mining camps coal costs from $10 to $15 per ton, and at many of the mines its delivery, even at such high rates, is impossible. The only practicable power in such cases is that obtained from electrical energy, and it is to this force that mine operators are turning. There is no doubt but that many times the amount of power used in mining operations at present could be utilized to advantage at prices that would well pay capital to furnish it, provided the means for creating the power could be depended upon. Electrical power may be generated in many ways, but in none more practically or more beautifully than by the use of water. Here a great dynamic is utilized which would otherwise waste itself. We here avail ourselves of one of Nature’s resources without in any way exhausting her reserve supplies as is done in the present wasteful use of coal. Conditions may easily be conceived—in fact, many such cases exist—where a given water supply may be utilized several times over in the development of power without diminution in quantity or deterioration in quality, and be used again finally for city water supply and in irrigation, and the day is not far distant when all of the mountain streams, with well sustained flow, will be utilized to an extent now hardly dreamed of. | The development of electrical energy on a commer- cial basis upon a given stream and with a given fall 296 PROCEEDINGS OF THE will depend upon a variety of conditions, and in nearly every one of these conditions the forestation or lack of such upon the headwaters of the stream plays an im- portant part. First of all is the total amount of water available which must, however, be considered in con- nection with the nature of its discharge—whether perennial or spasmodic. The ideal condition for a maximum development of power would be that prevailing under a reservoir so large as to be able to impound all the run-off resulting from precipitation in the given drainage basis and its complete regulation. To insure permanence in reser- voir capacity, the water supply must be clear, free from the presence of silt resulting from erosion, and removed as completely as possible from evaporative influences. The maximum development demands that the entire quantity shall be under such perfect control that a little more or less as desired may be utilized at any given time; and that it be well sustained throughout the year or other long periods, approaching as nearly as possible a perfectly even flow, with but little, if any, more in May and June than in September, January, or any other month; since the power developed, to be of commercial value, must permit of dependence being placed upon it throughout long periods of time. Otherwise it will not pay to install and operate the necessary plants. Such conditions as have been described are not often even approached in nature, but in many localities far- seeing men are trying to approach them as nearly as practicable through the construction of great storage reservoirs and by forestation, and, where the head- waters have been denuded of the timber, by reforestation. Here is, to a great extent, the keynote of the situa- tion. ‘Those regions that approach most closely to the AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 207 ideal conditions are those which are densely forested and can, therefore, act as conservators of the water supply with the least artificial aid. Forests aid in controlling the run-off. Compare two tracts similar in all other respects, but the one densely covered with a forest canopy, while the other has been denuded of such protection. In the first case the forest cover, with its attendant conditions of a more granular and porous soil, its humus and leaf mould, holds back precipitation instead of letting it run off as rapidly as it would otherwise do. The snows of winter cover the ground with comparative evenness, so that it is protected from rapid melting when the sudden warm periods come. The moisture, moreover, instead of disappearing rapidly as surface run-off, goes very largely into the ground to appear in the form of springs, perhaps months later, as seepage run-off. The same is true of the summer rains, In- stead of the precipitation resulting from this cause converging rapidly into a great torrent sweeping everything from before it, the moisture goes into the ground to return again as run-off when it is more particularly needed, the otherwise torrential stream becoming well sustained and perennial. From deforested tracts the run-off is much more likely to be beyond human control. . Great floods made up from the converging streams carrying logs and debris of all kinds before them, sweep irresistibly down the river valleys, taking with them diversion dams, gates, power plants, and destroying what they cannot carry away. Then again, in a well forested tract, if over-grazing, with its attendant ills, has not been tolerated, there is usually a dense undergrowth, which retards the run- off during rapid melting or after violent storms. Its 298 PROCEEDINGS OF THE tendency in these particulars is to cut off the crest of the destructive floods, depriving them of their power to do harm. The presence or absence of forests undoubtedly has a marked bearing, too, upon the quantity of the run- off. This effect varies with a number of different conditions, chief amongst which are the permeability and porosity of the soil, the different habits in different species of plant life in the matter of transpiration and the differences in evaporation influences. The soil con- ditions have already been touched upon. Retention ofa large part of the precipitation by the soil instead of its being permitted to flow off rapidly may, and probably must in many localities—as, for example, in the arid re- gions—result in a decreased total run-off owing to the probably greater increased “fly-off,” as the sum of the evaporation and the transpiration is sometimes termed. This diminution in the total quantity is, however, considerably more than offset by the advan- tages incident to a regulation of the run-off and conse- quent increase in the low water discharge. As our old friend “Mike” once said: “It’s better to have a little liquid refreshment when you need it, than to | have a high old time twice in a year.” It has been demonstrated that evaporation, greatest of all from a water surface in the open, is nearly as great from a wet earth surface similarly situated, and that the evaporation from a tract surrounded by forests is far less than it is from otherwise similar, but un- protected areas, this being due principally to the char- acteristics of the forest as a modifier of temperature and as a wind-break and shield. This matter has been discussed at length by Mr. G. W. Rafter in a number of valuable papers, in which he shows beyond doubt that in humid regions at any AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 299 rate the fly-off is materially less in forested than in unforested tracts. In the matter of transpiration, also, it has been shown that the amount transpired from the forest growth is considerably less than it is from cultivated crops. These matters have been carefully gone into in Mr. Rafter’s papers, already mentioned, in Dr. Fernow’s book, “The Economics of Forestry,’ and in Prof. Toumey’s discussion of “The Relation of Forests to Stream Flow,” as well as in many other important papers. The conclusions reached are, in effect, that as be- tween forested and unforested tracts, the quantity of run-off is materially augmented in the former case in humid regions where rains occur with more or less- frequency, but that in arid regions, where precipitation occurs but rarely, that the retention of the moisture by the forests results in some loss in total run-off, which, however, is more than compensated by the greatly increased flow during the periods of minimum discharge. Another important result of forestation must also be considered in this connection. It has been stated that the ideal conditions prevail when the total run- off can be controlled at will, the water being stored in great reservoirs. Ina great many instances those who are interested in the development of power are endeav- oring to attain these ideal conditions as nearly as possi- ble, through the utilization of natural reservoir sites. Here, too, the forests serve a most useful purpose by preventing erosion. A tract of land that has been denuded of its supply of timber, especially when the denudation is due to fires so fierce as to destroy the humus and leaf mould with the vegetation, imme- diately becomes subject to the action of storms and the torrential run-off resulting in the rapid erosion 300 PROCEEDINGS OF THE of the soil, and thus filling the reservoir with silt and debris, shortens their periods of usefulness, and de- stroys their efficiency. That deforestation does result in an increase in the amount of sediment con- veyed by the running water has been amply demon- strated by investigations carried on both in this country and in others. All measurements of silt, so far as is known, indicate that the run-off from unprotected areas is much more heavily laden with gravel, sand, earth, and organic matter than is the discharge from areas well protected by forests. Where storage is not practiced, forestation still remains an important factor in power development, since a requisite of the utilization of the water supply for this purpose depends to some extent upon the freedom of the water from impurities. The presence of a greater or less quantity of silt or sand in the water supply has an important bearing upon the longevity of the machinery, especially the cups and bearings of the impulse wheels. The more rapid deterioration in the machinery may represent a very greatly increased cost in the development of power and a consequent limita- tion to its sphere of usefulness. Practically all that has been said concerning the development of electrical energy is applicable also to the development of power directly and through the compression of air through the agency of water falling through a shaft, a process which it is predicted will become much better known and utilized in the future than it has been in the past. Having established the fact that there is a close rela- tion existing between forests and the development of power through the medium of our streams it is an easy task to demonstrate the necessity for forest reserves and for their proper control and management. It is clear that forest lands still remaining in the AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 301 Government possession should neither be allowed to pass into private ownership nor should they remain part of the unregulated public domain, especially under the conditions that prevail at the present time. In the former case, where such lands are permitted to pass into private ownership, human nature remaining as it now is, the controlling impulse will be to get the most money possible out of the land in the shortest possible time. This will usually result in the clearing off of the timber by the wasteful methods now prac- ticed, without thought for the future. Reforestation will not be carried on, and the certain result will be the rapid denudation of all our forested areas. Again, it will not do for the methods and regulations now in vogue with reference to the use of timber upon the public domain to be continued, since it inevitably results in the breaking out of forest fires and the wan- ton destruction of great bodies of timber, in addition to the great amounts of timber of which the Govern- ment is annually robbed. In investigations which have been made under my direction it has been clearly shown that many fires that had broken out in thickly forested districts of the public domain had been fol- lowed within a year or two by requests for Government permits for the use of the fire-killed timber left stand- ing, which often makes the very best mine and tunnel timbers. The forested areas must be watered and the cutting down upon them must be regulated. The grazing must be restricted so that the grass and other vegeta- tion shall not be destroyed. Deforested tracts must be reforested and only by the establishment of forest reserves and through their proper control by trained foresters, can we approach to the most ideal condition possible for the conservation of our water supply—a forest growth covering their headwaters. WILL THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE FOREST RESERVES ON A CONSER- VATIVE BASIS RETARD THE DE- VELOPMENT OF MINING? BY SETH BULLOCK Supervisor, Black Hills Forest Reserve i § HE, request of your honored President for a paper from me to be presented before this distinguished gathering was a genuine surprise, as I am not an adept in that line of forest reserve work. My first impulse was to decline the honor, but after considering the proposition in all its phases, I concluded that in view of the recent favorable legislation by the Congress of the United States, looking towards the placing of. the forest reserves and the forest reserve officials in the department so ably administered by Secretary Wilson, that it would be wise for me to endeavor to comply with the request of President Wilson, and if the paper prepared should merit any punishment I could enter that time-honored and usually successful plea of self-defense in mitigation of my sentence. The question upon which I am requested to enlighten this ageregation of diversified wisdom is, “Will the admin- istration of the forest reserves on a conservative basis retard the development of mining?” To properly ar- rive at an understanding and solution of this question (and I assure you that it is a large one), it will first be necessary to determine to what extent the mine is dependent on the forest, and I wish it to be understood AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 303 that my remarks will refer chiefly to the conditions existing in the Black Hills Forest Reserve, the only one of the larger timber reservations with which I am thoroughly familiar. Nearly all the developed mines of the Black Hills are large deposits of comparatively low grade gold ore, either free-milling or cyaniding in its character; fre- quently both processes are combined in the extraction of the values from the ore. In the successful prose- cution of the work required to make a mine productive and remunerative to the owners, the use of timber is an absolute necessity. Its uses are varied. It is re- quired to timber the shafts through which the ore is drawn to the surface. Heavy timbers are also required to take the place of the ore mined, to hold up the roof of the workings and sustain the sides of the stopes and drifts. The place of every supporting atom taken from the interior of a mine, like the Homestake, for instance, must be filled by some other material which can carry the burden with safety to the lives of the miners employed. This requires timber from the forest. No other material can be substitued for it. The use of iron or steel posts and beams is prohibited by their cost, to say nothing about their inadaptability to the work of underground mining. To form some idea of the large amount of timber used by a mine of the magnitude of the Homestake, it is only necessary to state that over one and one- quarter million tons of ore are annually extracted from this property, practically all of which is taken out at a greater depth than 500 feet from the surface of the ground. Its deepest workings are, I am informed, over 1,250 feet. It can be truly said that a veritable forest has been used under ground in the mines of the Black Hills 304 PROCEEDINGS OF THE during the few years they have been in operation; that no more of the forest has been used in their develop- ment than has been absolutely necessary, is doubtless true. The grade of the ore, the high wages paid, and the satisfactory returns received in most cases on the investment, prove that the mines have been most eco- nomically managed, the timbering being one of the heaviest items of expense in their operation. In addition to the timber used under ground in pre- cious metal mining, large quantities are required on the surface in the erection of ore reduction works and buildings required to house the machinery necessary in conducting the business of the mine. The question of wood for fuel is in some districts an important one, which happily has been in a measure solved in the Black Hills in recent years by the advent of railroads, connecting the mining districts with the coal fields of Wyoming, enabling the mines to secure a better and more economical fuel than that afforded by the forest wood. Another important factor in the business of mining as conducted in the Black Hills, fully as essential as timber, is an ample supply of water; for if this is in- sufficient, the separation of the values from the mined ore would be impossible and the labor and expense of mining lost. As it is necessary, owing to these low grade ores that the stamp mills or reduction works be placed as near the mine as possible, large sums of money have been expended in supplying these plants with water which is derived from mountain streams, the continuous flow of which is dependent upon the preservation and maintenance of the forest conditions at their source; the fact being now unquestioned that the denudation of the timber and forest cover, and the removal of vegetation at the supply points of our AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 305 mountain streams, seriously check their flow and will in time cause their disappearance. “Before these fields were shorn and tilled, Full to the brim our rivers flowed. The melody of waters filled The fresh and boundless wood. And torrents dash’d and rivulets played, And fountains spouted in the shade.” The dearly bought lessons of the East should be heeded by the West. The benefits derived by the stream from the forest are amply repaid by the increase of life-giving moisture in the air and soil. The stream is also a friend in need to the forest when attacked by its arch enemy, fire. It follows, then, that the forest and stream are de- pendent each upon the other and successful mining upon both. The dependency of the mine upon the forest having been established, the question arises, What is the best plan for securing a permanent supply of the necessary timber? My reply is: intelligent and practical forestry which can best be obtained under forest reservation administered with business-like methods. That the cutting of timber upon the public domain should be permitted only under wise legisla- tion is a self-evident fact, approved of by every one acquainted with the subject. When no restrictions were placed upon it, these cuttings have nearly all resulted in the total disappearance of the forest. To prevent future destruction, forest reserves have been established and to them should be given the same man- agement that a prudent merchant accords to his busi- ness. No wise merchant would hold his goods until shopworn and old, neither would he dispose of all of them without taking the necessary steps to replenish 306 PROCEEDINGS OF THE one his stock. Our system of forest reservation, as at present conducted, has been established but a short time, the first public timber sale under it having been made in November, 1900. Since then giant strides have been made in protecting the forest from waste, depredation and fire, and the pronounced benefits arising are apparent to the most casual observer. At first, the plan met with considerable opposition, prin- cipally because it was not understood, but as the policy developed, the people began to realize that forest reser- vation meant a saving of the wicked waste so marked in all former logging enterprises, a just price for the timber sold, a protection of the forest from fire and thieves, a conserving of the streams, a preservation of the young growth, the utilization of the dead tim- ber; in fact, that it meant more timber for their use and benefit. Now practically all opposition to forest reservation has disappeared and to-day it has the hearty good will and support of every honest man in and about the reserve. The present system could be improved upon by replanting and reforesting. In successful forestry there should be a seed time as well as a harvest. De- nuded areas in and adjoining the reserves suitable to the growing of timber should be planted with trees adapted to climate and soil. This, with a practical administration of the forest reserves, an administra- tion beneficial alike to the forest and the mine, one that takes into consideration not only the preservation and propagation of the timber, but the necessities of the mine as well, and that gives to the latter the most liberal treatment compatible with the permanency of the forest, will not, in my opinion, retard the develop- ment of mining, but, on the contrary, materially assist it. : IMPORTANCE OF THE PUBLIC FOREST LANDS TO MINING BY T. J. GRIER Superintendent, Homestake Mining Company THINK our President made a mistake when he asked me to address the array of talent I see before me here today upon a subject of such far-reach- ing and vital importance as is indicated in the title to this paper, and I am sorry, therefore, that he did not go farther and secure for your entertainment someone better able to give the subject the careful and exhaus- tive review it deserves. Responsive to the query suggested by the title, per- mit me to suggest that “Forests help mining” in much the same general way that they help all other industries which require forest products. The forest furnishes the supply; the industries make the demand. The main and chief products of the forest being wood and water, I fear that the progress of very many of our great industries would not be rapid if they were deprived of those articles. The importance to the nation’s great industries of the forest therefore is not questioned, but a very great deal of interest and impor- tance is centered in such conservation of it as will enable it to meet the great and growing demand of those industries. The question of tree supply and demand presents itself for that solution which will bring about an ample and increasing supply to meet an ever-increasing demand that is being made upon it. I trust that the 308 PROCEEDINGS OF THE deliberations of this Congress may point the way to that solution. Prodigal in the use of our woods, and forgetful of the resulting damage to our mountain streams and springs, perhaps we have too long neglected the care of our forests; or does our rapid progress in the devel- opment of the manifold resources of this country, which calls for generous quantities of forest products, merely lead us to imagine that such is the case? I incline to the former belief, and I think that a visit to the denuded areas within regions once forested, and to the dry places where springs of clear water once flowed, will bear me out. If this is true, we must meet the demands of such rapid progress, or a halt must be called. I do not believe that the American people are built upon lines that would make palatable the calling of a halt in their onward march, but that, the necessity being made apparent to them, they will rise to the occasion as one man, and with all of the energy with which they are by nature endowed quickly set about correcting the sins of omission of which they have heretofore been guilty. Fresh from the southwestern corner of South Dakota, the former home of the Sioux Indians, who once thought, and perhaps yet think, that in defending their forest home death in tribal warfare was an honor rather than a calamity, and where I have resided for over a quarter of a century, I have noted with much concern the slow but sure dwindling of the forest. Although the extensive operations in that region of the great mining industry with which I have been connected have during that period been conducted, and are still being pursued, with the view of conserving the forest, the dwindling of the forest area still goes AMERICAN Forest CoNncRESS 309 on. Inthe pursuit of this policy of forest conservation it is only right to say that the forest has been the gainer, while the mining company has been the loser. The company I have the honor to represent, in using wood as fuel instead of coal, does so at a material loss, because the only wood used for fuel in the Black Hills is the dead, down and insect-infested trees which the departmental regulations very properly insist shall be removed from the forest. Such very inferior material costs the mining industry and all other industries using it approximately 100 per cent more than coal for either heating or steam-making purposes. If a suggestion in this connection is pertinent, I desire to say that the Government should give such material for the taking, so that the consumers of forest products who can and are willing to conserve the best interests of the forests by taking the inferior stuff should not be compelled, through having to pay for it, to bear an excessive share of the burden of cost of forest conservation. The Government enjoys excessive gain in having such refuse removed through promoting, in a material degree, the health and thrift of its green trees that remain. I think that should satisfy it. Its gain, how- ever, does not stop there, because the removal of this débris practically eliminates all danger of loss or dam- age to the green trees from forest fires. Trees breathe, digest their food, live, thrive, sigh, and die much as we of the higher order of animals do; therefore, if the fittest are to survive and thrive, the conditions around them must be favorable and the elements of danger must be removed. I think the forest supervisors and rangers, and the scientists from the Entomological Division and the Forest Bureau who have made so careful a study of this subject and these conditions will second this suggestion. K 310 PROCEEDINGS OF THE Forests are important to mining, and benefits accrue to mining from forests; but it is not sufficient to say so and there stop. ‘The forests are an absolute neces- sity to the mines. Nor is it true to say that the timber produced by the forests is the only benefit accruing from them. Conservation of water by a thrifty growth of trees is to the credit of the forest, while alike impor- tant and necessary to the mineral industry, and when that water is thus conserved it becomes invaluable as it flows upon such agricultural areas as may be adja- cent to the mineral lands. I say adjacent, but I do not mean within the exterior boundaries of the mineral zone, because I do not believe that the narrow strips of soil oftentimes found alongside of mountain streams which have cut through ledges of metal-bearing rocks and which consist largely of the erosion of those rocks constitute agricultural areas entitled to consideration or rights equal in any degree with the rights of the mines. And I think any legislation looking to the giving of grants to such so-called agricultural areas a hindrance and stumbling block in the way of progres- sive and successful mineral development. Not many, perhaps, fully appreciate the enormous quantity of timber needed in and about a great mine in order to carry on its operations and protect the lives of its operatives. The hoisting works, metallurgical, and other buildings on the surface which are always in sight perhaps render the casual observer unmindful of the fact that further supplies of the forest product are required with every foot of progress made in pene- trating underground. As the miner’s work of taking out the ore advances, he surrounds himself with a framework of timber which is intended to hold in place the sides and roof of his excavation. Wherever it is possible to hold in place these sides and roofs with AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 311 waste rock instead of timber it is done; so that there need be no division of opinion as to the willingness of the miner to adopt such practice whenever it can be done. The better protection of his property from disastrous caves suggests it; the protection of his operatives makes it imperative; it is cheaper. It is true that a substitution of metal for wood in certain permanent improvements about the works of some of our great mines has been made, and it is probable that wood will continue to give way to iron, steel, and possibly other non-combustible materials in limited extent. At the every-day task of mining ore and developing underground, however, I do not antici- pate any such substitution, nor do I think that the importance of the public forest lands to mining will be lessened by the change in practice in making such permanent improvements, because of the small ratio the consumption by such improvements bears to the whole. I am not familiar with all of the conditions that now surround the several areas in the United States which constitute its forest reserves, or that surrounded those areas when the reserves were created, but I have inti- mate knowledge of the conditions which prevailed and surrounded the home of the Sioux Indian up to the spring of 1877. Inasmuch as Article II of the By-laws of this Association suggests, as one of the objects of its being, the advancement of such legislative measures as the Association thinks may tend to promote the general welfare of forests, I am persuaded to call the attention of this Congress to the importance of consid- ering well such local conditions as may be found at each and every reserve before advancing general legis- lation, the operation of which would affect all of the reserves alike. I further desire to submit to the 213 PROCEEDINGS OF THE attention of the Association the fact that there are certain conditions in and about the Black Hills Reserve which should not be forgotten when suggesting laws, rules, and regulations for its government. In the first place, it will be remembered that the Black Hills Reserve was the home of the Sioux Indian until 1877, and that the Government, having satisfied itself that there was within the exterior boundaries of that home a valuable mineral kingdom, arranged for the red man to vacate the premises. Announcement of the new find was then made to the world, the area was platted on the Government maps as a mineral zone, and the miner was invited to enter, explore, and develop the zone. ‘The miner came upon this invitation, has been diligent ever since, and has invested millions of dollars in exploration, development, and improvements, rely- ing in the prosecution of his work upon having the full benefit of all of the natural resources of the country, and without which his work cannot continue success- fully. I therefore submit to this Congress that it will be manifestly unfair to advance any legislation having for its effect the depriving of the Black Hills miner of those natural resources in any degree. Touching another subject, suggested in Article IT of its By-laws as justification for the being of this Association—the advancement of educational measures tending to promote forest welfare—I think that we may confidently rely upon that department of the Association which will have in hand the dissemination of knowledge relating to forest welfare to do its duty. Fully realizing that the benefit of the forest to mining is of such importance that it can only be appraised by giving it the value that attaches to an absolute necessity, and that much value also attaches to the forest in its relation to the other great industries AMERICAN ForEsT CONGRESS ama of the country which, combined with the mineral indus- try, go far towards making the nation the great, glorious, and prosperous whole that it is, I cannot refrain from suggesting at this time that the custodian of the public domain and its natural resources should not be unmindful of the immense value to it from the operation of those combined industries. While the receipts and expenditures of all industries except mining can be so fixed as to return interest on the investment, and that such industries have practi- cally life in perpetuity, it is not so in the mineral industry. With it the day comes when, after having given to the country their treasures, the mines, one by one, become exhausted, and their costly improvements are allowed to decay. Is it asking too much, then, that the mineral industry be most considerately treated by this Government? If not, most liberal should the consideration be that is given to the precious metal mines which furnish the foundation of the nation’s credit, and which saved that credit from annihilation after the civil war. I become more and more impressed with the neces- sity of tree planting to insure forest perpetuation and enlargement, and to insure the maintenance of stream- flow, and I am amazed at the indifference upon the subject so long displayed by a people otherwise so mindful. Dwelling upon the subject for a moment, I next wonder how the tree planting can be most success- fully and economically accomplished, when something says to me it can be done by the forest rangers. I submit the thought for your consideration. Will you bear with me a moment longer, Mr. Presi- dent, and gentlemen of the Congress, while I call attention to a condition obtaining in and about all of the forest reserves of the United States, and which 314 PROCEEDINGS OF THE looks to me to be very unfair to a few of the great industries operating about and within those reserves. Under the presidential proclamations creating the reserves, and under the laws as they now exist, it is not possible for any industry—railroads and irrigating companies excepted—to be made secure in the posses- sion of a right of way extending through a forest reserve. Is that fair? Is there any reason why a great mine, after spending a large sum of money in constructing a waterway through a reserve for the purpose of bringing a supply of water to its works and to the people manning those works, should not be able to get as good title or right of way for such conduit as is given to the irrigating company or to the railroad company that builds a line through the same reserve in order to haul other kinds of supplies to the same works and to the same people operating the works? Under the laws and proclamations creating the Black Hills forest reserve the miner is protected in the pos- session of such mining locations as he possessed at the time of the creation of the reserve. Further than that, he is permitted to make new and additional locations. Both these provisions are just. ‘They are, however, inadequate. ‘They stop short of giving that protection to which the mining industry in the Hills is justly entitled. The absolute necessity of water for the devel- opment of the mining claim is universally conceded. The United States Government recognized this neces- sity. It has thus far failed, however, to make adequate provision to enable the miner to secure himself in the possession of this necessity. Since 1866, the Govern- ment of the United States has granted to the miner the right to construct upon its public lands ditches and flumes to conduct the waters-of the streams required AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS ars in legitimate mining operations. It has in effect granted rights of way across such public lands for such ditches. It has provided that all patents issued shall be subject to such ditches and rights of way. This eminently just and wise policy seems to have been suddenly abandoned in regard to those lands comprised within forest reserves. Since the creation of these reserves there has been, so far as I am advised, no provision made by which the miner can secure the grant of a right of way for his ditches and flumes, without which his property may be utterly valueless. It is true that the act of February 15, 1901, entitled “An Act Relating to Rights of Way Through Certain Parks, Reservations, and Other Public Lands,” does provide that the Honorable Secretary of the Interior may permit the use of rights of way through the forest reservations for ditches and flumes used in connection with mining and other operations. But the authority conferred upon the Honorable Secretary is so emascu- lated by the concluding provision of this act as to leave him in effect no authority to grant any substantial right, but unlimited power to revoke the favors already conferred. That proviso reads as follows: “And provided further that any permission given by the Secretary of the Interior under the provisions of this Act may be revoked by him or his successor in his discretion, and shall not be held to confer any right or easement or interest in, to, or over any public land, reservation or park.” I particularly call your attention to Regulations No. 2 and No. 11 promulgated by the Honorable Secretary under this act. (Circular July 8, 1901). No. 2 reads as follows: “It is to be specially noted that this act does not make a grant in the nature of an easement, but authorizes a mere permission in the nature of a license, revocable at any time.” 316 PROCEEDINGS OF THE No. 11 reads as follows: “Upon receipt of applica- tions for right of way by the General Land Office, the same will be examined and then submitted to the Secretary of the Interior with recommendation as to their approval. Permission to use rights of way through a reservation or any park designated in the act will only be granted upon approval of the chief officer of the department under whose supervision such park or reservation falls and upon finding by him that the same is not incompatible with the public interest. If the application and the showing made in support thereof is satisfactory, the Secretary of the Interior will give the required permission in such form as may be deemed proper, according to the features of each case; and it is to be expressly understood, in accordance with the final proviso of the act, that any permission given thereunder may be modified or revoked by the Secretary or his successor, in his discre- tion, at any time, and shall not be held to confer any right, easement, or interest in, to or over any public land, reservation or park. The final disposal by the United States of any tract traversed by the permitted right of way is of itself without further act on the part of the department a revocation of the permission so far as it affects that tract, and any permission granted hereunder is also subject to such further and future regulations as may be adopted by the Department.” In short, gentlemen, the miner who, at a cost of thousands, nay hundreds of thousands of dollars, has constructed his ditches across the public lands of the reservation in order to make profitable a mining prop- erty otherwise idle and worthless, holds his investment of dollars and brains subject not only to the changing policy, to say naught of the whims and caprices, of an administrative officer of the Government, but, what is AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 317 a far more serious danger, subject to the blackmailing schemes of the mine adventurer who, by obtaining a patent for one mining claim across which the ditch is constructed, has the absolute power of obstructing the operation of the ditch and thus of the mine. Certainly, such results could not have been foreseen by our law-makers. But they are not only probable; they are inevitable. There is a remedy—simple, speedy, just—and that is a law promptly giving to the miner the same rights given to railroad corporations and irrigating ditches; at least, a law by which the miner in a reserve is protected to the same extent that he is protected upon public lands not within a reserve. The law, as it stands, puts a premium upon the dis- honesty of the nomadic mining adventurer. It offers no protection whatever to the bona fide miner. It should be promptly amended. For the respectful attention given to a few thoughts of a brand-new member of your Association, hurriedly incorporated into a so-called paper, I thank you, gentlemen, most heartily. MINING IN THE FOREST RESERVES. BY MAJOR F. A. FENN Supervisor of Forest Reserves in Idaho and Montana [|X many of the Western States where forest reserves have been established, mining holds the foremost place among our industries. With coal mining we have little to do; hence, in the remarks that I shall make, the term mining will be confined to metalliferous mining. No other industry is more directly and inti- — mately connected with the administration of forest reserves than mining. The preservation of timber and the conservation of the water supply—the two great purposes of the forester—are exactly suited to meet the demands of the two chief branches of the mining industry, lode mining and placer mining. The lode miner must have timber for his underground workings ; and without water, the placer miner is helpless. The Government has ever guarded the miner’s interests most carefully. Every inducement has been given the prospector, and the development of the mineral resources of the country has been encouraged and stimulated. Consistently with its steadfast policy, Congress took pains to see that the law authorizing and setting apart portions of the public domain as forest reserves should contain nothing of detriment to the mining industry. The act of June 4, 1897 (com- monly called the Forest Reserve Law), among other things provides as follows: “Tt is not the purpose or intent of these provisions, or of the act providing for such reservations, to author- AMERICAN ForEST CONGRESS 319 ize the inclusion therein of lands more -valuable for the minerals therein, than for forest purposes.” And further: “Nor shall anything herein prohibit any person from entering upon such forest reservation for all proper and lawful purposes, including that of prospecting, locating, and developing the mineral re- sources thereof: Provided, That such persons comply with the rules and regulations covering such forest reservations.” And further still: “And any mineral lands in any forest reservation which have been or which may be shown to be such, and subject to entry under the exist- ing mining laws of the United States and the rules and regulations applying thereto, shall continue to be sub- ject to such location and entry, notwithstanding any provisions herein contained.” While the act contains the above-quoted provisions, it also outlines a plan for the preservation of the forests within the reserves and gives to the Secretary of the Interior power to elaborate the system and make it effective, by authorizing him to “make such rules and regulations and establish service as will insure the objects of such reservations, namely, to regulate their occupancy and use and to preserve the forests thereon from destruction.”’ Realizing the vital importance of the mining industry to the national prosperity, and at the same time appre- ciating the necessity of protecting the forests for the benefit of the people, the law-makers devised a scheme of forest protection that enables forest reserves to be maintained and the mining industry to be carried on simultaneously in the same territory, not only without conflict or friction, but in such manner that scientific forest methods may be applied in fullest measure, while the best interests of the bona fide miner are subserved and promoted. 320 PROCEEDINGS OF THE Under the same law, the authority given the Secre- tary of the Interior to prescribe rules and regulations to effectuate the system outlined in the law, provided the means whereby the details of the reserve policy might be worked out and adapted to the conditions of the mining industry as they should be encountered in the different localities where mining interests and forest methods might come in contact. The scheme devised enables every miner to secure from forest reserves in the State in which his mines are situated whatever tim- ber is necessary to the prosecution of his enterprise. Prior to the enactment of this law, a different condi- tion prevailed. Before the act of June 4, 1897, was passed, almost the only way for the miner to obtain timber from the public lands legitimately was under the act of 1878, which allowed the cutting and removal of timber from public mineral lands for mining and other specified uses. This act placed miners in an embarrassing position. Under the general laws, and according to the policy of the Department of the Inte- rior, the public lands are presumed to be non-mineral, and held to be such until the contrary is shown; hence, to justify the cutting and removal of timber from a given tract, under the provisions of the act of 1878 it is incumbent upon miners to be in position to show that the land involved is mineral in character. ‘This neces- sitates the discovery of mineral; for ordinarily the fact that some mines are known to exist in a certain region does not establish the mineral character of the whole territory included. To demonstrate by prospecting or otherwise that a particular tract from which it is proposed to cut timber is mineral lands, is to invite the location of it by others as mining ground, and thereby defeat the very purpose of the person needing the tim- ber; for, under the mining laws, the locator has the AMERICAN ForEST CONGRESS 331 right of possession, and is entitled to the exclusive enjoyment of the surface of the ground located. The consequence has been that no effort to determine the real character of the land was made, the needy miner preferring to take the timber on land separated from his claim and run the risk of being brought before the court for cutting and removing timber from public lands illegitimately, rather than to place the timber beyond his own reach through proving the tract to be mineral in character, and assure its subsequent location by interested parties, who would surely take advantage of the showing made, to their benefit and to his injury. It may be suggested that the person desiring the timber might himself locate and secure control of both timber and land; but the reply is that the law as con- strued requires that the timber cut from a given claim must be used on that claim, or on a group of which that claim forms a part, and cannot be removed for use on a different claim. This most annoying complication has been fully appreciated by the Government and by courts, and the result has been that really very little regard has been paid to the character of the land from which timber was cut for mining purposes. The con- dition precedent to justify the cutting was practically neglected,.and it was deemed sufficient that the timber taken was devoted to a use contemplated in the law. The necessities of the miners, and the peculiar provis- ions referred to, combined to make the majority of the miners of the Northwest law-breakers. In fact, few miners knew the exact requirements of the law. It was commonly understood that whatever forest pro- ducts might be needed could be taken anywhere any at any time. This erroneous view often resulted in prosecutions, which usually terminated in acquittals that have brought discredit upon the administration 322 PROCEEDINGS OF THE of justice in the far West. Now, happily, this deplor- able condition of affairs is obviated through the passage of the Forest Reserve Law, and the bona fide miner is given opportunity to secure timber in a legitimate manner from the public lands. This one point alone, gained through the develop- ment of American forestry, should commend the sys- tem to every person truly interested in the continued prosperity of the mining industry. Still, the difficulties mentioned might have been overcome by direct legisla- tion, and the vital matter of forest preservation left untouched. Every successful lode mine is a consumer of enor- mous quantities of forest products. Such properties as the Homestake mine in South Dakota, the great copper mines of Butte and Anaconda in Montana, or the lead-silver producers of the Coeur d’Alenes in Idaho, require almost incredible amounts of timber for their operation. While commonly there is natu- rally a fair supply of timber in the mountainous regions where such mines are found, it is far from inexhausti- ble. The first impulse of the miner in the hurry and scurry of the newly discovered mining region is to cut and slash indiscriminately. He takes a tree here, another there, as his immediate needs may suggest. He gives no thought to the refuse from his cutting. He is heedless of the damage that may be done to the remaining timber, and he is utterly extravagant in the use of that which costs him nothing, and which there is no one to claim or protect. What might be expected, ensues. Fires start in the cut-over tracts, spreads through the accumulated debris to the adjacent forests; and the country for miles around is devastated. Recurring fires continue the destruction, and in a relatively few years the mining AMERICAN ForEsST CONGRESS 323 camp is surrounded by denuded hills, and the miners are face to face with the timber famine, the penalty of their own thoughtless extravagance and careless- ness. Another cause of destruction is the wanton burning of forest cover where brush and other material impede the hasty work of the prospector. oo often it occurs that the prospector, his imagination fired by finding a rich piece of float, without thought of the injury he may do to others or even to himself, deliberately sets fire to the forest to clear the ground and facilitate his operations. Not only is immeasurable damage done to the mining industry at large by such criminal prac- tices, but the fire-bug is likely to render the mine, if he discover one, wholly valueless, because of the de- struction of timber on which successful operation of the property may depend. It is useless to cite examples to illustrate what has been said concerning the destruction of timber in the vicinity of mining camps by prospectors. The expe- rience of any practical miner is sufficient to prove the correctness of what is stated. The preservation of the forests in a State of highest continued production involves the economic use of timber, encouragement and stimulation of reproduc- tion, and protection from fire and spoliation. It frequently happens that mining properties are found at altitudes where the better grades of timber cannot grow. Such species as are adapted to these high elevations rarely attain dimensions suitable for ordinary commercial purposes; and again, too, the stand is limited, so that he who appreciates the situa- tion must realize the vital necessity of husbanding the available supply. In spite of these conditions, how- ever, miners, particularly in the boom days of any 324 PROCEEDINGS OF THE mining camp, are, as before stated, prone to extrava- gance in the use of timber and to be careless in their methods. After a few years of such work, the in- creasing cost of forest products and the rapid diminu- tion of the supply arouse consumers to their early folly, and stir them to an appreciation of conservative forest methods and to the importance of enforcing them. But at this stage, proper protection of the young growth is most difficult. The needs of the consumers prompt the cutting of immature trees for.all purposes where such timber can be utilized ; and to withhold such material is, under the circumstances, looked upon as a hardship. Large areas are now in process of refor- estation around many mining camps, where repeated fires, following in the wake of choppers, have cleared off the remnants of the original forest and also de- stroyed one or more second crops that have sprung up. The present growth is frequently sparse in conse- quence ; but it is usually largely composed of lodgepole pine, a variety of timber fortunately well suited to many of the miner’s purposes when it is mature, but not calculated for any other use than lagging when in the sapling stage. This timber, too, is largely a pre- paratory crop, which nature provides to fit ares that have been devastated by fires for the growth of other and more valuable varieties of timber. ‘This is a critical time in the process of reforestation, and it occurs just when the miner is experiencing the first pinch of timber famine, and he looks with longing upon the growing trees that might be employed as a make- shift to tide over present difficulties; hence, the apparent hardship. A comprehensive view of the situation will convince him that the ultimate good of the industry he represents will be advanced by prac- AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 325 ticing the most rigid economy in the use of this immature timber and by husbanding it and stimulating its growth to insure a later abundant supply. Right here I would call attention to the possible shortage of timber in certain reserves where the de- mands of miners may be most urgent. I have in mind the Black Hills Forest Reserve, in South Dakota. Vast mining interests are at stake there; at present there is an apparently sufficient supply of timber in the reserve to satisfy the needs of the mines, but the appearances are deceptive. The forests are badly in- fested, the pine beetle is doing his deadly work; and unless the ravages of the insect be stopped, the present forests of that reserve within a relatively short time will have been destroyed. Investigations made by competent forestry officials have proven that a remedy for the evil exists. The infested timber must be promptly cut down and the breeding places of the beetle sought out and the insects exposed to the ele- ments and killed. This heroic treatment fills the minds of Black Hills miners with apprehension. They therefore object to it; they fear that if this now in- fected timber be all cut and removed they will be left without any available timber. Such a result would indeed be disastrous; but by opposing the cutting and removal of the timber beyond the present needs of the consumers, the evil will not be eradicated; further de- struction is a certainty so long as the insects are allowed to harbor and propagate there. By thus pro- crastinating, the suffering miners but increase their difficulties; and if things be allowed to drift along as they are now going, not only will all the timber, young as well as old, be destroyed, but the possibility of a future crop will disappear. Now it would appear that if there is any chance for a supply of timber for present 326 PROCEEDINGS OF THE needs from the public lands to be assured for usé in the mines in the Black Hills, the wisest course would be for every tree in the affected district to be cut and the threatened disaster averted, while at the same time the present young growth could be given an oppor- tunity to develop and become valuable, free from the blighting influence of the now tireless pest. Such a cutting would result in throwing a vast amount of timber on the market at once, an amount far beyond the demands of the day in that immediate vicinity. To attempt to retain it until the local market could dispose of it, would be to allow a large part to rot on the hands of the Government. Wastefulness of that character would be criminal. The only reasonable course would be to ship the stuff to other points, to ‘other States probably for consumption. The law, however, prevents such shipments; timber cut from public lands may not be transported outside the State in which it is cut. Here is a dilemma. If the timber be not cut, the forests will be irretrievably ruined; if it be cut, it must be either burned or allowed to rot on the ground instead of being utilized to satisfy the wants of people in other States which nature has not blessed with timber growth. | If the timber could be cut from public lands in one State and shipped to other States, the solution of the difficulty would be easy. ‘The insect-infested timber could be cut and the surplus exported to other locali- ties; and then,- whenever the needs of the miners of the Black Hills should require it, the forests of Oregon, Washington, and northern Idaho, where there is no local demand at all, could be drawn upon for an indefinite time and until the young growth in the South Dakota hills should be again adequate to the necessities of the people there. AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 327 The present law on this point should be changed. Instead of remaining inflexible, as it now is, positively prohibiting the exportation of timber cut from public lands from one State to another, the law should be so modified as to allow the department in charge of the forest reserves in its discretion to authorize such exportation when the interests of the people would be subserved and the forest reserves benefited or at least not injured thereby. It should not be understood that the present legal difficulty is applicable only to the case cited above. In many of the great forest reserves of the Northwest, where there are hundreds of millions of feet of mature timber which is deteriorating in value every day, there is no local demand; the lumber manufactured in Ore- gon, Washington, and northern Idaho is practically all shipped to markets outside those States. Because of the inhibiting law now on the statute books, the reserve timber cannot be utilized. It must remain neither useful nor ornamental, and finally die and rot where it grew; while the people of the prairie States of the Middle West appeal in vain for that which they so much need, that which they might have but for this absurd provision of a law enacted long ago to meet conditions that no longer exist. The incongruity of things is manifest. This Congress is deliberating here for the purpose of encouraging and making practicable an American forestry system, a system national in its scope; while the law referred to renders impossible the application of some of the most fundamental principles of true forestry by circumscribing vast areas of available ma- ture timber by the impassable barrier of a State boundary line. The economical use cannot subserve the miner’s 328 PROCEEDINGS OF THE needs unless it be supplemented by adequate protection against fire; and here is where an intelligent forest patrol is a necessary auxiliary to the mining industry. Protection from fire makes requisite certain precau- tions. Where trees are felled and removed, a minimum of the débris should be left on the ground to serve as a conductor of the flames, and all of it should be so disposed of that when the season of least danger arrives, the refuse may be burned without damage. These outlines indicate the importance of enforcing adequate supervision if the greatest benefit is to be derived from our forests; but, aside from any theo- retical view of the subject of forest preservation, there is a feature of the forest reserve policy which often escapes attention, but which every bona fide miner must recognize and appreciate. I refer to the prevention of illegitimate location of timber lands as mining claims. How many mining enterprises of great promise have been balked by such practices? Every experienced lode miner knows in- stances where “‘stake locators” have claimed every acre of timber land within miles of a promising discovery, for no other purpose than to compel the owner of the legitimate mining claim to purchase a fraudulent one in order to secure the timber essential to the operation of his property. Many of these nefarious schemes have been defeated through the efforts of forest offi- cers, and a more effective method of dealing with such blackmailers is being carefully worked out. Illustra- tions are not wanting to show that where opposition to the inclusion of certain tracts within forest reserves has resulted in the elimination of such tracts, and the land shark relieved from the vigilance that has pre- vented the carrying out of his plan, he at once makes application for patent to alleged mineral land and AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 329 promptly secures absolute control of it. These specu- lative entries place the legitimate miner at the mercy of the unscrupulous holder of the title. One or two alternatives the miner must adopt: either to sell out and practically abandon his property, or else to pay an exorbitant price for the timber his tormentor controls. Usually it is the object of the speculator to force the former; sometimes the latter is sufficient to satisfy his greed. In either case rascality triumphs, and the man whom the Government would assist and encourage is victimized and his meritorious enterprise embar- rassed or defeated. Further than this, in certain cases where formerly there was an abundant supply of timber available from the forest reserve, since eliminations have been made, residents find themselves unable to secure timber for domestic and other purposes without infringing the law; and it has been demonstrated that ordinarily where a tract of timber land in a mining region, once included in a forest reserve, has later been excluded from it, the honest miner and prospector not only had little to do with securing the elimination, but is now anxious to be again within the reserve; while the purely speculative individual, whose schemes were formerly circumvented by forest officers, and through whose efforts the eliminations were made, instead of being thwarted, may do whatever his sinister motives may permit. It is commonly supposed that the conservation of the water supply and the maintenance of an equable flow in the streams of the country are of interest chiefly to the irrigationists ; the placer miner in this connection is forgotten. But he is an important factor in the nation’s prosperity. Without an adequate water sup- ply, he cannot conduct his operations successfully, no matter whether his work be done with the primitive 330 PROCEEDINGS OF THE rock and the sluice box, or carried on with the most advanced dredging or hydraulic elevator machinery. Moreover, as shown by the history of placer mining in California, Montana, and other great gold-producing States, there is a diminishing supply of water in every mining locality. ‘The barren hills, once clothed with timber, tell the tale of repeated fires and testify to the reduced water-storing capacity of the drainage basin involved. ‘The methods of practical forestry as carried out in the administration of forest reserves make it easy for miners of all descriptions to secure adequate supplies of timber to satisfy their needs, and wherever a reserve has been established a sufficient length of time, the honest miner is ever the friend of the reserve system. Like any other innovation, the introduction of forestry methods in a mining camp commonly arouses apprehension and antagonism ; but experience cures the troubles. ‘The conservative business administration of the forest reserve quickly results in the appreciation of the beneficent purposes of the reserve system, and converts enemies into friends. The honest prospector and the bona fide miner have nothing to fear from the forest reserve. As the forest policy shall be elaborated and adapted to the varying local conditions, the ad- ministration of the reserve will be improved, and the interests of the mining industry more enhanced. Ex- amined from the viewpoint of experience, the relation of forest reserves to the mining industry appears so intimate, the success of one so directly interwoven with and dependent upon the continued prosperity of the other, that the possibility of real antagonism between them cannot be entertained. The forest reserve system has come as a benefactor of the mining industry, and when properly understood, it gives every incentive AMERICAN ForEsT CONGRESS 331 to miners to yield it their loyal support. American forestry and American mining should work hand in hand. Forest officers, laboring for the common good of all, reciprocally miners, as active and efficient friends, may codperate in the achievement of noble objects alike beneficial to themselves and conducive to the public weal. THE VALUE OF FORESTRY TO COM- MERCIAL INTERESTS BY GEORGE H. MAXWELL Executive Chairman, The National Irrigation Association S OME ten days age a telegram reached me from the Governor of California asking if I could attend this Congress as a delegate from California. I replied that I could, and in due time received his appointment. I mention that merely in order that I may impress upon your minds that in the few words I have to say to you at this gathering, I speak as a delegate from and a citizen of California and a resident of that State, from the time of my birth until the last few years, which warrants me in speaking of forestry from the stand- point of a Western man. I think it is only proper that I should further say to you that I also represent on this occasion the National Irrigation Association, an organization of between two and three thousand of the largest commercial and manufacturing firms in the United States, located chiefly in the Eastern States, and that I speak also from the standpoint of the Eastern commercial and manufacturing interests. I think the mistake which those of us who are from the west make to-day, and always have made, is in looking upon this question of forestry in any sense as a sectional question. It is necessarily as much a national question as the maintenance of an army or the construction of a navy. I wish I had the power by some telepathic process AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 333 of impressing upon the mind of every man present the picture that is in my own mind as I stand here. I crossed the Mississippi river on my way to the west a little over two years ago on a ferry boat on which was loaded a train of overland passenger cars, and as we crossed that great river opposite the city of New Orleans, during one of the greatest floods in years, the flood was almost up to the tops of the levees on both sides of the river. It was a serious question whether the city of New Orleans was not in danger; and as we landed on the west side of the river we looked down over the bank and saw the plantations way down below the level of the water, and exposed to overflow and destruction any moment that artificial barrier gave way. Before we had gone twentyfour hours further west the levee did break and one of those great crevasses was formed, and practically destroyed the crop for that season over a large area; though other localities and the city of New Orleans were saved by the diminished pressure of the flood on the adjacent levees. As I stood on the boat and looked out over that great river, then at its highest flood stage, I realized the fact that from over more than one-third of the entire area of this nation, the water that falls upon it must escape to the ocean through that one gateway; and that as the years go by, year after year, we are destroying the grass and plowing up the prairies and stripping the trees and the brush and forests from the mountains so that the engineers can see that every flood plane gets a little bit higher than the last. I could not help thinking to myself whether it might not be possible some day or other to awaken the people of the Mississippi valley to a realization of the fact that forestry is a problem extending from New Orleans 334 PROCEEDINGS OF THE to the Continental divide of the Rocky Mountains on the west, to Canada on the north, and to the crest of the Alleghenies on the east, where the Ohio river has its source. And if it is expected in the years to come to control that great flood by building the levees higher and higher, I have only to say to the people of the lower Mississippi valley, the sugar bowl of the conti- ~ nent, that the time will come when they cannot build them higher and the country will go back to a swamp and be as desolate as it is to-day where the St. Francis basin is covered with water through which you may look down and see the tops of the trees that once grew on dry land. How are you going to prevent that? I say to you as a commercial proposition, if you look at it solely from that standpoint, as a proposition of cold, hard figures, that it is the duty of the national government to conserve that flood of water so that every drop of it can be used in the State where it falls before it finds its way into that great river and goes down to destroy the plantations. And that year by year the use of that water, if it were all used for power, for irrigation, for the navigation of the streams in the summer season (because the water would be in the streams then in the summer season), that it would more than double, more than treble, more than quad- ruple the productive power of more than one-third of the United States. Isn’t it worth doing? Let us carry the picture in our minds a little farther up the river and look at Kansas City and that great flood that came so near destroying its business section that same winter. Look at the Ohio River flood in the Pittsburg vicinity that same winter. Look at the Allegheny Mountain region a year later. I came down from Harrisburg to Washington last spring AMERICAN ForEst CONGRESS 335 when Congress was in session. The railroad track had been submerged and torn to pieces in many places by the flood, and the ice was banked up as high as the second story windows of the farmhouses to the left as we came down the river. . It is only within the last two weeks that I read an article in the New York papers to the effect that the cities of that Allegheny region were without water, the railroads were hauling water and the mines were shut down because the rivers were dry. I ask, why is that? And I will answer the question for you. It is because we have gone over those hills and mountains with axe and fire and stripped the hillside and the mountain tops of the whole Allegheny region, and instead of having a natural forest cover, which is the greatest reservoir known to nature or to man, we have a surface which sheds water as fast as the floor of this hall would shed it if you stood it at an angle of 45 degrees. There is no other question of as much interest to the commercial, manufacturing and transportation inter- ests of the country, to say nothing of agriculture, as that one question, forestry. It is not a western problem or an eastern problem— it is a national problem. When I appeal to you for this broad consideration of it, all that I ask is that you will project your minds across the ocean to the shores of the Mediterranean, to Palestine, to Persia, to the plains of Mesopotamia, and answer me this question: Where is there a nation that has been desolated by war that has not been restored to fertility when it lived upon a land that was productive? Where has there been a nation destroyed by the desert that has been restored or ever will be? 336 PROCEEDINGS OF THE Instead of talking about national protection by “army and navy,” we should talk about national pro- tection by “forest, army, and navy.” I am in favor of an army commensurate with our needs. I am in favor of this nation having not the second best, but the greatest navy of any nation, but if we can afford to do that, we can afford to spend as much upon the preservation of our forests and the protection of our country from destruction by the desert as we can afford to spend for the protection of our frontiers from a foreign foe, or to carry our flag upon foreign seas. This great problem of forestry is not alone a matter of sentiment. It is just as much a cold-blooded ques- tion of business. ‘The speakers who preceded me have spoken upon the importance of forestry to mining. I have listened with much interest to their masterly dis- cussions on the relation of forestry to mining, and it brought more forcibly than ever to my mind the con- viction that the whole country and those engaged in all its industries are fast coming to recognize the importance of forestry. I regret that we cannot in- clude the lower house of Congress. They do not seem to have yet waked up to it. I have read that the Japanese have been throwing 800 shells a day into Port Arthur, which have cost $1,000 apiece. I think we could, well afford to go to that expense with shells that were physically harmless to see whether we could not wake Congress up, by exploding that many such shells over the heads of the members of the House of Representatives. I am not going to take up your time with any further dissertations upon the importance of forestry. But I want to offer some practical suggestions as to what we should do to get what we want done. I listened with AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 337 the greatest interest and pleasure to the President’s address yesterday, and one of his sentences struck me very forcibly. He said: “We want to change the hope of accomplishment to the knowledge of things done.” If we are going to do that we must have a clear-cut idea of what we are going to do and of what we want Congress to do—so plain and clear that there is no possibility of any man being so stupid that he cannot understand it. We have listened to these gentlemen here to-day telling of the necessities of the mining industries and of the injustice brought about by insufficient laws. There is a most simple way to get all the things done that they have recommended, and more, too. The first is to bring about a perfect understanding with a business bureau of the Government, if we can create such a bureau, and the way to do that is to pass the bill consolidating the forest reserves under the control of Mr. Gifford Pinchot. And after you have done that and he has consulted with the lumberman and the miner and the farmer and understands what they want, then back him up and make-your Congressman help to get it done. There has been a good deal said here about tree planting, and I want to speak of the importance of tree planting to California. The water that comes from the Sierra Madre and San Bernardino Mountains produces annually $20,000,000 worth of fruit and other products of the irrigated farms to exchange with the manufacturers of the east for the products of their factories. The forests of those mountains have been neglected, thousands of acres have been burnt over and destroyed. One citizen of that State has interested himself prominently in tree planting. I refer to Mr. Lukens. He deserves to be mentioned by name. He 338 PROCEEDINGS OF THE has given generously of his own time and his own money and the Government has helped in a niggardly way. There is now a nursery of trees ready to be planted upon the hillsides of those burnt wastes and we cannot get a few thousand dollars’ appropriation to plant the trees. Now why is it that such a condition as that can exist? Why is it? I will tell you the reason. It is because we have “Watch Dogs of the Treasury” in Congress who object to large appropriations for for- estry. They can see the vast importance of huge contracts for armor plate and for building fortifications, but they care nothing about protecting our country. from destruction by the desert. Let us look at the business end of that proposition. There are other things besides bees that have business ends. For a number of years the President of the United States, the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner of the General Land Office have been trying to impress upon Congress, without success, the necessity of repealing the Timber and Stone act. I want to give the exact facts. The President, in De- cember, 1902, more than two years ago, called the attention of Congress in the strongest possible lan- guage to the necessity of doing something to stop the frauds and depredations upon the public domain under the Timber and Stone Act. The Secretary of the Interior reiterated his demand, and specifically urged Congress to repeal that law. The secretary said in his annual report more than two years ago: “The Timber and Stone Act will, if not repealed or radically amended, result ultimately in the complete destruction of the timber on the unappropriated and unreserved public lands.” AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 339 I find these words in the report of the Senate Com- mittee on the Public Lands, and the date is February 19, 1903: : “Tt can be plainly seen that all the valuable timbe lands of the United States will be owned by speculators within three years if the opportunity to acquire them at $2.50 an acre is continued.” That was February 19, 1903. It is now pretty close to February 19, 1905, and one year from that date the three years will be exhausted, all the timber land will be gone, according to this official statement. Has the bill been repealed? No! Has the House of Representatives done anything to stop this shameful waste of the public property under the Timber and Stone Act? No! They have done nothing whatever to stop the abuses and frauds constantly being committed under that act. Again, the following year the President in his mes- sage to Congress made substantially the same recom- mendation. They were reiterated by the Secretary of the Interior. The Senate Committee on Public Lands recommended a bill to repeal the Timber and Stone Act and the Senate passed the bill in the last session of Congress. It went to the Public Lands Committee of the House of Representatives. Mr. T. B. Walker appeared before that committee and waved his magic wand and they gave two votes for the repeal of the bill out of eighteen members of the committee. Two votes! And the bill is lying there in that committee yet. In this session of Congress, without waiting for anything, or for anybody to do anything, they passed a resolution in the Public Lands Committee of the 340 PROCEEDINGS OF THE House continuing this whole subject over until the next session of Congress. The next session of Congress will convene at a time within two months of the expiration of the three years within which the Senate committee told Congress that all the timber land would be gone unless they got action. T. B. Walker is one of those astute business men who has taken full advantage of the idiocy and incom- petency of the men who have framed our timber laws in the past to amass a fortune for himself in timber- lands. He is reputed to be the largest individual owner of timberland in the United States. I do not charge Mr. Walker with having committed any fraud himself, and the fact that he has acquired a fortune running into mitlions by the utilization of laws which enabled him to absorb the public forests into his private owner- ship is one of the severest criticisms that can be made of the law I am talking about. Now it is a question of money. From the standpoint of Congress this great nation has not enough money to plant those few trees we have in the nursery, to protect the forests of Southern California and the water supply of its farms and of the cities of Los Angeles and Pasadena. In the two years that have expired since the Presi- dent has called the attention of Congress to that timber and stone law there has been located under the Timber and Stone Act over 3,000,000 acres of timberland, the greater part of it the magnificent timber of the Northwest, which, according to the report of the Sec- retary of the Interior and the Commissioner of the General Land Office, is worth anywhere from $20 to $100 an acre, for the mere value of the stumpage, to say nothing of the young timber or the land itself. AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 34i In other words, as a result of the deliberate delay of the Public Lands Committee of the House, instead of having the value of the stumpage from that 3,000,- ooo acres of timber in the national treasury, we have parted with the timber and the land and the young growth and everything for $2.50 an acre. Taking the value of that timber at what the stumpage actually sold for upon some of the Government land in Minnesota, $15.06 an acre, the Government has lost $40,000,000 by that proceeding. But the stumpage on the 3,000,000 acres located during the last two years was much more valuable than that. And if the Gov- ernment had managed its timberland business as any business man or any man of sense would have managed it, we might just as well as not have realized $70,000,- ooo from that stumpage, and have had our young forest trees planted in southern California and the surplus left over. We are told that there is going to be a deficit this year in the revenues of the United States of $22,000,- ooo. If we had not thrown away that $70,000,000 we could have covered that deficit at least twice over and still have had money left in the treasury. In other words, the Public Lands Committee of the House has thrown away over $70,000,000 of the people’s money in the last two years. If we should put this total loss _at only $50,000,000 for the two years it has amounted to over $2,000,000 a month, or about $70,000 a day. Now suppose some enterprising and ingenious per- son had succeeded in tunnelling under the United States treasury and cut a hole into the vaults and was carrying off $70,000 a day. Don’t you suppose we could get the people of the United States to wake up the Public Lands Committee if it required some action by them to stop the stealing? That is exactly what is L 342 PROCEEDINGS OF THE going on; for if the House Public Lands Committee does nothing in this session of Congress (and they have already voted to do nothing), the loss to this country of $70,000 a day—$2,000,000 a month—$25,000,000 a year, and it is much more than that—will go right along and continue until all the timberland of our Government has been stolen. That will be a little over a year, according to the report of the Senate Public Lands Committee. And after the land is all gone—aiter the horse has been stolen, the House Public Lands Committee will awaken from their Rip Van Winkle slumbers and close the stable door with a bang. Now who has got this vast sum of money that has been lost to the people and the Government? Some very enterprising gentlemen of the West have made it, who are taking advantage of this law to their own personal profit and we are very seriously told that the West does not want the repeal of the Timber and Stone Act. Mr. Lacey, of Iowa, the chairman of the commit- tee, says that “the boys on the committee do not want the law repealed.” Let me illustrate this condition in the West. Suppose we hadalaw by which $70,000 a day or $2,000,000 a month was being paid to Tammany Hall from the national treasury, to be divided among the members of that organization and expended by them as each of them in his judgment should deem most meet and proper for the promotion of good gov- ernment in New York City. Don’t you suppose that Tammany Hall would be opposed to the repeal of that law? You might apply the same idea with reference to this question of the West. But it is a more serious matter than that. ‘There are men in Congress who will deliberately stand up and say that this law should not and shall not be repealed. AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 343 There was one thing the President said yesterday that I asa Western man cannot fully endorse. He said, in substance, that if the forests of the West are to be saved, the people of the West must save them. I say to you that if the forests of Oregon and Idaho and Washington and Montana and Colorado are not to be saved unless the people of those States save them, they will never be saved. If they are to be saved at all, it will be by Theodore Roosevelt and the people of the East. I want right here to express the obligations we owe to President Roosevelt for going into the West and making forest reserves which have saved thousands upon thousands of acres of forests of the West that never would have been saved had it not been for Theodore Roosevelt. It is also a matter of history that the forest policy which now exists was forced upon the West against its will by Grover Cleveland by executive order. You find such Congressmen as Mr. French, from Idaho, arguing against the repeal of the Timber and Stone Act and making such arguments as I have heard him make, that it was a good thing for the Gov- ernment to sell a man for $400 a quarter section of land, which he could turn around and sell for $4,000— that it induced people to go to Idaho and gave them capital to start in business. Don’t you suppose that if you offered a bonus of $3,600 in cash out of the national treasury to every many who would come to Washington to live that you could get more people to reside here and raise the value of real estate in the city? That is the proposition from the Idaho stand- point as applied to the city of Washington. Before I close I wish to specify some definite and specific things which should be done: 344 PROCEEDINGS OF THE First. Repeal the Timber and Stone Act. Second. Pass the consolidation bill putting the Gov- ernment forests under the management of the Bureau of Forestry. Third. Provide by national legislation that every acre of agricultural land that can be reclaimed under the national irrigation system must be saved for the homemaker who will go there and make a home upon it. In that way you can break up the timber combina- tion, and in that way only; because the land thieves of North Dakota, under the Commutation Clause—the land thieves of Montana under the Desert Land Act— the land thieves, under the Timber and Stone Act— well, perhaps I might be permitted to mention Oregon in this connection—are working together. You will have to explode some of those Japanese shells among them to break up the combination. The situation in Oregon reminds me of a saying of Mayor Henry, of the city of Oakland, out in California, twenty or more years ago. There had been a good deal of rottenness in the municipal affairs. The newly- elected mayor was something of a rival of Mrs. Part- ington. His knowledge of Greek names were a little mixed, and in his inaugural address he declared with great energy, “Gentlemen, I am going to clean out the Oregon stables!” I really think we are going to get the Oregon stables cleaned out. To show you why we cannot depend upon Congress- men from the timber State of the West to correct this enormous evil, a year ago both Oregon Senators and both Representatives from Oregon were bitterly op- posed to any change in the land laws. Representatives Hermann and Williamson both went before the com- AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 345 mittee and protested against any change. Mr. Her- mann was before the committee. At that exact moment the Oregon grand jury was in session in the city of Portland, composed of men drawn by lot from all over the State, and that grand jury urged the repeal of all those laws—the Timber and Stone Act, the Desert Land Act, and the Commutation Clause, and sent a memorial to the Public Lands Commission to that effect. Now the grand jury has had some busi- ness with Mr. Hermann since that time. I understand that Mr. Williamson is not here, and I do not know where he is. I did see an article in an Oregon paper charging that he put up the money himself for some fellow to buy a lot of worthless school land, and then they tried to get it into a forest reserve and failed and Williamson lost his money. I am lifting the sheet off the corpse a little, but I don’t think it will do any harm. If you don’t have these cold, hard facts impressed upon you by somebody you are not going to accomplish anything. If you want to do something, go ahead and talk to your member of Congress and get him to help to get the House of Representatives to carry the public lands legislation right straight over the heads of the com- mittee. They passed one land bill at the last session of Congress, a bill throwing away thousands and hun- dreds of thousands of acres of lands, in tracts of 640 acres, in western Nebraska, which should have been retained and trees planted on it to be used in the mines of South Dakota, and of the whole Rocky Mountain region. Nebraska sold its birthright for a mess of pottage when it allowed the Kinkaid bill to become a law. The whole scheme for 640-acre homesteads is a rank deception and offers a premium for fraud. 346 PROCEEDINGS OF THE There are a number of other things that I have in my mind to suggest that ought to be done: One is to pass the Appalachian Forest Reserve bill, which is ready to be passed. Another is to stop now and for all time all exchanges of lands in forest reserves for other lands. If the Government needs any such lands let it buy them and pay for them their fair value and no more. All lieu land scrip should be called in and cancelled and no more ever issued under any circumstances. The forest lieu land exchange law should be repealed. And if this session of Congress adjourns without the bill being passed by the House, which has passed the Senate, repealing the Timber and Stone Act, every member of the Public Lands Committee, who voted for delay, ought to be held up to popular obloquy and whipped at the cart’s tail with a lash that would make them feel the full weight of an outraged national public sentiment. They are not liable to punishment criminally, but they are morally responsible for every fraud committed under the Timber and Stone Act since they shelved the bill passed by the Senate in the last session of Congress to repeal it. But it is not enough merely to repeal the Timber and Stone Act. Every acre of public forest lands or brush or woodlands which conserve a water supply should be at once embraced in permanent forest reserves, the title to be always retained by the national government, and the stumpage only of matured timber to be sold. The whole great plains region should be studied and developed as a vast area which can be transformed from a semi-arid region to one of great fertility and more humid climate by the planting of immense areas, AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 347 hundreds of thousands of acres, of new forests by the national government on the wide level prairies and bare, rolling foot-hills which are now supposed to be among the waste places of the land and only fit for grazing ground for a few stray cattle and sheep. It is the vast possibilities of forest planting and tim- ber production in this region that makes it almost a crime against future generations to part with the land in its present condition to stockmen under such a scheme as the Kinkaid bill for the creation of large grazing estates in private ownership. ~The mining and transportation interests, more im- mediately than any other, ought to oppose this 640-acre homestead idea anywhere in the great plains or Rocky Mountain States, and help to inaugurate a great national policy of planting new forests, not only to furnish wood and timber for the mines, and railroad ties and timber for railroad construction and repair, but to conserve and increase the rainfall, regulate the flow of the rivers, stop floods and furnish water for irrigation. | In all those Western States, the State has the power to form districts for local public improvements, such as irrigation districts, sanitary districts, drainage dis- tricts, or levee districts, and I, for one, do not believe that it is the right policy that the national government should assume the burden of protecting from fire forests now owned by men who have gotten them from the Government for one-tenth of their value. The State and nation should codperate to form forestry districts and have assessments levied on all private lands in the district, and every acre, whether in public or private ownership, should contribute its proportion to the cost of preserving it from fire. There is one more thing I am going to urge as a 348 PROCEEDINGS OF THE mere matter of personal opinion. In making the sug- gestion I do not speak for California or for the Na- tional Irrigation Association, but for myself alone. I have been all my life a republican, and in my earlier : years advocated the republican doctrine of a tariff for protection in many political campaigns in my native State of California from the Oregon line to Mexico; but because I believe in preserving our industries and not in destroying them, I believe that in order to preserve the forest industries of this nation, we should repeal every tariff law imposing a tariff upon the products of the forests whether timber or wood or wood pulp, at any rate for a limited number of years, and until we have planted forests enough to annually harvest from our own forests all the wood and timber we use in any one year. STATISTICAL RELATION BETWEEN FORESTRY AND MINING (Impromptu Address) BY Dr. DAVID T. DAY United States Geological Survey HE relations of the mining industry to timber supplies and the consequently necessary forest culture, have been stated many times and many ways so that the views on this subject are not novel, neither are they clear. They are not clear because of fragmentary statements made largely from very differ- ent viewpoints by miners and by foresters. Further, during the few years in which this subject has been discussed the relations have been changing. The mining company is recognized as a good cus- tomer by the lumberman and by the preserver of forests he is recognized as a wanton destroyer and a deadly foe. The miner has established his reputation as a good customer to the lumberman and he is daily becoming a better customer. This is because mine timber seldom costs more than Io per cent. of the cost of the ore, and the large consumers want the best and can easily afford to pay good prices for it. He can afford to send farther for his supply than most other customers. He is much in the same category as the railroad, except that frequently poor timber will last longer than it needs to last in a mine, and this is never the case with ties. The miner outran the railroads as a timber con- sumer, for it was stated here yesterday that a forest reserve of half a million acres would (properly man- aged) furnish the United States with ties. I doubt 350 PROCEEDINGS OF THE if 10,000,000 acres would suffice to keep the miners going. We have no accurate knowledge of the amount of timber used in a year in the mines. But we do know that it requires about a cubic foot for each ton of anthracite, say 70,000,000 cubic feet per year, some- what less for each ton of bituminous, say 250,000,000 cubic feet yearly. Iron ore needs at least 20,000,000 feet, precious metal mining needs a cubic foot for each cube of gold, such as I have here, or say 75,000,000 cubic feet, or say 400,000,000 cubic feet a year for the whole mining industry. As a deadly foe to the forester the reputation of the miner is losing his former picturesque position, as fast as many of the sensational stories of the miner’s depravity cease to represent present conditions, and pass with old pioneer conditions into the legends of old days. Foremost among these dear old classic legends is that of the prospector who burns off the forest to get rid of the undergrowth so he can more easily discover his hidden treasure. Of course, prospectors include every sort of man, even the kind so foolish as to resort to such methods, but such men are disclaimed by the profession and in no way characterize the prospectors. I doubt if any species of tramp ever traverses the forest who uses such thoroughly trained care in ex- tinguishing every spark of fire he kindles as the genuine life-time prospector. He is accustomed to use every mark of changing vegetation to guide him in looking for changes in rock and soil conditions. He wants trees for landmarks if nothing more, and the only places where vegetation is so dense that burning off would compensate for the loss of guiding marks is in regions so wet that you could not build a forest fire with kerosene. AMERICAN ForEst CONGRESS 351 The main reason why the miner is no longer a foe to forest protection, is on account of two influences at work upon him. First, the missionary work of the foresters has converted him from wantonness in cut- ting timber. The mines are growing larger and less of them, there are fewer mining superintendents to educate and they are men of high grade. But most significant is a changing condition in mining practice by which the mining company falls into the same cate- gory as the lumberman as regards forestry. The change is this, the mining company cuts a continually lessening percentage of its own timber and buys corre- spondingly more from a distance. This increased attention to their own specialty of mining and buying their supplies of all kinds, especially their timber, from outside agencies is as marked a development as any other kind of industrial specialization and is as greatly aided by increased facilities for transporting supplies from considerable distances. The timber merchant will in the future stand between the forester and the mining company. ‘This is fortu- nate, especially in one way. There is no more difficult task than trying to educate the average mining man into any attribute of patience such as planting trees for his successor to use. His whole training is in the line of getting out all his ore with the greatest possible speed— to work out the deposit and go somewhere else. Frankly, the mining company often has been and occasionally still may be, worse than the man who skins a country, the miner disembowels it and leaves an absolute desert above and below. If the miner can be taught by forestry methods something of conserva- tism in rushing his mineral to market, the whole country will be better off. Further, it seems that as the friends of good govern- 352 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ment all citizens may take another lesson from the Government’s attitude to the public forest lands, and just as the general people’s valuable forest assets are being set apart for careful husbandry in forest reserves, so the citizens may well insist that our public mineral lands have ceased to serve a useful purpose as a bait to immigration. It is no longer necessary nor good public policy for the Government to give away practically free to the mine promoter valuable coal, oil, gas lands, and also lands where valuable metalliferous deposits may be reasonably looked for. The prospector is no longer greatly aided by such laws. He can be helped much more by governmental cooperation and joint ownership. It seems timely that the same wise regulations adopted for the sale and lease of lands belonging to the Indians should be ap- plied to lands belonging to the people as a whole, and it is to be hoped that Death Valley, many regions in eastern Utah, in the Rocky Mountain regions, may soon become Government mineral reserves. ~ PART VII NATIONAL AND STATE FOREST POLICY eos | * Py = in a i on PAE WORK sOF THE - BUREAU ‘OF FORESTRY BY OVERTON W. PRICE Associate Forester, United States Department of Agriculture | N THIS opportunity to say a word to you about the work of the Bureau of Forestry, I want to go a little further than merely to catalogue its present achievement. Because it seems to me that your chief interest lies not merely in what the Bureau has already done. It lies rather in the power of the Bureau for future accomplishment, which its organization and its point of view make possible. For although in the light of its results, the achievement of the Bureau is tangible and far-reaching, it marks only a small beginning, in the light of the work not yet done. And since the great bulk of the forest work is ahead of us, I want particularly to indicate how the policy of the Bureau enables it to assist in the practical solution of the forest problems still before the great industries represented here. Six years ago the reorganization of the Bureau took place. At that time, the foundation of an individual, a state, and a national forest policy had in part been laid, but its practical application had scarcely begun. It was the attitude of the Division then, as it is the attitude of the Bureau now, that the printing press and the lecture room are not in themselves adequate to get forestry generally into effect in this country; that the urgent need is practical field work with which to meet great forest problems on their own ground, and that the results of this field work, the practical solution of 356 PROCEEDINGS OF THE these forest problems, should be published and distrib- uted for the benefit of all—therein, as the Bureau sees it, lies its province, its duty, and its great opportunity for usefulness. Under this policy, the Division became a Bureau. Above all, it is the policy under which it has been able to attack effectively the forest problem in all its parts. Since its reorganization, the Bureau of Forestry has directed its earnest and constant endeavor along these four main lines: First. It codperates by practical assistance and advice in forest work which not only benefits individual cooperators but is of help to many others. Second. It attacks, independently, those urgent for- est problems whose solution by private enterprise is impossible, and thus becomes a national duty. Third. It renders all assistance within its power in the best use of the federal forest lands; and finally, Fourth. It publishes and distributes the results of its investigations for the benefit of all. The codperative work of the Rureau began in Octo- ber, 1898, with the offer of assistance to private owners in the handling of their own lands. From this begin- ning it has broadened as the direct result of an insistent demand, until it now offers assistance not only in the preparation of working plans, but also in tree-planting, either for commercial purposes or for protection, and in discovering the most conservative and profitable methods for the use of the products of the forest. The cooperative state forest studies, which offer a great and increasing field for usefulness, have also grown out of the policy of the Bureau’s cooperation with private owners. The codperative work in all its branches has had two important and tangible results: Not only has it brought AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 357 about the use of new and better methods on the ground, but, above and beyond the benefit to the indi- vidual codperator, this work, through the publication of its results, has been a far-reaching influence in fur- thering that understanding of the purpose and methods of forestry, without which its general application is impossible. Thus, the results of the cooperative work cannot be measured by the great areas of forest land now under management as the result of working plans prepared by the Bureau, or the three hundred and thirty-four planting plans which the Bureau has pre- pared for lands in fifty-two states and territories. In its cooperation with railroads, the Bureau, at an expense truly insignificant in comparison with the value of the results, has developed facts regarding the preservative treatment of ties and construction timbers and the profitable use of woods of inferior kinds whose value is beyond estimate both to the great transporta- tion systems themselves and in its decrease in the drain upon our forests. In its cooperative state forest studies the Bureau’s work has in each instance had a definite and tangible result in preparing a solid basis for a comprehensive state forest policy. But each piece of cooperative work, whether with the individual, the corporation, or the state; whether in tree-planting, in working plans, or in studies of forest products, is justified not merely by the direct benefit to the cooperator, but by the acquisition of knowledge for the common good, in which its widest usefulness lies. To the statement that this cooperative work, valu- able as its results may be, falls properly not within the sphere of the Government, but to the private forester, the answer is that the Bureau of Forestry took up this work only because no private foresters were available to do it. It is work which the Bureau has from the 358 PROCEEDINGS OF THE beginning recognized as purely temporary in its char- acter. To postpone it until the private forester was in the field would have meant that the better use of our forests would have been for a long time delayed. The area in woodlots and timber tracts in this country is approximately five hundred million acres. It is from them that our future timber supply must chiefly come. And the inauguration of better methods in their man- agement is thus a national duty until the private forester is present in sufficient numbers to carry the work. When that time comes, the Bureau will step aside. As a matter of fact, the Bureau has by its cooperative work not only instituted better methods in the use of the forest, but it has hastened, by making clear the business advantages of these methods, the growth of forestry as a commercial enterprise, and hence the employment of the private forester. And right there it is significant that, with very few excep- tions, the private foresters employed in this country to-day owe their work either to the recommendation of the Bureau of Forestry or as the direct result of its cooperative work. ‘ The second line of endeavor which it is the duty of the Bureau of Forestry to follow is that of independent investigation. This embraces the solution of those urgent forest problems which are beyond the scope, the means, or the trained knowledge of the individual, but which confront him, and through him materially affect the development of the great industries. Just as it is the duty of the Government through the United States Geological Survey to map this country, so is it also the duty of the Government through the Bureau of Forestry to put in the hands of the people knowledge essential to the best use of the forest, and as unobtain- able through private enterprise only as are the maps. AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 359 The Bureau of Plant Industry, of Animal Industry, of Soils—the scientific work of the Government through- out—conducts studies national in their importance whose solution is beyond the power of the individual. In exactly the same way, the Bureau of Forestry attacks those forest problems necessary to the perma- nent prosperity of all industries dependent upon wood and water. Under this policy the Bureau is conducting studies of commercial trees, since the published results of these studies serve as.a basis for working plans, as a source of useful information to lumbermen, and as a valuable contribution to our knowledge of American forests. It is conducting independent studies of forest fires as a means for the solution of the urgent national problems which they present, both in the form of legis- lation which will be effective against forest fires and in methods for their prevention and control. In its timber tests the Bureau of Forestry is supply- ing an urgent need of fuller technical knowledge of the strength of our commercial timbers, and is thus paving the way for economy in their use as well as in the woods. In the preparation of forest yield and volume tables the Bureau is laying the foundation for conservative forest management in all parts of this country. In its forest maps, its dendrological studies, and in many other ways, it is equipping the great industries depen- dent upon the forest with knowledge essential to their development. In the third line of its endeavor, the rendering of all assistance within its power in the best use of the Government forest lands, the Bureau is to the full extent of the province which legislation has entrusted to it giving assistance and advice in the management not only of the national reserves, but also of Indian 360 PROCEEDINGS OF THE and military reservations. Briefly outlined, this assist- ance has been as follows: On December 7, 1899, the Secretary of the Interior requested the Secretary of Agriculture for advice upon technical questions envolved in the administration of the reserves. The work of the Bureau of Forestry under this request has increased steadily in volume and scope, until at present practically all technical questions involved in the administration of the reserves are referred to it. During the past two years practically all of the recommendations for new forest reserves and changes in the boundaries of existing forest reserves either originated with or were submitted directly by the Bureau of Forestry. Since it took up this line of work the Bureau has examined 130 separate areas proposed as forest reserves or as additions to existing reserves. Regulations for grazing recommended by the Bureau are now in effect on two forest reserves in Utah and on four forest reserves in Arizona. Six members of the Bureau were loaned to the for- estry division of the General Land Office for periods of from one year to fourteen months (1902-1903). One of these members was chief of that division, two were inspectors, and two were head rangers. Under the request of the Secretary of the Interior, studies have been made of several Indian reservations, and recommendations submitted for their forest man- agement. The Bureau has also prepared detailed working plans for the Prescott, Black Hills, Big Horn, and Priest River forest reserves. To sum up, the principles and practice recommended by the Bureau to govern the administration of the national forest reserves have been approved by the AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 361 Department of the Interior. The Bureau is now the recognized source of information upon the suitability of lands for forest reserves or of changes in the boun- daries of existing reserves, for working plans for the management of the reserves, and for special reports upon grazing and other matters involved in their administration. In no case has the Bureau mixed in the details of reserve management. It has dealt exclu- sively with matters of policy. In its work under the Morris bill the Bureau has proved that conservative lumbering pays in the pine region of northern Minnesota. It was charged with drawing up the regulations for conservative lumbering and with their enforcement upon lands which, after they have been lumbered, will constitute the Minnesota National Forest Reserve. The result has proved that the Bureau of Forestry can institute and conduct successfully large administrative duties in forest man- agement. In the fourth branch of its work, the publication of the results of its investigations for the benefit of all, the Bureau has distributed well on toward 2,000,000 copies of its bulletins, circulars, and reports. I do not wish to inflict too much statistical information regard- ing publications upon you. But the distribution of publications is in large measure a test of the Bureau’s usefulness, and the demand for them a proof of the appreciation of its work. .And I want to give you enough facts to show, both that the publications are going out and that they are being read and used. Although the regular editions have been largely increased in order to meet the demand, no less than seventy-seven reprints have been required to satisfy it. A notable example of the scope of this demand is The Primer of Forestry, of which the first edition of 35,000 362 PROCEEDINGS OF THE was authorized by congressional action. Two editions of 10,000 each have since been printed, and since they, too, proved insufficient, a Farmers’ Bulletin edition became necessary. Of this, 170,000, in eight editions, have been printed, making the total issue of the Primer to the present time 225,000 copies. Another instance is The Woodman’s Handbook, a compilation of log scales and rules for forest measurements. The first edition of 15,000 was not off the press before the necessity for an additional supply was realized, and before the demand began to slacken, 25,000 copies, in three editions, were printed. The circulars giving the Bureau’s offers of codperation have passed through the press sixteen times in all, with a total issue of 123,000. To sum up, the Bureau is not only the direct and prevailing force behind the forest movement in this country, but it is furthering the application of those new and better methods on the ground without which the broadest, the most enlightened forest policy will utterly fail. It has, in my judgment, reached its pres- ent achievement, and it possesses its power of future achievement, as the direct result not only of an ade- quate organization and a comprehensive point of view, but above all because it keeps the practical aspect of its work constantly before it; because its policy is not one of arbitrary interference, but to bring about a relation between the forest and the interests dependent upon it which develops the highest usefulness and the highest permanent profit from them both. One of the most gratifying features of the work of the Bureau, full of promise for its further usefulness, is, that in spite of the overwhelming demands upon it and of the utter impossibility, with the men and the money at its disposal, to meet all these demands, the technical standard of its work has grown steadily AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 363 higher. The Bureau has fallen into no rut of routine in field work. Its methods in the field and in the office as well are thus showing year by year improvement which corresponds directly with the added experience of its men and the added funds at its disposal. The net result is a constant gain in effectiveness. I have said very little about the past achievement of the Bureau because you have that in its bulletins, in its reports, and you find it in the woods on the ground. But unless I have entirely failed, the points I hope I have made clear are these: that the policy of the Bureau is to help every man in the use of the forest or of its products; that the Bureau stands ready to take up with you the solution of the forest problem confronting you, whatever it may be, and to take it up not academically, not theoretically, but practically, with due regard not only for the preservation of the forest but for the business advantage of the interests depen- dent upon it. That point of view has alone made the present achievement of the Bureau possible. It is a guarantee of still wider usefulness in the future, because it means that you and the Bureau can begin the larger work ahead, can face new forest problems as they come, not singly, as a purely governmental enterprise on the one side, or by private endeavor on the other, but together, in active and effective accord on the same ground. WORK OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN MAPPING THE RESERVES BY CHARLES D. WALCOTT Director of the United States Geological Survey HAVE been asked many times during the last seven years how it came about that the Geological Survey was taking part in matters pertaining to the Government forest reserves; and I am glad to have the opportunity to give to this notable Congress some of the reasons for the activity of the Survey in this direction, and to record what has been done by it in surveying and examining the reserves. Let me first speak very briefly of the influences and events that led to the Survey’s taking up the work assigned to it by the Congress of the United States. Not many years ago one of our leading foresters said that, apparently, the forest policy of the Government had been to get rid of the land and that of the people to get rid of the timber; but within the last decade the country has awakened to a realization of the vast importance of its woodlands. Perhaps most influential in this awakening were the American Forestry Associ- ation and the Division of Forestry of the Department of Agriculture, under the leadership of Dr. Bernhard E. Fernow. From these organizations there came many reports, essays, and lectures on the subject, and AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 365 these had a strong influence in creating the public sentiment that at last manifested itself in the passage, on March 3, 1891, of an act granting authority to the President to set aside as public reservations public lands bearing forests, wholly or in part covered with timber or undergrowth. (Stat. L., vol. 26, p. 1103, sec. 24.) Under this act seventeen forest reserves were established prior to September 28, 1893, aggre- gating in area 17,564,800 acres. The establishment of these reserves did not excite any special approval or disapproval of the policy, except as some local interest was affected favorably or unfavorably. - In the latter case, little attention was given the matter by the parties directly concerned, for there was no real protection of the reserves by patrol, and the cutting of timber and the destruction by fires went on as before. But by executive proclamations of February 22, 1897, based upon recommendations of the Forestry Commission of the National Academy of Sciences, there were established thirteen additional forest reserves, containing an aggregate of 21,379,840 acres. This action was followed by strong opposition to the policy, especially in the Northwestern States, in which many of the reserves were situated. In the letter recommending the establishment of the forest reserves the Forestry Commission stated, in effect, that it had purposely recommended very large reserves in order to create a public sentiment which would cause Congress to enact laws securing the proper administration of the reserves. The result of establishing the reserves more than met the anticipa- tions of the commission that legislation would follow, owing to the pressure of the people on their repre- sentatives in Congress. The first storm of protest came mainly from South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, 366 PROCEEDINGS OF THE and Washington. Early in March, Congress inserted in the Sundry Civil Bill an amendment revoking the forest-reserve proclamations of February 22, 1897, and repealing the authority for setting aside public forested lands as reserves; but the bill failed, because President Cleveland did not sign it; and when the new Congress assembled on March 15, 1897, the agitation against the reserves was resumed. My predecessor, Major J. W. Powell, was much interested in the forests of the country, but did not take an active part in shaping the policy of the Govern- ment control or administration of forest lands. I had kept in touch with the general movement for the preservation of the forests, and with the commission of the National Academy of. Sciences, of which Mr. Gifford Pinchot was secretary; also with the members of Congress who were especially interested in the com- mission’s recommendations, and knew the sentiment these recommendations had developed. After the attack on the policy of forest reserves in the spring of 1897, I found that the National Academy commission could not take further action, and that nothing was being done by the forestry officers of the Government toward urging constructive legislation and combating the movement to repeal the law and return the forest reserves to the open public domain. After consulta- tion with a number of senators from the Western States, I drew up, at the suggestion of Senator Petti- grew, of South Dakota, an amendment providing for the survey and administration of the forest reserves. The administrative features of the amendment were based upon previously proposed but not enacted legis- lation, and upon the recommendations of the commis- sion of the National Academy of Sciences, modified to meet conditions in April, 1897. The preliminary draft AMERICAN Forest CoNGRESS 367 was then thoroughly examined by and discussed with Senator Pettigrew.* The amendment met with the ap- proval of the Secretary of the Interior and of the Presi- dent, and it was introduced in the Senate in a modified form by Senator Pettigrew on April 6, 1897, as a pro- posed amendment to the Sundry Civil Bill and was re- ferred tothe Committee on Appropriations. On April 8, 1897, Senator Pettigrew offered the amendment as originally prepared, and it was referred to the Com- * Hote, Victorta, NEw York City, January II, 1905. Cuar_Es D. Watcort, Eso., U. S. Geological Survey, Washington, D. C. My Dear Sir: Your letter of January Ist has just reached me, too late, I suppose, for me to be of use to you in connection with the Forestry Congress. I think your account of the amendment to the Sundry Civil Bill with regard to the administration of the forests of the United States is substantially correct. I was the author of the legislation of 1891, authorizing the President to set apart forest reservations out of the public domain, and therefore always in favor of a policy which should protect these forests and perpetuate them, so that they would grow better year by year. I studied with great care Napoleon’s method for administer- ing the forests of France; I also investigated the English policy in India, and the policy pursued by the Austrian Gov- ernment, and I reviewed and slightly amended the suggestions which you made to what is now the existing law. I remember my colleague, Senator Moody, made such modifications and amendments as it seemed to me were not advisable, and that you and I together went over the manuscript and struck them out; that the result of our joint labor was the law as it now stands, under which the forests are administered. For my part I should be pleased if all the forest lands, and all the other lands now owned by the Government of the United States, were withdrawn from sale and were admin- istered by the Government, so that the title weuld remain forever in the Government for the benefit of the people of the United States. Very truly yours, (Signed) R. F. PETTIGREW. 368 PROCEEDINGS OF THE mittee on Forest Reserves and the Protection of Game. The amendment of April 8 was reported back to the Senate by the latter committee with favorable recom- mendation. When the Sundry Civil Bill was under consideration in the Senate on May 5, 1897, Mr. Pettigrew offered the amendment of April 8 as an amendment to an appropriation for the Geological Survey. (Congres- sional Record, vol. 30, p. 899.) After discussion in the Senate, it was accepted on May 6 (Congressional Record, p. 908-925) and soon after went to the Con- ference Committee of the Senate and House on the Sundry Civil Bill, where minor amendments were made to the provision for the administration of the forest reserves. On May 27 the Senate agreed to the conference report (Congressional Record, p. 1278- 1285), and on June 1 the House of Representatives accepted it. (Congressional Record, p. 1397-1401.) On June 4 the President approved the Sundry Civil Bill, and thus completed the legislation providing for the survey and administration of the forest reserves of the United States. The period from March 4, when President Cleveland killed the scheme to revoke all forest reserve procla- mations, to June 4, when President McKinley signed the act containing the forest reserve legislation, was a strenuous one for those directly interested in the protection and utilization of the public forests. Con- ferences were held at the office of the Secretary of the Interior, Cornelius N. Bliss, and many hours of anxious suspense followed the formulation of a plan that met with the approbation of the department and of the members of Congress from the western states directly affected by the forest reserve policy. The new law was not ideal, but it was all that could be obtained under the conditions then existing. AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 369 The administration of the forest reserves was placed in charge of Commissioner Binger Hermann, of the General Land Office, and continued in his charge until 1903, when Commissioner Richards succeeded him. The surveys and examinations of the reserves were, by the act, placed under the Geological Survey. The survey of the reserves was begun in 1897 and has continued to the present time. The results, briefly stated, are as follows: Five reserves have been completely mapped—the Black Hills, South Dakota-Wyoming; Bighorn, Wyo- ming ; Teton,Wyoming (now a part of the Yellowstone Reserve); Santa Rita and Prescott, Arizona; and work has been commenced in twenty-nine other reserves. The boundary lines of the Black Hills, Bighorn, Aquarius, Logan, and Pocatello reserves have been completely surveyed and marked with iron posts; also parts of the Lewis and Clarke, Washington, Mount Ranier, Madison and Payson, and Black Mesa and Mount Graham reserves have been surveyed, com- prising 1,328 miles of boundary line. In connection with this, there have been surveyed 1,976 miles of standard and subdivision lines of various kinds, for which notes and plats have been filed in the General Land Office, as required by law. Reconnaissance maps have been made of the entire Lewis and Clarke, Bitter Root, and Priest River re- serves, comprising an area of over 12,000 square miles. The total area mapped for publication as regular atlas sheets, on scales of one or two miles to the inch, in and adjacent to forest reserves, is 48,963 square miles (not including 12,072 square miles of reconnais- sance maps), in connection with which 12,679 miles of levels were run and 2,983 permanent bench marks 370 PROCEEDINGS OF THE were established. This area comprises sixty-seven whole and five partial atlas sheets. In the act of Congress creating the Geological Survey the director is charged, among other things, with the classification of the public lands. The work done under the forest reserve legislation was therefore in strict accord with one of the original purposes of the Survey. Cruisings by private parties for private purposes have been made in this country for many years, but the work here briefly described is the first attempt to estimate and report upon the forests on a large scale for the information of the public. The field force employed in the examination of forests has varied in different years, and most of the men have been employed for a part of the year only. This work being the first attempt to accurately examine and appraise the forests of this country, it was neces- sary both to build up an organization and to originate plans and methods for field work and for presentation of the results in reports and maps. The work consists in the classification of lands as arable, pasture, desert, wooded, and timbered, timber land being defined as that bearing timber of merchant- able size and quality, while wooded land bears only trees of sizes and species suitable for firewood, posts, poles, etc. The timber land has been roughly cruised to learn the approximate stand of timber, with the stand per acre; the species of trees, with the proportion which each species bears to the total forest, and the average height, diameter, age, and condition of the trees. [he lands on which the timber has been cut or culled have also been defined, and the amount and character of the undergrowth, with its various species, and the depth of humus and litter on the forest floor, have been examined. AMERICAN FOREST CONGRESS 371 The subject of fires, both ancient and recent, with their effects upon the present forest, has been carefully studied, and the accounts of large fires in times past have been recorded. A study has been made of the streams as means of transporting lumber, and the lay of the country has been considered with a view to the - building of roads and railroads for lumbering pur- poses. The question of existing and future markets for the forest products has also been studied. The effects of grazing, especially the grazing of sheep, upon the present forests, and their reproduction, have been carefully investigated. The purpose of these exam- inations has been to ascertain the economic value of the lands and the forests. Reports on the areas examined have been prepared and published, the earlier ones in volumes of the annual reports of the Survey and the later ones as professional papers. These reports are illustrated by maps showing the classification of the lands and the stand of timber per acre upon the forested lands. For this purpose the atlas sheets of the Survey are used, if completed. The reports are also illustrated by dia- grams showing the stand of timber per township and the proportional distribution of the species represented. The map and the diagram together tell a large part of the story of the reserve. During the last eight years there has been examined a total of about 75,000,000 acres, or 117,000 square miles. This area includes nearly all the reserves in the country, besides great extents of land adjoining them, and other regions which have been withheld from settlement with the expectation of reserving them. Among these regions one was examined jointly with the Bureau of Forestry of the Department of Agricul- 372 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ture and the Geological Survey of North Carolina. It is a region of about 8,000 square miles in the Southern Appalachian Mountains.