1. Government forestry abroad

Pinchet, Gifford
Government forestry
abroad

LIBRARY
FACULTY OF FORESTRY
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
DEC 6 - 1966

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PUBLICATIONS

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AMERICAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION.

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1.
Government Forestry Abroad,

By GIFFORD PINCHOT.

I.
The Present Condition of the Forests
on the Public Lands,

By EDWARD A. BOWERS,

Secretary of the American Forestry Association.
(Formerly Inspector of Public Lands.)

IIL.
Practicability of an American Forest
Administration,

By B. E. FERNOW,
Chief of Forestry Division, Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C-

AMERICAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION.

May, 1891.

COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY AMERICAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION.

BALTIMORE:
FROM THE PRESS OF GUGGENHEIMER, WEIL & Co.
1831,

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Il. Tue Present Conpirion or THE Forest on THE PUBLIC
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III. Pracricapiniry or AN AMERICAN Forest ADMINISTRATION.
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The three papers on Forest Administration here
printed together were read at the joint session of the
American Economic Association and the American
Forestry Association, at Washington, D. C., Decem-
ber 30, 1890.

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Government Forestry Abroad.
BY GIFFORD PINCHOT,

The following article has been rather hastily pre-
pared from such materials and experience as the
writer was able to command, and while from the
nature of the case it cannot claim to be a compre-
hensive treatment of the subject, it is believed that
the statements and statistics which it contains are
accurate.

Germany, France and Switzerland have been dwelt
upon more at length, both because forestry has
reached a wider development there, and because the
writer can speak concerning them from personal
observation.

The history of the forest has developed itself along
similar lines in all the countries of Europe. Its course
in. the central part of the Continent, which may be
taken as fairly representative of what it was else-
where, is thus briefly summarized.

At first the forest held the same relation to man
as to the game upon which he lived. His demand
upon it was insignificant, but, as he advanced in the
scale of civilization, he began to call upon the forest
for greater supplies of timber, and especially for the
pasturage of his herds. Until comparatively recent
times this was the chief service which gave the wood

loa)

Government Forestry Abroad. [192

lands value. The increasing density of population
and the more complicated needs of life then gave
gradual rise to more vigorous attacks upon the forest.
For a time the demand was small and the areas cut
over easily covered themselves with young growth.
The forest renewed itself and maintained its pro-
ductive power. But, as the demand increased, the
areas cut over increased with it, and the actual re-
growth no longer kept pace with the quantity of
timber which it was called upon to yield. At the
same time the land needed for agriculture was being
taken from the timbered area, and the wood lands,
attacked along two lines, were beginning to suffer
seriously.

“Tt is true,’ says Dr. Gayer,! “‘that the forest belonged at that time
chiefly to the herdsmen and the game, but the steadily increasing
tendency to destruction of a growing population made the general
cultivation of the chase an undoubted advantage to the forest.
Indeed the hunter has been at all times one of its bestfriends. For
numerous acts of violence may be referred to, extending over the
whole of medieval times, as a result of which much free land
belonging to the early communities, or the rights to its enjoyment,
passed in course of time into the hands of the rulers. From a legal
standpoint these are indeed events to be deplored, and from them
the oppressive burden of actual prescriptive rights takes its rise, but
the present extensive State forest holdings in Germany have chiefly
to thank this universal love of venerie for their existence.

‘«Tt is unquestionably true that the forests have been at no time in
a more deplorable condition than in the second half of the Middle
Ages, and thence on to the middle of the last century. The results
which must follow this condition of affairs were evident, and led
to the most serious fears of a widespread timber famine. And
although this foreboding, as it filled the minds of men toward the
end of the Medieval period, and as it was brought to the attention
of the people through numerous publications, may have been exag-
gerated, nevertheless, in view of the commercial relations of the

‘Der Wald im Wechsel der Zeiten. Inaugural address as Rector
of the University of Munich, November, 1889.

193] Government Forestry Abroad. 9

time and the narrow boundaries of supply, it was on the whole by
no means unjustified. It gave, at least, the first impulse to economy.
Under the influence of this universal sentiment, but perhaps caused
even more by the interest in hunting and in the security of the
rights of property, a gradual change for the better appeared in the
destiny of the forest. Its importance as a national treasure had at
allevents penetrated the minds of the more intelligent classes.

“There begins nowa time of restless work in the forest, a time
of struggle for its preservation and rehabilitation, the results of
which no other nation has realized so fully as the German.

“Apart from the measures which were demanded by the security
.of property and the economical ordering of forest utilization, the
efforts of the forester were chiefly directed to the regeneration of
the forest. This was accomplished in those regions which had
partially escaped destruction by the assistance of the free regenera-
tive power of nature, in the totally devastated areas by artificial
means. The rational treatment of the wood lands had begun.’’

All forest management may be said to rest on two
closely related facts which are so self-evident that
they might almost be called axioms of forestry, but
which, like other axioms, lead to conclusions of far-
reaching application. These are, first, that trees
require many years to reach merchantable size; and,
secondly, that a forest crop cannot be taken every
year from the same land. From the last statement
it follows that a definite, far-seeing plan is necessary
for the rational management of any forest, from the
first; that forest property is safest under the super-
vision of some imperishable guardian; or, in other
words, of the State.

GERMANY.

It is natural in treating the subject of State for-
estry to begin with Germany, since it is here that it
has reached its furthest development and most stable
condition. In Germany, then, the forests cover an

10 Government Forestry Abroad. [194

area of 13,908,398 hectares, or 26 per cent. of the total
surface of the country. It is extremely significant,
in view of the popular talk about the «:inexhausti-
ble’’ forest resources of the United States, to note
that the latest available data put the percentage of
wooded land in our country also at 26 per cent. It
is true that the relative density of population in
the two countries is a factor which enters largely
into such a comparison, but it is equally true as
regards the relative economy in the use of wood, and
the fact that Germany is very far from supplying
her own demand for timber. Further, the contrast
between the permanent productive powers of the
German and American wood lands, as they stand at
present, adds another somber tint to the picture of
our condition. In Germany, the State either owns
or controls about two-thirds of the forest area, and
for these lands the point of lowest production has
been past. It is coming for us at a time when the
need of timber is at its highest.

It is necessary when dealing with forest policy in
the German Empire to treat independently the differ-
ent States of which it is composed. Differences in
forest organization and management have arisen
through differences in politics and geography, even
a superficial examination of which would exceed
both the space and the scope of the present paper,
and it is fortunately the less needful to go into so
extended a discussion, because one common principle
hes at the root of forest policy in each of them, and
may be fully illustrated by reference to any one.
This principle, special to no country or form of gov-
ernment, holds that «‘the State is the guardian of all
public interests.”’ It is in its interpretation that, for

195] (rovernment Forestry Abroad. 11

the purposes of this paper, its chief interest lies.
From this point of view ‘public interests ’’ must be
taken to mean all interests other than private ones.
So understood, this maxim may be said to sum up
the forest policy of nearly all the nations of Europe.
as well under republican as under governments of a
distinctly paternal character.

The Kingdom of Prussia, both as the head of the
German Bund and as the State which has developed
the forest organization most worthy to be taken as
an example, will furnish the completest illustration.

Covering an area of some 8,153,946 hectares, the
forests of Prussia occupy 23.4 per cent. of the total
surface of the country. Of this wood land it may
be said roughly that one-third is stocked with decidu-
ous trees, and two-thirds with the less demanding
conifers, a reversal of the old conditions, which is
largely due to the deterioration of the soil and to the
fact that the richer ground has been rightly claimed
for agricultural uses. The ownership, a point of
capital importance in relation to our subject, is di-
vided as follows: To the State belong nearly 2,718,-
256 hectares, or 29 per cent.; to towns, village com-
munities and other public bodies, 1,302,508 hectares,
or 16 per cent., and to private owners 4,382,251
hectares, or 55 per cent.

The relation of the State to the forests which it
owns is simple and rational, based as it is on the idea
that its ownership will be permanent.

Holding it as a duty to preserve the wood lands
for the present share which they take in the economy
of the nation, the State has recognized as well the
obligation to hand down its forest wealth unimpaired
to. future generations, It has recognized and re-

12 Government Forestry Abroad. [196

spected equally the place which the forest holds in
relation to agriculture and in the economy of nature,
and hence feels itself doubly bound to protect its
wood lands.

In a word, it has seen that in its direct and indirect
influence, the forest plays a most important part in
the story of human progress, and that the advance
of civilization only serves to make it more indis-
pensable. It has, therefore, steadily refused to
deliver its forests to more or less speedy destruction,
by allowing them to pass into the hands of shorter
lived and less provident owners. Even in the times
of greatest financial difficulty, whén Prussia was
overrun and nearly annihilated by the French, the
idea of selling the State forests was never seriously
entertained.

But the government of Prussia has not stopped
here. Protection standing alone is irrational and
incomplete. The cases where a forest reaches its
highest usefulness by simply existing are rare. The
immense capital which the State wood lands repre:
sent is not permitted to lie idle, and the forest, as a
timber producer, has taken its place among the per-
manent features of the land. The government has
done the only wise thing by managing its own forests
through its own forest officers.

The organization of the Forest Service is briefly as
follows: At its head stands the Department, or more
correctly, the Ministry of Agriculture, State lands
and forests, which exercises general supervision over
forest affairs through the medium of the (Oberland-
forstmeister) chief of Forest Service. A part of
this central office is the Bureau of Forest Surveys
and Working Plans, a factor of very great impor-

197] Government Forestry Abroad. 13

tance in the general organization. A working plan
is the scheme according to which the technical busi-
ness of a forest range is carried out. <‘‘Its object,’’
says Dr. Judeich,' ‘“‘is so to order the management of
a forest in time and space as to fulfill to the utmost
the objects of this management.’ The following sub-
division of the general subject of working plans is
taken from his admirable work, ‘‘ Die Forsteinrich-
tung.’’ The first section is entitled <‘ Preliminary
Work,’ under which are included: forest surveys,
forest or timber estimating (which includes ‘the in-
vestigation of all conditions inherent in the forest
which have an influence on its present yield, or which
are of importance for the calculation of its yield in
the future;’’ that is, the very thorough study and
description of both soil and timber), a study of the
general and external conditions by which it is affected
(its topography, history, ownership, nature of the
surrounding land and people, and any other consid-
erations which may influence its management), and,
lastly, maps and records.

The second section, which may be called Forest
Division for want of a better English name, con-
siders the formation of ranges, each of which is in
charge of an executive officer, then the division of
the range into units of management called blocks,
each of which is treated to a certain extent inde-
pendently of the others. and into compartments,
which are generally well over a hundred acres in
extent, and are marked on the ground by open lanes
and boundary stones. This second section contains
also less important matters which cannot be touched
on here.

1 Die Forsteinrichtung. 4th Ed. Dresden, 1885.

14 Government Forestry Abroad. [198

The third section, Determination of the Yield,
explains the various methods of calculating and
fixing the amount of timber which a given forest
may be safely called upon to yield.

The next section treats of the construction of the
working plans proper; that is, ‘‘of that document
in which the essential results of the preliminary
work, the determination of the yield and the regu-
lation of the management are so put together that
they may serve asa ouide: . ./ "sto uhevexecu-
tive officer of the range.”’

The final section relates to the posting and con-
tinuation of the working plans, especially as regards
the periodic revisions, which take place in general at
intervals of five and ten years.

Next in authority to the department just mentioned
is the Bezirksregierung, a council in charge of one
of the thirty-five minor divisions of the Prussian
State, which has full control over forest business
within its sphere of action. The members of the
controlling staff, the Oberfoérstmeister and Forst-
meister, are also members of this council. Their
duties lie in the inspection of the officers of the
executive staff, of whom there are 681 in Prussia.
These officers, styled Oberfoérster, are charged with
the actual management of the public forest lands, and
it is on them that the security of public interest in
the forests chiefly rests. Upon their selection and
education the utmost care and forethought are ex-
pended.

Their course of training, one which has produced
perhaps the most efficient forest staff of the present
day, is briefly as follows: It begins, after graduation
from a gymnasium, with a year of practical work

199 | Government Forestry Abroad, 15

under some experienced Oberforster, to enter which
the candidate is required to show, besides his certifi-
cate of graduation, that he is under twenty-two
years of age; that he has certain moral and physical
qualities, and that his financial resources are suffi-
cient to carry him through his whole forest educa-
tion. The object of this preparatory year is to intro-
duce the beginner to the forest and its management;
to enable him to become acquainted with the more
important forest trees: to take part in planting and
felling and the protection of the forest: to do a little
surveying, and last, but by no means least, to learn
to hunt. It may be said in passing that the love
of hunting, which the Prussian forest service is
careful to encourage, has very much to do with the
faithfulness and efficiency of its individual members.
Great stress is rightly laid on this year of prepara-
tory work, chiefly because of the vastly greater force
and reality which it gives to the subsequent theo-
retical teaching. As one who has suffered from
the lack of it, I may perhaps be permitted to bear
my testimony to the value of a custom which is
unfortunately less widely extended than its merits
deserve: but which I hope to see one day established
in the forest schools of our land.

The young Prussian forester who has had the good
fortune to pass through this preliminary year next
spends two years at a forest school, presumably either
Miinden or Neustadt Eberswalde, both of which are
in Prussia, and like all other similar German schools,
are supported by the State. The candidate may, if
he chooses, attend any of the other forest schools, of
which Germany numbers six (Aschaffenburg and the
Forest School of the Munich University, which

16 Government Forestry Abroad. [200

together form one complete institution; Tharand,
Tiibingen, Karlsruhe, Giesen and Eisenach), but he
must cover the same ground as at the institutions
which are standard. The technical school is fol-
lowed by a year of jurisprudence and political econ-
omy at some university, and the young forester then
comes up for the first State examination. He must
present with his credentials the maps and field notes
of a plot surveyed and a level run, as well as a tim-
ber map covering at least 1,235 acres, all his own
work. The examination itself bears first on forestry,
in which it requires a thorough knowledge of the
general theory as to silviculture, working plans, cal-
culation of the volume and yield of standing timber,
its capital and selling value, the utilization of forest
produce, forest technology. protection and_ police,
and forest history and lterature. In mathematics
it demands about what is included up to the second
year of one of our colleges, and in surveying the
requirements are somewhat larger. Zoology, botany
and mineralogy, especially the second, are strongly
insisted on, while chemistry, physics and law com-
mand a smaller share of attention.

The examination is followed by at least two years
of travel and work, during which the candidate, now
promoted to the title of referendar, must perfect
himself in the field and office management of a for-
est range. For this purpose he is required to spend
five months in the practical administration of a
range, under the responsibility of an Oberférster.
and four months in the preparation of working plans.
Half a year, including the months from December to
May, is to be passed in the discharge of all the duties
of an ordinary forest guard. During this time the

201 | Government Forestry Abroad. 17%

referendar is personally responsible for all that goes
on in his beat, which must be the same for the whole
period. At the end of this rather lengthy preparation
comes the much-dreaded final examination, which,
like the first, is held partly in doors and partly in the
forest. This second test dwells more especially, apart
from forestry proper. on law, political economy,
finance, forest policy, and the organization of the
forest service, but without slighting the laws and
lore of hunting.

The referendar now becomes forest assessor, and
is at length eligible for serious paid employment.
The actual career of the forester can hardly be said
to begin, however, until the appointment as Ober-
forster, for which the assessor has no sort of guar-
antee, and which may delay its coming for from six
to twelve years. That once obtained, the list of
promotion lies open, and includes every grade up to
the highest. Still, it must be said that, as a rule, the
Prussian Oberférster is wholly satisfied with his
position, and very often unwilling to exchange it for
one of greater honor and profit.

That it should be so is scarcely to be wondered at.
The Oberforster, with almost independent control of
a range of some 10,000 acres, and, what is of first
importance to him, with an exclusive right to the
excellent shooting which it usually offers, lives a
healthy, active life, about equally divided between the
woods, his office and his friends. His pay, which may
reach 6,400 marks, including a consolidated allow-
ance for horses and the incidentals of his office work,
is ridiculously low from our standpoint, but entirely
sufficient from his. Promotion means a change from

the moderate activity of overseeing the planting and
9

~

18 Government Forestry Abroad. [202

felling of his forest, and the quiet of home life, to
the constant activity of travel. The stimulus which
ambition fails to, give is supplied by the admirable
esprit de corps which pervades the whole body of
forest officers, and forms here, as elsewhere, the best
security for the efficiency and healthy tone of the
service.

Immediately subordinate to the members of the
executive staff are the various grades of forest
guards, upon whom the protection of the forest
directly and exclusively rests. In general, each guard
is in charge of one of the five beats into which the
average range is divided. <‘‘The forester (I quote
from the Service Instructions) must protect the beat
entrusted to him against unlawful utilization, theft
and injury, and see to it that the forest and game
laws are observed. Heis charged with the execution
of the felling, planting and other forest work under
the orders of the Oberférster, and he alone delivers
all forest produce, on receipt of written instructions,
to the persons qualified to receive it.”

The training of the protective staff is provided for
with a care which in any other land might be thought
more suitable for officers of a higher grade, and a
period of preparation only less long than that for
Oberforster stands before the beginner.

But lest the necessity for so long a course of pre-
paratory work should seem unduly to enhance the
difficulties of forest management, it should be noted
here that in countries whose grade of excellence in
forest matters is closely second to that of Germany
the schooling of forest officers is very considerably
shorter. There will be occasion to refer to this
matter further on.

203 Government Forestry Abroad. 19
Y

Such is in outline the organization of the Prussian
forest service. The principles upon which it rests
are thus stated by Donner, now Oberlandforstmeister,
in a work which carries all the weight of an official
document.’ He says:

““The fundamental rules for the management of State forests are
these: First, to keep rigidly within the bounds of conservative
treatment; and secondly, to attain, consistently with such treatment,
the greatest output of most useful products in the shorest time.”

And again:

‘““The State believes itself bound, in the administration of its
forests, to keep in view the common good of the people, and that.
as well with respect to the lasting satisfaction of the demand for
timber and other forest produce, as to the numerous other purposes
which the forest serves. It holds fast the duty to treat the Govern-
ment wood lands as a trust held for the nation as a whole, to the
end that it may enjoy for the present the highest satisfaction of its
needs for forest produce and the protection which the forest gives,
and for all future time, at least an equal share of equal blessings.’’

The same authority elsewhere formulates the gen-
eral status of the forest, as follows:

“The forest is a trust handed down from former times, whose
value lies not only in its immediate production of wood, but also
essentially in the benefit to agriculture of its immediate influence
on climate, weather protection in various ways, the conservation of
the soil, etc. The forest has significance not only for the present
nor for its owner alone; it has significance as well for the future
and for the whole of the people.”

With respect to the second class of forest property.
that belonging to towns, villages and other public
bodies, it is again impossible to speak for the whole
of Germany except upon the broadest lines. The
State every where exercises oversight and a degree of
control over the management of these forests, but the
sphere of its action varies within very wide lhmits.
Even within the individual states it does not remain

1 Die Forstliche Verhiiltnisse Preussens, 2d ed., Berlin, 1883.

20 Government Forestry Abroad. 1204

the same. Thus far, however, the action of the Gov-
ernment is alike not only throughout Prussia but in
all parts of Germany. It prevents absolutely the
treatment of any forest of this class under improvi-
dent or wasteful methods; nor does it allow any
measure to be carried into effect which may deprive
posterity of the enjoyment which it has a right to
expect. How far the details vary may be gathered
from the fact that while in the Prussian provinces of
Rhineland and Westphaha the village communities
appoint their own forest officers and manage their
own forests, subject only to a tolerably close over-
sight on the part of the controlling staff, in the for-
mer Duchy of Nassau, now Prussian territory, their
share in the management does not extend beyond the
right to sell the timber cut under the direction of the
Government Oberforster, the right and obligation to
pay for all the planting and other improvements
which may be deemed necessary, and the rather hol-
low privilege of expressing their opinion. But how-
ever galling so extensive an interference with the
rights of property may appear, it is none the less
unquestionably true that in France, as well as in
sermany, the State management of communal for-
ests les at the root of the prosperity of a very large
proportion of the peasant population, and the evils
which have attended its withdrawal in individual
cases are notorious. While on the one hand villages
whose taxes are wholly paid by their forests are by
no means rare, on the otner the sale of communal
forest property in certain parts of Germany in 1848
has been followed with deplorable regularity by the
impoverishment of the villages which were unwise
enough to allow it.

205 Government Forestry Abroad. 21
y

The relations of the State to the third class of for-
ests, those belonging to private proprietors, are of a
much less intimate nature. The basis of these rela-
tions is, however, the same. To quote again from
Donner, ‘‘The duty of the State to sustain and further
the well being of its citizens regarded as an imperish-
able whole, implies for the Government the right and
the duty to subject the management of all forests to
its inspection and control.’”? This intervention is to
be carried, however, ‘‘only so far as may be neces-
sary to obviate the dangers which an unrestrained
utilization of the forest by its owners threatens to
excite, and the rights of property are to be respected
to the utmost consistently with such a result.”’ Prus-
sia, of all the German countries, has respected these
rights most highly, and the Government exerts prac-
tically no restraining influence except where the evi-
dent results of deforestation would be seriously dan-
gerous. Here it may and does guard most jealously
the wood lands, whose presence is a necessary safe-
guard against certain of the more destructive phe-
nomena of nature, and which have been called in
general protection forests. Of their many sided
influence so much has been said and written of late
in America—both truly and falsely—that no farther
reference to the subject seems needful.

The State leaves open a way of escape for the pri-
vate proprietor who finds himself unwilling to suffer
such restriction of his rights for the public good, and
shows itself willing to buy up areas not only of pro-
tection forest but also of less vitally important wood
lands. On the other hand, it is ready, with a broad-
ness of view which the zeal of forest authorities
sometimes unfortunately excludes, to give up to pri-

2A Government Forestry Abroad, [206

vate ownership lands which, by reason of their soil
and situation, will contribute better to the common-
wealth under cultivation than as forest. In this way
the forests whose preservation is most important are
gradually passing into the hands of the State; yet
the total area of its wood lands is increasing but
slowly.

The policy of State aid in the afforestation of waste
lands important through their situation on high
ground or otherwise is fully recognized (a notable
example exists upon the Hohe Venn near Aix-la-
Chapelle), but the absence of considerable mountain
chains has given to this branch of Government influ-
ence very much less prominence than in the Alps of
Austria, Switzerland and France, where its advan-
tages appear on a larger and more striking scale.

In closing this brief sketch of forest policy in
Prussia, you will perhaps allow me to refer for a mo-
ment to the erroneous ideas of German forest man-
agement which have crept into our literature. They
have done so, I believe, partly through a desire of
the advocates of forestry to prove too much, and
they injure the cause of forestry, because they tend to
make forest management ridiculous in the eyes of our
citizens. The idea has arisen that German methods
are exaggeratedly artificial and complicated, and not
unaturally the inference has been made that forestry
in itself is a thing for older and more densely popu-
lated countries, and that forest management is inap-
plicable and incapable of adaptation to the conditions
under which we live. It is true, on the contrary,
that the treatment of German forests is distinguished
above all things by an elastic adaptability to circum-
stances.which is totally at variance with the iron-clad

Co)
w

207 | Government Forestry Abroad.

formality which a superficial observation may believe
it sees. It is equally true that its methods could not
be transported unchanged into our forests without
entailing discouragement and failure, just as our
methods of lumbering would be disastrous there; but
the principles which underlie not only German, but
all rational forest management, are true all the world
over. It was in accordance with them that the for-
ests of British India were taken in hand and are now
being successfully managed, but the methods into
which the same principles have developed are as
widely dissimilar as the countries in which they are
being applied. So forest management in America
must be worked out along lines which the conditions
of our life will prescribe. It never can be a techni-
cal imitation of that of any other country, and a
knowledge of forestry abroad will be useful and
necessary rather as matter for comparison than as a
guide to be blindly obeyed.

It must be suited not only to the peculiarities of
our national character, but also to the climate, soil
and timber of each locality, to the facilities for trans-
portation, the relations of supply and demand, and
the hundred other factors which go to make up the
natural character of a hillside, a county, or a State.
Its details cannot be laid down ex cathedra, but must
spring from a thorough acquaintance with the theory
of forestry, combined with exhaustive knowledge of
local conditions. It will necessarily lose the for-
mality and minuteness which it has acquired in coun-
tries of older and denser settlement, and will take on
the character of largeness and efficiency, which has
placed the methods of American lumbermen, in their
own sphere, far beyond all competitors.

«

24 Government Forestry Abroad. [208

All forest management, as contrasted with our
present hand-to-mouth system of lumbering, must
mean the exchange of larger temporary profits for
returns which are indeed smaller, but which, under
favorable circumstances, will continue and increase
indefinitely.

Under these conditions I do not believe that forest
management in the United States will present even
serious technical difficulties. It only asks the oppor-
tunity to prove itself sound, practical and altogether
good.

FRANCE.

In France, which stands with Germany at the head
of the nations as regards thoroughness of forest
policy, the large extent of government and other .
public forests is in excellent condition. The struggle
for their care and preservation, the necessary ante-
cedent of their present favorable situation, has a
history which reaches back far beyond the time when

ue

the United States became a nation. Says M. Boppe,
in the introduction of his Trazté de Sylviculture;'

“In early times, during the Middle Ages, and until the begin-
ning of modern times, the knowledge of the specialists was summed
up in certain practices of lumbering put together in a way to satisfy
needs which were purely local. The wood was cut methodically,
but without much care as to the manner in which it would grow
again; that was the business of Dame Nature. Speaking of France
alone, it is known that towards the middle of the sixteenth cen-
tury, in spite of the fact that lumbering was restricted by limited
demand (since, in the absence of the more powerful means of
transportation, the wood must be put in use almost where it was
felled); in spite of the repeated intervention of royal authority, the
lack of foresight and abuses of all sorts resulted in the notable

1Paris, 1889.

wh

209 | Government Forestry Abroad. 2E

impoverishment of our forest domain. It was then that a man of
genius, Bernard de Palissy, called the carelessness of his times in
respect to the forests ‘not a mistake, but a calamity and a curse for
France.’

“Henry IV made every effort to put an end to the -destruction,
but it was reserved for Louis XVI, or rather for his minister,
Colbert, to reconstruct on a solid basis the foundation of forest
ownership. The law of August, 1669, which is in itself a whole
forest code, will remain a legislative monument from which we
cannot too much draw our inspiration.”

The history of forestry in France continued to be
associated with illustrious men in more recent times,
among whom Recamier, Duhamel and Buffon were
the first to ‘‘define the first principles of a rational
forest management, based on the knowledge which
had been gained of vegetable physiology.”

France differs from Germany in the unity of her
forest law. The Forest Code,! which closed in 1827
the series of forest enactments since the time of Col-
bert, is still in force. Its provisions, altered but little
by the political changes which have passed over them,
are valid for the whole of France.

In accordance with them certain classes of forest
property are to be administered directly by the State
forest service, along the lines which it marks out.
These are the woods and forests which formed part
of the domain of the State, those of communes and
sections of communes, those of corporations and
public institutions, and finally those in which the
State, the communes or the public institutions have
joint rights of property with individuals.

The area of forest owned by the French govern-
ment reaches a total of 2,657,944 acres, or about one-
ninth of the whole wooded area, which itself covers
17 per cent. of the country. Considerably more than

*Consult Code de la Legislation Forestiere. ver A. Puton, Paris, 1883.

26 Government Forestry Abroad. [210

half of the Government forests stand on hilly or
mountainous land. The forest administration to
which their care is entrusted is attached to the
Department of Agriculture, and the Minister of Agri-
culture is president of the Forest Council. This body
includes the Director of the Forests and three admin-
istrators, the first of whom is at the head of the
Bureau for Legal Matters, Forest Instruction, Records
and Acquisitions; the second of the Bureau of Work-
ing Plans and Utilization, and the third of that for
Reforesting the Mountains, Public Works, Replanting
and Clearing.

The personnel under the general direction of this
council consists of 36 conservators, who are the
higher inspecting and controlling officers; 225 inspec-
tors, who are in administrative charge of divisions
called inspections; 242 assistant inspectors, the
executive officers, each of whom personally directs
the work in his cantonment, and 328 officers of lower
rank, called gardes généraux, whose work, in many
cases similar to that of the grade above them, is
difficult to define. Besides the 8834 members of this
superior branch of the service, there were in 1885
some 3,532 forest guards of various grades. It is
safe to assume that the force of the protective staff
has remained substantially the same.

The system of training for the service of the supe-
rior staff differs widely from that which we have
seen in Germany. There is but one higher forest
school, that at Nancy, in place of the numerous in-
stitutions of the Germans, and until very recently
the whole course of preparation required of candi-
dates for the government service consisted in the two
years of study which it offered. At present entrance

ras)
=P

211] Government Forestry Abroad.

to the forest school is open only to graduates of an
agricultural institute in Paris, but this innovation
had its rise rather in political than in educational
grounds. The fact remains that the French forester,
with a course of training only from a fourth to a
third as long as that of his German colleague, has
produced results whose admirable educational and
intrinsic value stands unquestioned.

All French government forest officers must pass
through the school, and the demands of the vast ter-
ritory under their care are supplied by an annual list
of graduates, which does not in general exceed ten
or twelve.

Such facts make the task of national forest admin-
istration seem lighter as we look forward to the time
when it must be begun.

There is a professional school at the Domaine des
Barres for men of the higher grade of forest guards
who have shown the ability and the ambition to rise
to the lower rank of the superior staff. There were
last year twelve students in attendance.

The management of the wood lands of communes
and public institutions, which cover together an area
of 4,715,124 acres, has been already shown to rest
with the State forest service. These facts are made
the subject of special provisions in the Forest Code,
of which the following are the most important:

The communes, corporations and other public
bodies may make no ciearing in their forests without
an express and special permit from the President.

Communal forests can never be divided among the
inhabitants.

A quarter of the forests belonging to communes
and other public bodies shall always be placed in

28 Government Forestry Abroad. [212
reserve when these communes or public bodies shall
possess at least ten hectares (24.7 acres) of forest.

The choice of forest guards, made by the class of
proprietors in question, must be approved by the
Government forest service, which issues their com-
missions to the guards. These last stand in all
respects on the same footing as the guards of the
State forests.

The sale of wood is made under the direction of
the State forest officers, and in the same way as for
the State forests. The amount of wood needed for
actual use by the members of the community is
reserved at the time of sale, and the distribution is
made among them with the family as the unit.

In return for a fixed tax all the operations of con-
servation and management in the woods of com-
munes and public bodies are carried out by the mem-
bers of the State forest service without further
charge.

The object of the reserved quarter (quart en
réserve) of the forests of communes and public insti-
tutions, mentioned above, is to provide for emergen-
cies and special demands upon the treasury of their
proprietors, such as damage by fire or flood, the build-
ing of a church, a school-house or a public fountain.

Except when sylvicultural reasons may require it
to be cut, such extraordinary necessities alone justify
a draught on this simple kind of reserve fund.

The great majority of the forests owned by the
class of proprietors just mentioned are managed
under the system of ‘‘coppice under standards,’’ a
name which literally reproduces the French tazllis
sous futave. This method of handling a forest im-
plies an upper and a lower store of growth. The basis

213] Government Forestry Abroad, 29

of the treatment is a cutting over of the coppice
shoots or sprouts which spring up from the old
stumps at regular intervals of from fifteen to forty-
five years. In order to make the return annual
and fairly uniform it is only necessary to divide the
whole forest, if it be small, or each of its units of
management, if it be large, into as many compart-
ments of equal productive power as there are years
in the rotation of the coppice, and to cut over one
such compartment each year.

At each cutting the best of the young seedlings
which may have grown up among the coppice, or of
the coppice shoots themselves if the seedlings are
wanting, are left to grow on for two, three, four or
even five rotations of the underwood. Being thus
comparatively isolated these standards produce wood
very rapidly, while, at the same time, their number
is so restricted that they do not seriously interfere
with the growth of the coppice by their shade. The
disadvantages of the treatment are the large propor-
tion of low-priced firewood which it yields, and the
severe demands which it makes upon the soil. But
this «*national French treatment,’ as it has been
called, has very many qualities which recommend it.
It is the form of treatment which yields the highest
per cent. of return on the capital invested, as well
as the highest absolute volume of wood (if we except
the high forest of coniferous trees). According to
the forest statistics of 1878, the most recent source
of information, the average yield of coppice under
standards in France. under State management, was
fifty-nine cubic feet of wood per acre per annum,
about one-fourth of which was lumber and the rest
fuel, hoop-poles. etc. A net annual return of 5 per

30 Government Forestry Abroad. [214

cent. may be set as the upper limit of production of
this class of forest, and therefore far beyond that of
other forms of treatment.

In 1878 the average net revenue of all the State
forests was 32.00 francs per hectare per annum, or
about $2.50 per acre. The return on the capital which
they represented was stated at 24 per cent. As
an illustration of the general financial situation of
forestry in France, the budget of the forest service
for 1891 may be cited. It provides for expenses in
the round sum of fifteen and a half million of francs,
and anticipates a gross revenue of twenty-five mil-
lion. If we subtract the cost of re-foresting the
mountains, managing the Algerian forests, which,
as yet, cost more than twice as much as they bring
in, and similar items which are not directly connected
with the current expenses of forest management, we
reach a total of ten million francs in round numbers.
Subtracting similarly the Algerian income we find
that the net revenue is expected to reach the sum of
fourteen million francs. Forest management on this
basis is very far removed from sentimentalism and
the philanthropic forest protection whose watchword
1S0<baad Sioikte

The provisions of the code concerning private
wood lands are substantially as follows:

No private owner may root up or clear his wood
lands without having made a declaration of his
intention at least four months in advance. The for-
est service may forbid this clearing in case of the
maintenance of the forest is deemed necessary upon
any of the following grounds:

1. To maintain the soil upon mountains or slopes.

215] Government Forestry Abroad. 31

2. To defend the soil against erosion and flooding
by rivers, streams or torrents.

3. To insure the existence of springs and water-
courses.

4. To protect the dunes and seashore against the
erosion of the sea and the encroachment of moving
sands.

5. For purposes of military defense.

6. For the public health.

A proprietor who has cleared his forest without
permission is subject to a heavy fine, and may be
forced in addition to replant the area which he has
cleared.

The area of forest in France has certainly passed
its lowest point. The following figures, compiled in
1889, will serve to illustrate this statement:

No government forests have been sold since 1870,
while their area since 1872 has been increased by
190,462 acres. Private owners have been allowed to
clear an area amounting to 960,849 acres since 1828,
or 10,225 within the last five years, while the clear-
ing of communal forests since 1855 and 1885, respect-
ively, has been 24,826 acres and 598 acres. It should
be added that an unknown quantity of land has been
cleared without leave, and that on the other hand
private owners have been in the habit of getting
permits to clear their land as a means of enhancing
its selling value and then leaving it still under forest.

Perhaps the most brilliant work of the French for-
esters has been accomplished in the correction of the
torrents in the Alps, Pyrenees and Cevennes, in the
course of which over 350,000 acres have been re-
wooded under difficulties which seem almost insur-
mountable. Its picturesque character, its thorough

Oo
oO

Government Forestry Abroad. [216

suecess and the sharpness of the moral which it
serves to point have rightly made this branch of for-
estry in France a favorite subject for writers and
speakers on forest reform. There is, then, the less
need to do more than add that of the total cost to the
French government, some 50,000,000 of francs, about
one-half was consumed in engineering works whose
direct object was to make the replanting of the drain-
age areas of torrents possible. «The forest thus re-
stored to its natural place is alone able,” says M.
Demontzey, the eminent French authority, ‘‘to main-
tain the good, but precarious, results of the works of
correction in the water-ways themselves.’’ The dis-
appearance of this forest in the first place may be
traced in most cases directly to mountain pasturage,
and the whole story of rebotsement in France is ful]
of the deepest interest in comparison with the present
state and probable future of our mountain forests.

The planting of the dunes and the Landes, the first
of which especially was an achievement of which any
nation might well be proud, remain to be mentioned,
but the information available to the writer at the
moment is neither recent nor complete, and these
matters must be left untouched in the present paper.

SWITZERLAND.

I pass now to Switzerland, a country where the
development as well as the actual condition of for-
est policy may well claim our attention. The history
of forestry in the Swiss republic is of peculiar inter-
est to the people of the United States, because in its
oeginnings may be traced many of the charateristics
of the situation here and now, and because the Swiss,

a1] Government Forestry Abroad, 33

like the Americans, were confronted by the problem
of a concrete forest policy extending over the various
states of acommon union. The problem has been
brilliantly solved, and not the least result of its solu-
tion is the fact that the people of Switzerland have
recognized the vast significance of the forests in so
mountainous a country, and a full and hearty appre-
ciation and support of the forest policy of the Con-
federation fills every nook and corner of the land.

The history of the forest movement in Switzer-
land has not yet been fully written, but you will
allow me to quote from an unpublished sketch of it
by Professor Landolt, who, more than any other man,
has contributed to make that history of which he
writes. Asan example set by a republic to a republic,
as the brilliant result of the work of a few devoted
men, crowned by a public opinion which they created,
and rewarded by the great and lasting blessing which
they have brought to their country, I believe that
the advocates of forest reform in America can set
before themselves no better model and take encour-
agement from no worthier source.

“Soon after the middle of the last century,’’ begins Professor
Landolt, “certain intelligent, public spirited men of Zurich and
the canton of Bern (which then included Waadt and a great part of
Aargau), turned their attention to the situation of agriculture and
forestry in Aargau. Their object was to gain a knowledge of the
conditions involved and their surroundings, and to remove the
most pressing evils.

“Tn the years between 1780 and 1790 the cantons, following the
lead of Bern, succeeded in appointing forest officers, whose first task
was to become conversant with the actual management of the State
and large communal forests, and to make suggestions for their future
treatment. Partly at this time, partly earlier, a large proportion of
the State and a few communal forests were surveyed and a few of
them were marked off into compartments on the ground, a measure
of vital importance to conservative management.

3

34 Government Forestry Abroad. [218

‘“The appointment of State forest officers is to be regarded as the
beginning of regular forest management. (Great numbers of forest
regulations bearing on the most various subjects—tree planting
among others—had been promulgated in former centuries. They
had been often renewed, but without forest officers they could not
be enforced.

‘Forest regulations were now made by Bern, Zurich, and for the
Jura by the bishop of Basel, who also had appointed forest oftlicers.

“The treatment of the State and of a few of the larger communal
forests made very satisfactory progress until 1798. Then came the
revolution, and with it war and times of great disturbance and
political excitement. It is true that even then forestry was never
wholly neglected; but the progress made, where it existed at all,
was of very minor importance. But as times grew quieter and the
condition of the government more orderly, the interest in forest
matters revived; the cantons Neuenburg, Freiburg, Solothurn and
Aargau passed forest laws of more or less comprehensive scope,
appointed forest officers, and in general sought to promote the
cause of forestry.

“Until about 1830 forestry in the less mountainous parts of
Switzerland developed slowly, but still in a satisfactory manner.
New laws appeared, the number of forest officers increased, the
wood lands of communes and public institutions attracted more
attention, and the future reforesting of the country became gradu-
ally the centre of greater effort. In public forests other than those
of the State, progress was in general slow, although a considerable
number of forest surveys were carried out.

‘*The mountain forests, however, with few exceptions. were in
complete disorder. But the following years brought new life not
oniy into politics, but also into national economies and the status of
the forest, which last was materially improved by the floods which
spread in 1834 over the greater part of the Alps. The damage which
they caused was so severe that the philanthropic and scientific soci-
eties set themselves the task of searching out the cause of inunda-
tions, which became more frequent as time went on. They concluded
that it was to be found largely in the improvident destruction of the
mountain forests. Tothe fear of a wood famine, which had hitherto
been the chief incentive to the advancement of forestry, there was
now added another, which, if not wholly new, still had been for-
merly little insisted on. It was the influence of forests on rainfall
and the phenomena of nature ingeneral. The societies did not fail
to direct attention to this question, and with excellent result. The
less mountainous cantons with imperfect legislation made new laws
or amended and completed the old ones, saw to the appointment of

(Se)
Or

219] Government Forestry Abroad.

foresters, and took the organization of the felling, planting and care
of their timber seriously in hand. But the chief gain lay in the fact
that the mountain cantons applied themselves to the work. St.
Gallen, Luzern and Freiburg had already begun, and now went
vigorously forward. Graubunden, Tessin and Wallis passed forest
laws and appointed forest officers, partly at once, partly later; but
still the progress made was slow. The cities everywhere made
important contributions toward a better system by the introduction
of a wiser treatment and by the appointment of foresters of their
own, and so set a good example to the cantons and private forest
proprietors. Those cantons of the plains also which had formerly
given scant attention to their communal forests, as was here and
there the case, now supervised and managed them better.

‘Taken as a whole, Forestry has made satisfactory progress as
regards legislation, the improvement of forest management and the
increased number of forest officers, from the beginning of the 40’s
on. In 1865 the Swiss Forest School was established (as a fifth
department of the Polytechnicum at Zurich), and provision was
thus made,”’ says Prof. Landolt, ‘‘for a forest staff of our own,
educated with special reference to our own conditions.

‘*The Swiss Forestry Association was founded in 1843. Through
frequent agitation, and by setting forth what action was necessary,
it has rendered great service to the cause of forest protection. It
has moved successfully, among other things, for the foundation of
a forest school, the examination of the higher mountain forests,
the passage of a new forest law, and the correction of the torrents.

“Tn 1854,’’? continues Prof. Landolt, ‘‘I called the attention of
the Association to the investigation of the mountain forests. In
1855 I was entrusted with the preparation of a memorial to the
Federal Assembly, which was approved and presented in the
following year. In1858 the Federal Assembly appointed a commis-
sion of three men with authority to study and report upon the Swiss
Alps and the Jura in regard to geology, forestry and police regula-
tions, bearing on water supply. From the appearance of the final
report of this commission in 1861, the improvement of Swiss for-
estry has been kept steadily before the Confederation. In 1875 a
federal forest inspector was appointed, and a year later the first Swiss
forest law was passed. This law does not extend to the whole of
Switzerland, but only to the Alps and the steeper foot-hills. More
recently attempts have been made by the cantonal government and
the Forestry Association to extend its influence to the Jura or to
the whole of Switzerland, but the need of such action is not yet
clearly apparent.’’

36 Government Forestry Abroad, [220

The passage of the federal forest law was followed
almost everywhere immediately by the appointment
of trained forest officers, and all the cantons whose
forest legislation was defective amended or completed
it. At the same time federal and cantonal regula-
tions bearing on watercourses were being revised.

‘Our forest laws,’’ Prof. Landolt goes on, ‘‘are intended to work
more through instruction, good example and encouragement than
by severe regulations. This method is somewhat slower than one
which should involve more drastic measures, but the results achieved
are the more useful and lasting. When forest proprietors do some-
thing because they are convinced of its utility, it is done well and
with an eye to the future; but what they do under compulsion is
done carelessly and neglected at the first opportunity. What they
have come to learn in this way, and have recognized as good, will
be carried out, and that better and better from year to year.

‘All our laws require the same treatment for the forests of the
State, the communes and public institutions. Still, progress in the
treatment of State forests and those of the larger communes is more
rapid than in those of corporations and the smaller villages. Inthe
first more money is available, the forest officers are better trained,
and there is a more intelligent grasp of the situation. But still the
condition of the smaller forests is now satisfactory.

“The oversight of private forests is less strict. Their owners may
not reduce the area of their wood lands without the consent of the
cantonal government, must plant up the land cut over which is
without natural growth, and are bound to take proper care of the
growing stock, but they are not held to a conservative management.

““The regulations which bear upon the protection of wood lands,
and the harmful external influences to which they are exposed, are
equally binding upon them; but in return they enjoy the protection
which the law provides for the forest.

‘‘In protection forests, on the other hand, the timber that may
be cut by private owners is marked by government officers, so that
reckless lumbering may be prevented. The regulations which look
to the formation of new protection forests must also be conformed
to by private proprietors, or they must allow themselves to be
expropriated. In these matters the Confederation and the cantons
work in unison. The consent of the Federal Assembly is necessary
to the clearing of private land in protection forests.’’

221] Government Forestry Abroad. B37

The Federal forest law, of which Prof. Landolt
writes, is binding over nearly two-thirds of all
Switzerland. Its chief provisions are the following:

The supervision of the Confederation is exercised,
within the forest area over which it has special juris-
diction, upon all protection forests, and furthermore
upon all State, communal and corporation wood
lands, even when they do not fall under that head.

The cantons must appoint and pay the number of
suitably educated foresters necessary for the execu-
tion and fulfillment of the forest law.

All forests which fall under Federal supervision
must be demarcated on the ground within five years
from the passage of the law.

The burdening of the wood lands with new pre-
scriptive rights of certain kinds is forbidden.

The State, communal and corporation forests are
to be surveyed, their management regulated, and
working plans for them must be drawn up.

The federal machinery for the enforcement of this
law is contained in the office of the Inspector-General
of Forests, whose sphere of action extends over all
the wood lands in question. Each canton has its
own forest organization,. The Federal Forest School,
of which Prof. Landolt was founder, and in which
he still teaches the forest sciences, remains in Zurich.

After what has been said it need hardly be added
that the forests of Switzerland are for the most part
in admirable condition. Systematic forest manage-
ment has probably been known there as long as any-
where in Europe, and nowhere can finer individual
examples be found. I have seen nothing, even in
Germany, which seemed to me to be so workmanlike
as the management of the Sihlwald, a forest belong-

38 Government Forestry Abroad. [222

ing to the city of Zurich; and I am the bolder in my
opinion because the Sihlwald has been called the most
instructive forest of Europe by one who is perhaps
the most experienced forester of the present day. It
may not be out of place to quote certain details of
its history and management from a paper of the
writer’s which appeared in Garden and forest in
July and August, 1890.

The ownership of the city of Zurich in its forest
is of very old date. Evidences of the care which
the burghers bestowed upon it are found in a series
of ordinances which, beginning in 1309 with a rule
that no forester might cut wood in the Sihlwald—
clear proof that a forest police existed at that early
date—continued in unbroken succession to that of
1417, under which the foundation of the present
organization was laid, and finally, in 1697, reached
the first technical working plan. It is curious to
note, as an evidence of the view of the nature of its
interest held by the city, that the policy of adding
to the public forest property by purchase, recently
inaugurated by the Legislature of the State of New
York, was begun by the free city of Zurich nearly
two centuries before the discovery of America.

‘Tn the organization of a normally stocked forest the object of
first importance is the cutting each year of an amount of timber
equal to the total annual increase over the whole area, and no more.
It is further desirable in any long settled community that the for-
ests be so managed as to yield a measurably constant return in
material. Otherwise difficulties in the supply of labor and the dis-
posal of the produce make themselves felt, and the value of the
forest to its owner tends to decrease.

‘‘Tn order to attain this steadiness of yield it is obviously neces-
sary that a certain number of trees become fit to cut each year.
The Sihlwald has accordingly been so ‘‘ regulated’ that areas of
equal productive capacity are covered by stocks of every age, from

223 | Government Forestry Abroad. 39

last year’s seedling to the mature tree. These age-gradations suc-
ceed each other ina series so regular that in an hour’s walk one
may pass from the area just cut over through a forest of steadily
increasing age to the trees which have reached the limit of the
rotation of ninety years. Three such units of management are
present inthe Sihlwald, but . . . . it will be necessary to
speak of only one of them. The working plan for the Lower Sihl-
wald, then, prescribes for the forest which it controls the operations
of what Dr. Schlich has called in his Manual of Forestry ‘The
Shelter-wood Compartment System.’ It may not be without inter-
est to follow the life history of a compartment in which this system
is carried out.

“After the mature trees had been felled and removed from the
area which furnished the yield of the Lower Sihlwald last year the
thick cropof seedlings which had grown up under their shelter was
finally exposed to the full influence of the light and air. The fell-
ing and rough shaping of the timber, the piling of logs and cord-
wood and the trampling of the men had combined with the crisis
of exposure to destroy the new crop in places and create a few small
blanks. Here, as soon as the disappearance of the snow had made
it possible, groups of the kinds of seedlings necessary to preserve
the mixture or destined to increase the proportion of the more
valuable species were planted. The operation, necessarily an ex-
pensive one, is justified by the greater resistance of a mixed forest
to nearly all the calamities which may befall standing timber.
Simultaneously with the planting the willows, hazels and other
worthless species were destroyed, as well as the ‘ pre-existing seed-
lings,’ whose larger growth, according to the disputed theory held
at the Sihlwald, would damage their younger neighbors more by
their shade than their greater volume would increase the final yield
of timber. The incipient forest, then, practically uniform in age
and size and broken by no blanks which the growth of a year or
two will not conceal, is fairly started on the course of healthy de-
velopment which it is to continue undisturbed until it reaches the
age of fifteen years.

‘“At this point occurs the first of a series of thinnings (or more
exactly, ‘clearing’ at first and thinning later), which follow each
other at intervals of seven or eight years, until the trees have
entered the last third of their existence. There is, perhaps, no
silvicultural question more in dispute than this of the time and
degree of thinning which will yield the best results in quality and
quantity of timber. The method pursued at the Sihlwald, conse-
crated by habit and success, gives ample space for the healthy de-
velopment of the crown from a very early age without admitting

40 Government Forestry Abroad. [224

light enough through the leaf-canopy to sustain an undergrowth
until the trees are nearly ready to give place to their descendants.
Such shrubs or seedlings as still appear, thanks to a shade-bearing
temperament, are systematically cut out. It may bestrongly doubted
whether such a policy might safely be applied on soil less moist
than that of the Sihlwald; but here, at least, the trees reach the age
of sixty years, tall, straight, clean-boled, and in condition to make
the best of the last part of the period of maximum growth, which
a large number of measurements have shown to occur in general
between the ages of seventy and ninety years. A heavy thinning
now comes to the assistance of the best specimens of growth, and
they are left to profit by it until seven years before the date fixed
for their fall. Then begin the regeneration cuttings, whose object
is to admit through the leaf-canopy an amount of light, varying
with the temperament of each species, whose mission is to give
vitality to the seedlings which the trees, stimulated themselves by
their more favorable situation, now begin to produce in consider-
able quantities. To this end the light which falls from above has
a powerful auxiliary in that which the system of felling each year
in a long, narrow strip admits from the side, and so admirable is
this double method that the time which elapses between the begin-
ning and the end of a regeneration is but half the average for less
favored localities. This applies only to the deciduous trees. The
time required by the conifers is much longer, and the incomplete
regeneration which they furnish is supplemented by planting inthe
blanks already mentioned. But for the self-sown seedlings of both
classes the amount of light is gradually increased, the trees which
sheltered them are at length wholly removed, and the cycle of
growth repeats itself.

‘*With an average stand of timber of 2,800 cubic feet per acre,
the annual yield of wood, almost half or which is from thinnings
alone, reached last year 377,023 cubic feet, an amount which may
be taken as slightly above the average.

‘“Under the management of Forstmeister Meister the 2,400 acres
of the Sihlwald gave last year (1889) a net return of something over
$8 per acre, or a total contribution to the treasury of the city of
about $20,000. This sum, large as it is in relation to the area of
forest which produced it, promises to be materially increased.

‘But with the climate of northern Europe indicated by a mean
temperature of forty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, and with the condi-
tions of soil and moisture which it enjoys, the exceptional produc-
tiveness of the Sihlwald would still remain partly unexplained were
it not possible to add that the land which it covers has been unin-
terruptedly under forest for something over athousand years. That

225 | Government Forestry Abroad. 41

precious condition of the surface which the French and Germans
unite in describing as ‘ forest-soil,’ so slow in forming and so quick
to disappear wherever the full sunlight is allowed to reach the
ground, has here been produced in perfection by centuries of forest
growth. It is perhaps to this factor, next to the abundance of
humidity, that the high annual yield of wood in the Sihlwald is due.”’

It has been remarked already that there are rea-
sons which give the study of forestry in Switzerland
peculiar value—a value which, in the opinion of the
writer, far surpasses that of the more refined German
forest organization. For the fundamental difference
of political training in the German and Swiss forester
works itself out in the character of forest manage-
ment with perfect clearness. <The first,’’ says Forst-
meister Meister, one of the most eminent of Swiss or
of European forest officers, in summing up the matter
to the writer, <‘has always before his eyes a forest
organization regulated down to the minutest detail.
It is with this organization that he is to deal as best
he may. The Swiss (or the republican) standpoint,
on the other hand, requires the forester to reach the
best result which is possible at the moment by an
intelligent application of the general principles of
forestry through the medium of forest organization,
‘‘which is imperfect and incomplete.’ It seems
hardly necessary to point out along which of these
lines the work of the American forester must be
shaped, or from which point of view he must approach
it. It isan admirable training to become thoroughly
at home in the details of the most complete forest
organization, but it is a far more practically useful
thing in the United States to be able to do without it.

42 Government Forestry Abroad, [226

AUSTRALIA.

Before touching on the matter of forest manage-
ment in certain of the English colonies, it is of inter-
est to note the relations of timber import and export
throughout the British Empire. These are given by
Dr. Schlich! for the average of the five years from
1884-88 as follows:

Imports—United Kingdom............ £15,000,000
BritishiC olOmle ster sete ctsalerr 1,466,000

‘ Dota mane ae See ee £16,466, 000
Exports—Dominion of Canada.. ..... £ 4,025,000
@then Colonies 2-5-4) 713,000

UR) lke 4 Som Een OLS 4,738,000

Excess of imports over exports £11,728,000, or $56,800,000.

It should be noted that this table is not quite com-
plete, but it will answer all the purposes of illustra-
tion, and the light which it throws on the general
timber supply of the world is exceedingly interesting,
even if it be not alarming.

Forest legislation in Australia is still in a transi-
tion state. It has already had time to correct some
of its earlier mistakes, and the course which it is
following will certainly lead to a satisfactory forest
policy in the end.

In the colony of South yeteiralia an act was passed
in 1873 dealing, as such preliminary legislation gen-
erally has dealt in recent times, with the encourage-
ment of tree planting. A forest board was estab-
lished in 1875 and a conservator of forests in 1877;
and in 1882 «‘The Woods and Forest Act’? became

pees baton the Rowe Gaal Teenie on March 11, 1890.
My information on the forest policy of the Australian colonies is
derived from the same source.

ath Government Forestry Abroad. 45
law. It entrusts the charge of all forest estates to
the Commissioner of Forest Lands, and gives him
power to grant licenses and make regulations for cut-
ting timber, bark, or other forest produce, and he
may levy fees upon stock pasturing in forest reserves.
It provides also that all forest reserves heretofore
declared such shall remain so, and empowers the
governor to add to their area; makes provision for
encouraging tree-planting, and for the leasing of
forest lands under certain conditions. The appoint-
ment of conservators is authorized, and the issuance
of regulations for the management of the forest, the
disposal of the timber, and the prevention of fires.
The financial result of this policy during the thirteen
years ending with 1889 was a net surplus of over
$40,000,

In the colony of New South Wales the forest law
dates from 1884, and makes provisions which are
partially similar in character to those of the act just
mentioned. In accordance with them an area of five
and a-half million acres had been declared State for-
ests and timber reserves in 1887.

Victoria, the smallest of the Australian colonies,
is perhaps the most interesting from the forester’s
point of view. From certain reports made to the
Secretary of State for the colonies it appears that in
the year 1875 Victoria was suffering from a condition
of affairs strongly suggestive of our own at present.
«-The amount of timber is diminishing owing to clear-
ings for settlement, ordinary home consumption and
Dice kObesiGWleS aia 1.y Gus) As early as L866
attention was called . . . tothe wastefulness
and improvidence of the prevailing system.”

44 Government Forestry Abroad. [228

Only the prime parts of trees were utilized. Im-
mense numbers of standing trees were killed, owing
to the practice of stripping from them large sheets
of bark to cover, perhaps, a mere temporary hut.
The committee called attention to the growing
scarcity of timber for props for mining purposes and
the necessity of measures to secure a permanent
supply.

‘‘In 1876 an act was passed, called the State Forest Act, which
provided, first, for the appointment of local forest boards, which
were to have the care of reserves and other Crown lands; secondly,
for the appointment of foresters by local forest boards; and thirdly,
for the promulgation by the Governor in Council of regulations
prescribing the duties of these boards. In 1884 this act was super-
seded by a new one, which deals with the formation of State forests
and timber reserves and their management, and with the manage-
ment and disposal of timber and other forest produce not included
in the State forests and timber reserves.

““The forests generally are worked under the license system,
regulated by rules made under the act. There are licenses for
felling, splitting, clearing undergrowth, the erection of saw-mills,
grazing, the removal of bark, ete.’’

Unfortunately, this law, which has much to recom-
mend it, has not resulted as well as was hoped, and
the reasons for its failure have been defined as follows:

‘The immediate causes of this failure are the bad license system,
the ill-arranged classification of State forests, timber reserves and
Crown lands, the absence of professional foresters to direct opera-
tions, and the neglect to reserve the best natural forests.’’

Dr. Schlich has formulated the requirements of the
situation, as follows: First, the engagement of a thor-
oughly competent forest expert to be the head of the
Victorian Forest Department; secondly, the selection,
demarcation and legal formation of a sufficient area
of reserved State forest, suitably distributed over the
country, systematically managed, and efficiently pro-
tected; thirdly, the protection and disposal of forest

2291] Government Forestry Abroad. 45
J

produce on Crown lands not included in the reserved
State forests.

INDIA.

Perhaps the closest analogy to our own conditions
in the magnitude of the area to be treated, the diffi-
culties presented by the character of the country and
the prevalence of fire, and the nature of the opposition
which it encountered, is to be found in the forest
administration of India, and that in spite of the trop-
ical climate with which it has to deal. The history
of the movement is comparatively fresh, and the fact
that many problems remain as yet unsolved will
scarcely detract from the interest and sympathy with
which we may be led to regard it. ,

Systematic forest management was begun in India
about thirty-five years ago, under difficulties not
unlike those which confront us now. An insufficient
or a wrong conception of the interests involved, the
personal bias of lumbermen, the alternating support
and opposition of the men in power, were the chief
obstacles with which it had to contend; and against
them were pitted the splendid perseverance and mag-
nificent administrative powers of one man. The vic-
tory was brilliant, conclusive and lasting, and India
has to thank Sir Dietrich Brandis for benefits whose
value will go on increasing from age to age.

It is extremely interesting, in view of the begin-
ning of State forest management, which must eventu-
ally and ought at once be made in the United States,
to note that its success in India, in its early stages,
was very largely due to the fact that it furnished a
net revenue from the very start.

46 Government Forestry Abroad. [230

It is also instructive to recall that a large share of
the prosperity of Rangoon, whose merchants pro-
tested in 1856 that to restrict the teak lumbering
was to destroy the growth of their city, is due to-day
to the steady business in this very timber which a
conservative forest policy has secured.

‘* History has proved,” says Dr. Schlich,! ‘‘ that the preservation
of an appropriate percentage of the area as forests cannot be left to
private enterprise in India, so that forest conservancy in that
country has for some time past been regarded as a duty of the State.

‘Of the total area of government forests, which may perhaps
amount to some 70,000,000 of acres, 55,000,000 have been brought
under the control of the Forest Department. Of this area 33,000,000
are so-called reserved State forests, that is to say, areas which, under
the existing forest law, have been set aside as permanent forest
estates, while the remaining 23,000,000 are either protected or
so-called unclassed State forests. These areas together comprise
_ about 11 per cent. of the total area of the provinces in which they
are situated. Rather more than half the area, or about 6 per cent.,
are strictly preserved and systematically managed forests.”’

The formation of these reserved State forests was
the first step in systematic forest management, and
it was carried out along lines which are typical. The
forest areas were first selected, following standards
which cannot be enumerated here, then surveyed and
demarcated on the ground, and finally established as
reserved State forests by an act which provided,
first, for the presentation within a certain time of all
claims against the State forests as demarcated; sec-
ondly, for their hearing and definite settlement;
thirdly, that no prescriptive rights could accrue in
reserved State forests after their declaration as such
under the act; and fourthly, for the special treatment
of forest offences.

These forests have been gradually brought under
simple but systematic methods of management, which

1 Manual of Forestry, Vol. 1, London, 1889.

231] Government Forestry Abroad. 47

aim at effective protection, an efficient system of
regeneration, and cheap transportation, the whole
under well-considered and methodical working plans.
The forest staff charged with carrying these plans
into effect draws its controlling officers from England.
Until quite recently it had been the custom to send
the young men selected for the Indian forest service
to be educated on the continent of Europe, at first in
France and Germany, but more lately altogether at
the French school in Nancy. The arrangement was
not satisfactory, however, and in 1885 the school at
Cooper’s Hill, near Windsor, was established as part
of the Royal Indian Engineering College. It is an
institution whose excellence is directly due to the
admirable management of Dr. Schlich, formerly
Inspector-General of Forests in India, and now its
principal professor of forestry. The course, which
in its general features resembles that of other forest
schools of similar excellence, has recently been
enlarged to cover three years, and includes as its
final work an excursion of three months in the forests
of the continent of Europe under the guidance of Sir
Dietrich Brandis. The writer was fortunate enough
to accompany the English students during the last
one of these excursions, and can testify to its admir-
able educational value. ‘
For the executive and protective work it is neces-
sary to employ natives, since they alone are equal to
the physical labor in so warm a climate. Their tech-
nical education is provided for by the Indian forest
school, at Dehra Dun, in connection with which is
the Dehra Dun State forest. Quite recently its first
working plan has been completed for this forest, and
while the management of no one forest can be taken

48 Government Forestry Abroad. [232

as a type of Indian forestry, it may not be without
interest to sketch briefly its chief points. Each of
the six ranges which the forest contains is divided
into twenty compartments, or, in the Indian termi-
nology, coupes, among which the fellings follow a
regular sequence, so that each coupe is cut over once
in twenty years. The period of work in each coupe
really embraces three years, so that different stages
of the operations are going on in three of them
at the same time. During the first year the tropi-
cal creepers which interfere with the lumbering are
cut through, and the trees which are to be taken out
are selected, marked with the government hammer
and girdled. The trees selected are sal (shorea
robusta) Which are unsound, or which would not im-
prove during the next twenty years, trees of inferior
species which will still furnish timber, and trees of
other inferior kinds which are injuring by their shade
the young sal seedlings. The timber trees which
have been marked are sold by auction to a contractor,
the unit of sale being the square. mile, and are re-
moved during the second year. In the third year
the less valuable and the injured trees are cut out,
hauled to the roads and sold as firewood. This
method of lumbering has rightly been called <«im-
pravement felling,” since their object is to raise the
general condition of the forest rather than to draw
from it a large annual revenue at present. For
minor forest produce a system of sale by tickets is
in force, it is said, with admirable result.

The difficulty of coping with forest fires in India
would be notably greater than in the United States
were it not for the greater density of the Indian pop-
ulation. The method consists in cutting fire paths

233 | Government Forestry Abroad. 49

through the forest of a width varying up to four
hundred feet, removing all combustible matter from
them, except the larger trees, and patroling them
through the medium of a regular fire organization.
All holders of prescriptive rights are bound to assist
in the event of fire. At Dehra Dun, for instance, a
force of five hundred men is available, and a fire is
never allowed to burn for more thana couple of days.
Smoking in the forest is strictly forbidden, and the
building of fires by camping parties and others is
very severely regulated.

The results of this thorough and far-sighted for-
est policy are conspicuous not only in the great fact
that the forests yield, and will permanently yield,
the supply of timber and forest produce which the
population requires, but also in the beginning which
has been made toward regulating the water supply
in the mountains, and in the increasing capital value
and annual net revenue of the State forests.

‘So far,’ says Dr. Schlich,! ‘‘the government has good reason
to be satisfied with the financial results of its forest administration.
The net revenue, after meeting all expenses of the department, has

been as follows since 1864, the year in which the department was
first established as a general State department:

1864 to 1867. Average annual net revenue.... £106,615
1867 to 1872. : a ee Fasici dao ,920
1872 to 1877. ie Ha Pa as BP ERT)
1877 to 1882. a i ct ems pp tOWe OS
1882 to 1887. a i ss Pee ae4, Loe

‘““?here is little doubt, if any, that 25 years hence the
net surplus will be four times the present amount if the govern-
ment of India perseveres in its forest policy as developed in the
past. Indeed it would not be going too far to say that the increasing
forest revenue bids fair to become a substantial off-set against the
expected loss of the opium revenue.”’

1 Loe. cit.

4

50 Government Forestry Abroad. [234

There are two other facts resulting from the for-
eign policy of India which are of special significance
to us as citizens of a country where any interfer-
ence by the government with private rights would
be so vigorously resented, and where private enter-
prise must consequently play so conspicuous a part.
First, a body of efficient and experienced officers of
all grades has gradually been formed in the State
forests whose services are available for the manage-
ment of private forests, and of communal forests
when the time shall come to form them. Secondly,
the example set by the well managed State forests
and the steadily increasing revenue which they yield,
has induced native and other forest proprietors to
imitate the State.

The trained foresters, without whom so laudable.a
purpose must fail, are at hand, and the whole situa-
tion argues most favorably for the future prosperity
of the country.

SoutH AFRICA.

The organization of the Forest Service at the Cape
of Good Hope is of comparatively recent date. It
consists of one superintendent, three conservators,
four assistant conservators, and the necessary staff
of forest guards. Practically nothing had been done
in the eastern half of the colony when Mr. Hutchins,
the present conservator in charge of the Eastern con-
servancy, was called from India to the Cape. The
method which he followed and its results aré of
interest both from the principles which they em-
body and from the success of his wise and energetic
effort for the protection of the forest in the face of

235 | Government Forestry Abroad. 51

popular and legislative neglect. The system of in-
discriminate depredation which is so familiar to us
in the United States was in full vogue when he
arrived. His first work was to survey the boundary \
lines of the forest. He then succeeded in getting a
bill through the Colonial Parliament, claims against

the government forest area as he had surveyed it . \
were heard and decided, and the lines of the State

reserve were definitely fixed. He was now ready to '
regulate the management, which was accomplished

on the following basis: The whole area, 150 square
miles, was divided into a number of units called
series (from a French forest term), and each
series was again cut up into forty coupes, in
one of which the cutting is localized each year. The
system may be called, from a partial translation of
its French name, ‘localized selection.’’ It is a
modification of what Dr. Schlich has called «the
shelter-wood selection system.’’ The beat of a
guard is. coextensive with a series, and within this
area the felling passes over the same ground once
in forty years. ‘The faults of the present selection
system are that the per cent. of the valuable tim-
ber trees is rapidly diminishing in a country where
fire-wood is not saleable, and that it exposes the for-
est unduly to the attacks of fire, its chief enemy
there as here. For these reasons the present treat-
ment is to be gradually converted into regular high
forest.

The volume and character of the trees marked to
fall in each year are entered in a book, and from it
the purchases are made. The buyer presents his
felling license to the guard of the coupe in ques- °
tion, and cuts and removes the timber himself.

ee “+ ee ore

Qt
“G
o~

Government Forestry Abroad. [236

Excellent results are said to have followed a system
of temporary permits to ‘forest cultivators,’’ who are
allowed to take up a certain area of land at the edge
of the forest for agricultural purposes. In return,
they are responsible for the police of the forest in
their vicinity, and any unreported depredations mean
to them the loss of their permit. Very often their
contract demands the planting of a certain area with
oak in lieu of a cash payment of rent.

The English oak and American cottonwood and the
Eucalyptus globulus are extensively planted through-
out the Cape and South Africa generally.

OTHER COUNTRIES.

It has been impossible more than to glance at the
chief points of forest policy, in a few of the many
lands which teem with interest in this respect. I
would gladly have called attention to Austria, where
an excellent forest service upholds the general prin-
ciples which we have seen exemplified elsewhere, and
to Italy, where the sale of government forests, forced
on the State by the pressure of financial necessity, is
beginning to bear evil fruit. A circle of lands around
the Mediterranean might have been cited to instance
the calamitous results of deforestation, and from
some of them still further proof might have been
adduced to show at what a cost such errors must be
repaired. But the countries which have distanced us
on the road toward a rational forest policy might
better have claimed our attention.

Without passing out of the limits of Europe, it
would have been worth while to glance at Sweden,
whose government has recognized its obligations as

237] Government Forestry Abroad. 53

a forest proprietor, and to Russia, which has recently
turned its attention to forest matters, and has passed
a law (in 1888), of which the following are the more
notable features: Clearing is forbidden in protection
forests, and is only permitted in others when its
effects ‘‘will not be to disturb the suitable relations
which should exist between forest and agricultural
lands.’ Instanding timber all working which tends
‘to exhaust the standing crop, prevent the natural
regeneration of the forest, and change the areas cut
over into wastes” are forbidden. The government
prepares working plans of protection forests without
cost to their owners, and together with areas which
have been replanted, these forests are free from taxes.
Finally, private owners are forced to replant areas
cut over which are without natural regrowth, and on
their failure to do so, the work is carried out by the
government foresters at their expense. All thisina
country which has still 36 per cent. of wood land left.

Nor is it European nations and white colonists
alone who have shown a far more intelligent compre-
hension of the significance of the forest than the
United States. Japan has done so most conspicu-
ously. To quote from Heinrich Semler:

‘“Japan,' whose total area includes in round numbers 94,900,000
acres, possesses forests of 28,700,000 acres in extent. This people
furnishes a shining example in the matter of forestry. Even the
old feudal lords were penetrated with the value of the wood lands,
as they showed by the enactment of vigorous protective laws.
When in the recent civil war the government of the Mikado de-
stroyed the feudal system, it declared the forests, as far as they had
belonged to the feudal lords, to be the property of the State, and
promulgated a forest law which was valid for the whole kingdom.
Accordingly the forests of Japan are about equally divided between

Semler, Tropische und Nordamerikanische Waldwirtschaft und
Holzkunde. Berlin, 1888.

54 Government Forestry Abroad, [238

the State and private owners. The former manages its wood lands
through a forest service with headquarters at Tokio, where is also
the forest school. Founded within the last ten years, the school
has an average attendance of about 150, and has quite recently been
under the charge of Dr. Mayr, whose work on The Forests of North
America has made his name familiar to the advocates of forestry in
the United States. Only apart of the pupils expect to enter the
government service.

‘““The forest service does not rest satisfied with the present pro-
portion of wood land, but busies itself actively with planting, in
connection with which the introduction of foreign species has been
attempted.

‘“There is a notable export of wood from Japan to China, and, on
the other hand, an import from North America to Japan; which
last, however, the Japanese soon expect to be able to do without.”’

Dr. Schlich’s statement of the destructive tenden-
cies of private forest ownership in India might with
equal truth have been made as a general proposition.
It is the salient fact which the history of the forests
of the earth seems to teach; but nowhere have the
proofs of its truth taken such gigantic proportions
as in the United States to-day. We are surrounded
by the calamitous results of the course that we are
now pursuing. In fact, it seems as though there
were almost no civilized or semi-civilized country in
either hemisphere which cannot stand to us as an
example or a warning. To this great truth they bear
witness with united voice: The care of the forests
is the duty of the nation.

The Present Condition

OF THE

iP @uests on ine Public Lands.

BY

EDWARD A. BOWERS.

: oust} ¥ a.
oe

The Present Condition of the Forests on the
Public Lands.

BY EDWARD A. BOWERS,
Secretary of the American Forestry Association,
(Formerly Inspector of the Public Land Service.)

I shall try to outline what the legal and physical
condition of this great and necessary element of our
national wealth is at the present time, touching only
incidentally upon remedies, as you will hear another
upon that subject.

The American Forestry Association must recognize
at the outset that little improvement need be expected
either in the legal protection or the physical condition
of the public forests until there is a radical change
in the theory held with respect to public forest lands
and a complete revision of existing laws relating to
them. On the contrary, we must expect, year by
year, to see these forests steadily destroyed and in-
jured to such an extent that their renewal and pre-
servation will become less possible, even with our
best efforts, and it may be that over large sections
no forest covering can be made to take the place of
that which is now being destroyed.

I shall take as my text, therefore, this: The laws
provide neither an adequate method for the protection
of the public timber, nor for its disposition in those
regions where its proper use is imperative.

_

58 Condition of Forests on the Public Lands. [242

First, what are our existing laws; second, what
are the general characteristics of the timber region
to which these laws apply; and, third, what is their
effect upon the forests?

The foundation of our protective system rests upon
an act passed March 1, 1817, which authorized the
Secretary of the Navy to reserve lands producing
live-oak and red cedar «‘for the sole purpose of sup-
plying timber for the navy of the United States,”
and, an extension of this law, made by the pas-
sage of the act of March 2, 1831, which provided
that if any person should cut live-oak or red cedar
trees, or other timber from the lands of the United
States, for any other purpose than the construction of
the navy, such person shall pay a fine not less than
triple the value of the timber cut, and be imprisoned
for a period not exceeding twelve months. Upon
this old law, having the construction of a wooden
navy in view, the government of the United States
has to-day chiefly to rely in protecting its timber
throughout the arid regions of the West, where none
of the naval timber, which the law had in contem-
plation, is to be found. Can it be wondered that this
act does not meet present conditions?

By the act of June 3, 1878 (20 Stats., 88), timber
can be taken from public lands, not subject to entry
under any existing laws except for mineral entry, by
bona fide residents of the Rocky Mountain States and
Territories and the two Dakotas. The Land Office
regulations in reference to this act provide that such
timber cannot be exported, that none less than eight
inches in diameter may be cut, and that in cutting
the timber must not be wantonly wasted or destroyed.

The timber and stone act, passed the same date,

243] Condition of Forests on the Public Lands. 59

applies only to the Pacific States and Nevada. Under
this act land chiefly valuable for timber and unfit for
cultivation if the timber is removed, can be pur-
chased for $2.50 per acre under certain restrictions.

The act of June 15, 1880, permitted timber tres-
passers to purchase the land on which they had com-
mitted their depredations, at the usual price, but as
that applies only to trespasses committed prior to
March 1, 1879, it is of little importance now.

By the act of March 38, 1875, all land grant and
right-of-way railroads are authorized to take timber
from the public lands adjacent to their lines, for
construction purposes only; in addition to which the
Denver and Rio Grande railroad has the right to cut
also for repairs.

The various appropriation bills, authorizing the
employment of special timber agents, by implication
recognize their authority to protect the public timber.

The settlement laws, under which a settler may
enter lands valuable for timber as well as for agri-
culture, furnish another means of obtaining title to
public timber. None of our timber-bearing lands
should be subject to such entry, for reasons that will
appear later in this address.

With the exception of the timber culture act, de-
signed to stimulate the planting of small areas of
trees upon the treeless plains, the above is the only
legislation of consequence affecting the public tim-
ber lands, or aiming to promote or preserve forests.
In no other way than under some one of the above
laws can a citizen of the United States use the public
timber.

Of the results of the timber culture act it may be
well to point out that of the 38,000,000 acres of

60 Condition of Forests on the Public Lands. [244

public lands entered under it, less than 1,000,000
acres have been patented to the entry-men for com-
pliance with the law. That is, not over 50,000 acres
have been successfully covered with young tree plan-
tations.

Before considering the effect of these laws, it may
lead to a better comprehension of the subject to out-
line the general location, character and condition of
the public timber lands.

Of all those magnificent forests that covered the
fertile lands of the middle West and surrounded the
Great Lakes, which were originally the property of
the government, almost none belong to it now. For
this priceless forest treasure the government received
nothing, the land alone being regarded as valuable.
These forests were attacked with fire and axe, as
obstacles to civilization to be disposed of as rapidly
as possible, and the government did not interpose the
slightest objection to prevent this destruction.

Here and there in the Southern States there are
still considerable timber areas belonging to the Uni-
ted States, but these are relatively unimportant, both
in extent and for climatic and other reasons. At
present the forest bearing lands of the United States
are situated either high up on the sides of the great
mountain chains that form the back-bone of the con-
tinent, or along the slopes of the northern half of
our Pacific Coast. These forests are generally re-
mote from settlement, but are becoming less so every
year, as the tide of population sweeps over the west
and absorbs vast quantities of the more desirable
portions of the public domain.

In their natural conditions these regions differ
widely. The central mountain region is arid, con-

245] Condition of Forests on the Public Lands. 61

taining unknown quantities of mineral wealth, with
an inferior quality of forest for lumbering, but abso-
lutely necessary for use locally in the absence of
better timber. Owing to the general aridity of this
region these forests are invaluable as a cover to the
mountains from which the water supply is drawn for
the extensive irrigation that now exists on the lower
lands. These forests are in much greater danger
from fire than are those on the Pacific Slope, where
the enormous rainfall protects, and has protected
during the centuries of their growth, those wonder-
ful forests. In the Rockies the removal of the forest
by cutting or by fire means its destruction in very
many cases, as there is not sufficient moisture in the
soil and air to induce reforestation by natural meth-
ods. On the contrary, along the Pacific Slope, a
renewal of the forest cover may be reasonably ex-
pected. Thus we see that where our public forests
are most needed, both for the actual forest product
as well as for climatic and agricultural reasons, they
are most likely to be destroyed and most difficult to
renew.

The great rainfall of our northwestern Pacific
Coast is well known, and the unrivalled timber grow-
ing there is world-renowned.

A single tree of the immense fir and cedar varieties
in that region is often worth a hundred to a hundred
and fifty dollars, and many tracts of a square mile
are estimated to contain 100,000,000 feet board meas-
ure, worth, in the form of lumber, a million and a
half of dollars. The United States must still own
many hundreds of square miles, worth for the timber
alone $20,000 per square mile. Yet the government
sells this land for $2.50 an acre, or at $1,600 per

62 Condition of Forests on the Public Lands. [246

square mile. These lands contain little mineral
wealth, but are in some cases valuable for agri-
culture.

One of the most serious obstacles to be overcome
in the arid region is fire. It has been stated that
more timber is annually burned in the Rocky Moun-
tain region, where every tree is precious, than is used
in five years. I have been told, over and over, by
men familiar with the region, that it is useless to try
to prevent forest fires there. With this I do not
agree. To be sure, the population through those
regions is sparse, and cannot be collected so readily
to extinguish a forest fire as in more settled localities,
but this also is an element of protection, in that there
are fewer people to fire the forests. In many places
the Rocky Mountains are cleft by steep rocky gorges,
which in themselves would form fire-breaks, and a
series of safety-lanes could be cut through the moun-
tains, separating the timber into comparatively small
bodies, so that the fire in one body could not reach
that in any adjacent one. The timber thus cut out
to form the safety-lanes might not unreasonably be
expected to pay all the costs of carrying out this plan.
The lumbermen, of course, in stealing timber, take
only the best, and leave large quantities of brush and
the poorer portions of the tree to furnish food for the
first fire which comes along. The Indians still prac-
tice their ancient custom of firing the forests to drive
out the game on their hunting expeditions. Before
the days of the mill-men, these annual or frequent
burnings apparently did not produce serious confla-
grations in the forest area; but now, by this combi-
nation of wasteful millman and hunting Indian, fires
rage every year through large tracts of timber in the

247] Condition of Forests on the Public Lands. 63
Rocky Mountains, and it is no one’s business or
interest to prevent and stop these conflagrations
when once started.

I recollect one August being in the vicinity of the
Bighorn Mountains of Northern Wyoming for several
weeks, and as I first approached them nothing could
be seen at a great distance but a vast cloud of smoke.
During the whole period of my stay there this cloud
of smoke hung over the mountains, gradually work-
ing its way northward, and thus marking the move-
ment of the fire. No one of the many settlers or
inhabitants of the towns in the vicinity of these
mountains paid the slightest attention to this fire
which was destroying millions of property, and
changing the future condition of their water supply,
on which the whole region depended for irrigation.
Apparently it was a matter of such common occur-
rence that they took no interest in it.

Then there is no more effective way of concealing
the cutting of the better portion of a forest than by
firing what is left after the timber depredator has
carried off his material.

In 1887 I made as careful an estimate of the loss
by fire in the destruction of public timber as the
insufficient data obtainable permitted, and placed the
annual loss to the government at $8,000,000, in the
value of wood-material destroyed. This made no
account of the secondary and resultant loss from the
destruction of the forest protection by floods, drouth,
the ruin of the soil and young forest growth, which,
though very great, is immeasurable.

Large areas of the finest pine lands have been
disposed of by the government in Minnesota and
elsewhere, under the settlement laws. There was no

64 Condition of Forests on the Public Lands. [248

other way by which the timber could be acquired,
and so lumbermen hired hundreds of choppers who,
in addition to their regular work, were required to
enter a tract of 160 acres under the pre-emption or
homestead laws, and after a nominal compliance with
the law, to deed the land to their employers. After
stripping the timber from the land it was abandoned,
and over great areas once located for homes one can
pass now without finding an occupant, the dead
trees and barren stumps or an occasional cabin alone
attesting the former occupancy of man. Settlements
upon timber lands are rarely made in good faith—
that is, to establish a home—because the public lands
upon which timber is now growing are almost entirely
unfit for agriculture, and the system puts a premium
upon perjury and wastefulness. For what desire has
such a settler to husband the resources of his land ?
He wants to cut and sell the best portions of his
timber, and be off before his fraud is discovered. Or
if he sells, the lumberman who buys pays an entirely
inadequate price, so that neither the government nor
the settler gets the benefit. This great profit poes
into the pockets of the wealthy lumberman, who can
afford to waste the poorer portions of the timber, as
he has paid a price much below the real value of the
timber. If he had to pay the approximate value of
the timber, this waste would be materially reduced,
and the forest thus far preserved. Even when the
land is valuable for agriculture, the pioneer who
settles upon it to make a home is eager to remove as
soon as possible the forest which for him only cum-
bers the ground. He wastes thoughtlessly the prod-
ucts of centuries, and rejoices in the fall of every

249] Condition of Forests on the Public Lands. 65

forest monarch. Occasionally it happens that after
he has profusely supplhed his own needs, he can sell
the surplus to some lumberman, and thus prevent its
complete waste.

For all of these reasons no timber bearing lands,
now the property of the United States, should be sub-
ject to entry under settlement laws.

Let us now consider how the laws which I have
previously mentioned operate. Under the act of
June 5, 1878, applying to Colorado and the Territo-
ries, settlers and others were permitted to cut timber
for mining and agricultural purposes from mineral
land. Before cutting timber for local use the settler
can hardly be expected to sink a shaft or hire a chem-
ist to determine whether the land is in fact mineral
or not. He cuts where most convenient for him,
without knowing what the character of the land is,
and takes the chance of being prosecuted. Not one
acre in thousands throughout the region to which
this act apphes is known to contain minerals, but it
is the only act under which timber may be taken by
settlers and miners in this great region. Conse-
quently this whole population is forced to steal one
of the necessaries of life. The community has become
demoralized with reference to this question. The
paramount and absolute necessity to obtain timber
for use overrides all considerations of right. To the
miner and settler of that region the use of timber
from local supplies is as absolutely necessary as the
use of the water that flows by him, or of the air that
surrounds him, and no plan of management which
fails to recognize this necessity can ever hope to be
successful. In reference to this the Commissioner of

66 Condition of Forests on the Public Lands. [250

the General Land Office, in his last annual report,
says:

“Tt is useless to enact laws to prohibit the use of an article of
absolute necessity, upon a judicious use of which the growth and
prosperity of our country largely depend. If the exportation of
timber and the destruction of trees and undergrowth upon the
mountain slopes can be prevented, and other public timber left free
and open to all subject to proper restriction, there will, in my
opinion, be far less destruction and waste than is now going on
through unlawful appropriation and forest fires.

‘“The laws now in force are discriminating and unjust. Under
them the owner of a mine in Arizona, from which he may be re-
ceiving an income of $100 a day, can procure all of the timber nec-
essary in developing and operating said mine from the public min-
eral lands without cost, except for the felling and removing, while
the owner of a farm in Minnesota, upon whose labors we are de-
pending for our daily bread, cannot procure a stick of timber from
any public land ‘with intent to use or employ the same in any
manner whatsoever ’—not even to build a fire with which to keep
the warmth of life in his body if he be freezing—without violating
the law.

‘“The necessity for a general law to remedy this evil cannot be
too strongly urged upon Congress.”’

The settler, after taking a piece of government
land in the vicinity of the mountains, finds imme-
diate use for timber for the construction of his build-
ings and fences, and he naturally helps himself to
whatever he desires. The prospector and miner and
the great mining companies have the right to cut
timber growing on the mineral lands about them; the
railroad supplies itself from the adjacent timber, and
the settler can hardly be blamed for doing the same.
Oftentimes, as a community of settlers becomes
sufficiently large to support it, a small saw-mill
springs into being, and the wants of this little com-
munity are supplied by the local mill, drawing its
timber from the government land without any au-
thority whatever. Both of these classes, the settler

251] Condition of Forests on the Public Lands. 67

and the local mill man, are then criminals under the
law, and are also liable in a civil action for damages.
The special agents employed by the General Land
Office to protect the public domain from timber dep-
redations are supposed to collect such testimony as
is necessary to sustain a prosecution, and to superin-
tend this prosecution in behalf of the government,
the government being represented by the United
States district attorneys. Do I need to tell you
that before a local jury such prosecutions almost
invariably fail.

The sympathies of the entire community are
always with these depredators of the public timber,
and quite often the jurors themselves have been
freely using such timber. Indeed it is a matter of
the greatest difficulty to induce a grand jury to indict
persons who have confessedly been cutting govern-
ment timber for years to supply their saw-mills, the
product of which is used quite likely by the very
members of the grand jury. In the rare cases where
a verdict for damages is rendered for the govern-
ment it will be for merely nominal damages.

“In nearly every public land State and Territory, poor hard-
working laboring men, who have been compelled to cut timber to
procure the means of a bare subsistence for themselves and fami-
lies, have been arrested, convicted, fined and imprisoned for cut-
ting and removing timber from vacant, unappropriated and unre-
served non-mineral public land in violation of section 2461, U.S.
Revised Statutes.’

‘“Tt is true that in some localities the sympathies of the people
are so strong and in other localities the timber is an article of such
public necessity, that it is impossible to convict a man for violation
of said section, even if caught in the very act and the proof is over-
whelming; so that to some minds the retention of that law upon

our statutes is deemed quite immaterial.’? (Commissioner’s Report,
G. 1. O:% 1890:

68 Condition of Forests on the Public Lands. [252

As conclusive of the futility of the present system,
I need only to tell you that during the seven years
from 1881 to 1887, inclusive, the value of the timber
reported stolen from the government land was
$36,719,935, and the amount recovered was $478,073.

The cost of this service for the special agents alone
was $455,000. To this expense must be added all of
the costs of the trial, such as the District Attorney’s
and witnesses’ fees.

In the Annual Report of 1890, the Commissioner
of the General Land Office says:

““A careful examination has been recently made of the annual
reports of this office, covering the years from July Ist, 1881, to June
30th, 1889, inclusive, for the purpose of ascertaining what has been
accomplished during that time, through legal proceedings, in the
way of enforcing the laws for the protection of public timber. The
result of that examination is conclusive upon two points:

“First. That the most valuable timber on the public lands is
being rapidly exhausted.

‘Second. That the several laws relating to public timber now in
force are utterly inadequate to properly protect either the public
forests from unlawful appropriation or the interests of the settlers

engaged in developing the country, to whom the use, to a certain
extent, of public timber is essential.”’

During the past year, in the protection of public
timber, fifty-five timber agents were employed, whose
services were of such irregular and brief periods as
to equal only the employment of twenty-nine agents
for one year. These special agents reported 310 cases
of timber trespass, involving public timber and its
products valued at something over $3,000,000. The
government recovered only, from settlements of suits,
through legal proceedings and by sales of timber and
lumber, $100,940.32. On July ist, 1890, there were
282 civil suits pending for the recovery of approxi-
mately $14,800,000, for timber reported to have been

253] Condition of Forests on the Public Lands. 69

unlawfully cut from the public land, and 306 criminal
prosecutions for violation of the timber laws were
also pending. The effect of this system has been to
place almost the entire population in opposition to the
government in its efforts to protect the public timber,
and it is all the more difficult now to gain their codp-
eration. It will be necessary to educate the people up
to the belief that this legislation for the protection of
public timber is for their benefit, and for their chil-
dren’s, that it is to preserve their country, and to pre-
vent its becoming an arid waste. To attempt a harsh
and stringent punishment of unintentional offenders
will be to arouse the hostility of all the inhabitants,
and probably lead to acts of revenge in firing the
forests that would do incalculable harm.

The railroads have cut timber right and left to
meet their requirements, and many of them under
their charter rights had such privileges in the matter
of cutting timber for the construction of the line that ,
it is difficult to determine whether their cutting has
been lawfully or unlawfully done. Along those lines
of road which had alternate sections of government
land granted them, where these lands are unsur-
veyed, it is, of course, impossible to say whether the
land on which the railroad employés are cutting is
a section granted to the railroad or a section reserved
by the government. The Supreme Court has held
that these grants of land are grants in present; and
that the title to lands so granted vests at once in
the railroad upon its fulfilling the conditions of the
grant—that is, when it is constructed. That these
lands are unsurveyed is not the fault of the rail-
roads—they could not survey them, in any event—
consequently the government cannot complainif they

70 Condition of Forests on the Public Lands. [254

continue their cutting in unsurveyed regions. For
this reason a large amount of cutting is done at the
present time, which may or may not be legal; it is
impossible to say.

One of the difficulties in effecting the conviction of
timber thieves is the difficulty of placing the respon-
sibility upon the right man. Oftentimes a band of
irresponsible foreigners, who scarcely speak the lan-
guage, will go into the mountains to cut ties for a
railroad, for which the railroad is to pay when deliv-
ered at certain points on its line. The ties are cut
and perhaps are in condition to be floated down to the
railroad. Information comes to some government
timber agent of this cutting, and he goes to the scene
of it. Upon his arrival he finds that the men who
cut it are mere employés, and that the responsible
parties have decamped, in anticipation of his presence.
There are no written contracts, and it is not possible
to show the connection between the cutting and the
railroad. The railroad has not yet received or paid
for the ties. All the agent can do is to seize them,
which he does, to find that his only customer is the
same railroad that is really responsible for the cut- :
ting, and the chances are that he gets a much less
price for them than the men who cut them had con-
tracted for, so that his action inures to the benefit of
the railroad that ought to be punished. The poor tie-
cutters, who have been hard at work in the woods,
perhaps for weeks, are the sufferers, losing all their
wages: oftentimes without knowing that they, had
not a perfect right to cut the timber which they were
engaged to do by the agent of the railroad. It is
manifest from what has been said before, that no

255 | Condition of Forests on the Public Lands. Zal

local jury would convict these men criminally, or
bring a verdict against them for damages.

That this condition of affairs is not the fault of
the General Land Office, which has charge of the
public timber lands, is evident from the fact that
ever since 1879 the Public Land Commissioners and
the Secretaries of the Interior have, in annual re-
port after annual report, called attention to their im-
potence in the matter of protecting government tim-
ber, and asked Congress repeatedly for such legisla-
tion as would remove this stain upon their admin-
istration. Notwithstanding these earnest appeals
Congress fails to take any action. The annual
appropriation for protective service has been hardly
sufficient to keep an average of twenty-five timber
agents in the field, and they were supposed to cover
and protect 70,000,000 acres of public timber lands.
These figures show the utter absurdity of the pre-
vailing system. The officers in charge of the work
seemed to have despaired of accomplishing any
really beneficial results, and so these places have
come to be regarded as political spoils to be distrib-
uted among faithful party workers, who, in accept-
ing them, do so with the idea that they are to have
asinecure. The character of the men appointed in
this way you can readily imagine. I have seen men
sent from cities to superintend the protection of the
public forests who probably had never before seen a
forest, who were totally unfamiliar with methods of
lumbering or estimating the damage done by the
cutting of an area of timber, who were not lawyers,
and who had no ability whatever to collect testimony
on which the district attorney could successfully
prosecute.

Condition of Forests on the Public Lands. [256

ra)

Many of the honest timber agents find themselves
unfit for the work, but have not the frankness to
admit it, or the wisdom to resign. Of the dishonest
ones, of whom there are too many, I need only say
that their position offers them many chances for
blackmail, to which the mill-men will submit rather
than undergo the cost and anxiety of prosecutions,
although they may feel that the prosecutions will
be fruitless. A mill-man complained to me on one
occasion, that he had no objection to there being a
timber agent in the country, as he had found it a
cheap way of securing protection, but that recently
there had been so many changes made in timber
agents that he began to find it too expensive.

The call for some legislation by which timber can
be honestly cut from the public lands and paid for is
earnest among the mill-men supplying the local
demands for lumber in the arid region.

On the Pacific Coast the conditions are entirely dif-
ferent. There the timber is cut principally for export,
and not for local use. Unquestionably the finest body
of timber any where now existing in the United States
les between the Coast Range and the Pacific Ocean,
and there milling is pursued on sucha large scale that
the comparatively small methods of the Rocky Moun-
tain region would not meet their requirements. So,
in 1878, what is known as the timber and stone act
was passed. By means of this any citizen of the
United States, or head of a family, can take up 160
acres of timber land, and by paying $2.50 for it
obtain title to the land. There was some attempt in
the act to limit its operations by requiring that the
would-be purchaser should make affidavit that the
land was entered exclusively for his own use and

fod

257] Condition of Forests on the Public Lands. v3

benefit, and by not allowing any association of indi-
viduals to enter more than 160 acres, nor could any
member of such association make an individual
entry. But under this act a very large percentage
of the entries made have been made by laborers in
the employ of mill companies for those companies,
and in one case which came under my observation
it was the practice of a lumber company to hire the
entire crew of any vessel which might happen to
touch at any port to enter pieces of timber land and
deed them to the company at once, the company pay-
ing all expenses and giving the entryman $50 for
his trouble. By such methods have our unequalled
red-wood forests been absorbed by foreign and resi-
dent capitalists.

From‘this statement of the condition of the public
timber lands of the United States but one conclusion
can be drawn; that is, anew departure in the man-
agement by the government of its forest property
is imperative. The time now seems ripe for the
introduction of some intelligent policy in the
management of our public timber lands. Some
of the very men who have been the devastators of
our finest forests begin to see the folly of their
course, and fear that soon there will be no material
for the lumber trade. They are ready and willing to
pay the government a reasonable price for timber
which can be properly sold, and aver that some sys-
tem by which they can cut under authority of law is
a necessity, being desirous of doing away with the
subterfuges of the past. The more intelligent pioneers
of the arid regions realize that the regular flow of the
streams throughout the whole season, furnishing
the water for irrigation through the summer drouth,

74 Condition of Forests on the Public Lands. [258

is changing into torrents of a few weeks’ duration
in the spring, which carry destruction by their flood
and wash away the more fertile soils, and then sub-
side and disappear when most needed. When set-
tlers, lumbermen and miners alike call out for reform,
what opposition need we expect? What is to be
overcome but the vis inertie that stands in the way
of all reform? One or two cannot accomplish the
result which we all desire. Of one thing be assured,
only by constant agitation can there be effected a
more thorough appreciation by the people of the
whole country of the perilous condition of our forests
and what their destruction means to our national
prosperity. From this alone will remedial legislation
spring.

OO

Practicability

American Forest Administration.

BY

B. EK. FERNOW.

mat
’

a as nat z

?

on, , ok a

a

Practicability of an American Forest Administration.

BY B. E. FERNOW,
Chiet of Forestry Division, Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.

The title of the paper assigned to me should have
been made, by preference, to read: ‘The difficulties
attending the introduction of forest management in
the United States,’ for the negative elements in the
problem are still so numerous as to make a positive
result, at first sight, at least, doubtful.

If we can understand the reasons for the absence
of forest management in the United States, we shall
at once understand some of the difficulties retarding
its introduction and be able to weigh the possibilities
of overcoming them.

In Europe, thanks to a certain feudal conservative
system, large forest areas were preserved, more or
less intact, in strong, controlling hands, until the
territory was gradually covered by a dense, stable
population, which necessitated conservative utiliza-
tion of all resources and careful adjustment of pri-
vate and communal interests.

In this country, on the other hand, a small but
energetic and progressive population took possession
of and spread itself over an immense territory,
boundless in resources, with no check, borne by his-
torical and economic development, which would

78 An American Forest Administration. [262

restrict expansive and favor intensive management
of resources.

As is natural under such conditions, individualism
has developed itself in proportion to opportunities
for its expansion—individual interests and rights are
considered foremost, while, with a more or less
unstable population, communal interests are but im-
perfectly recognized and considered. and communal
spirit hardly awakened because less necessary.

It is relative density of population, then, which
accounts largely for the many differences, social and
economical, between the Old and New Worlds, and
most certainly for the difference in the use of all
resources, the forest resource included.

Private interest in natural resources is concen-
trated upon present gain, and where this gain can be
secured by utilizing only the best of the natural
growth, then abandoning the old and opening up a
new field, the incentive to management of the re-
source for continuity is absent.

We may then say that in the United States the
absence of forest management from considerations
of private interest is due to the fact that there is still
a large area of virgin timber left, which can be
worked advantageously for present gain by simply
utilizing the best natural growth without the neces-
sity of economical management.

That this state of affairs may change in a few
decades is no consideration for the present workers
of the resource. Their interest lies only in the imme-
diate present, while forest management means cur-
tailment of present revenue for the sake of continued
future returns or benefits.

263 | An American Forest Administration. v9

There are some localities in the United States, and
some conditions where even now forest management
from private considerations is practicable, 7. e., pro-
fitable, namely, such as are situated with reference
to the markets favorably enough to be able, in spite
of the increased cost of management, to compete
with the virgin supplies shipped from more distant
resources, and where density of population permits
a fuller profitable utilization of inferior material.

For instance in the Adirondack region, with large,
compact holdings, tolerably well stocked and easily
made accessible to market, it could be shown that
increased profits would result from rational forest
management.

Some minor difficulties which would have to be
overcome in introducing private forest management,
among which the momentum of habit is perhaps the
greatest, I may not discuss here.

While, then, the introduction of private forest
management, which is based upon considerations of
profit, depends almost entirely upon the progress of
general development, which we cannot control, there
are communal interests involved in the management
of certain parts, at least, of the forest areas which
make it necessary to weigh considerations of present
as against future and continued advantages; to weigh
direct value as against indirect value, of the forest
resources.

It has been shown, over and over again, that one
incontrovertible influence of forest cover exists,
namely, upon the regularity of water-flow and soil
conditions of mountainous territory; that, therefore,
in such territory utilization of existing forest re-
sources must be carried on in such a manner that the

80 An American Forest Administration. [264

forest cover be not interrupted and be reproduced as
part of it is removed, if we regard the interests
which are dependent upon the existence of the forest
cover.

Under such conditions it is quite evident that the
community must step in to guard against a destruc-
tion of the forest cover. This can be done either by
controlling private owners in the use of their prop-
erty or by placing such areas under a government
administration.

The first method is not only unsatisfactory and
distasteful, but as it means reduction of private gain,
unjust; and, hence, except in special cases, the object
would be only partially attained.

Weare then driven to consider the second alterna-
tive, namely, communal ownership and administra-
tion of such areas, which alone insures permanency.

Insuch an administration the primary consideration,
it stands to reason, is not the direct profitableness of
the management, but the most economical attain-
ment of the object for which the administration was
undertaken, namely, to insure a continuous forest
cover.

The consideration of the practicability of such
forest management then may be confined to a dis-
cussion of the administrative features and the possi-
bility of securing the object in view, while yet
satisfying other demands upon the forest cover.

There are, in every State in the Union almost,
forest areas which an intelligent communal policy
would place under communal administration; but
there is, perhaps, no part of the country more in
need of immediate government action than those

o6)

265 | An American Forest Administration, I

western mountain States in which the larger part is
still in the hands of the United States Government.

What the present conditions of this government
property are has been fully explained by Mr. Bow-
ers, who speaks from intimate knowledge, and may
be found more detailed in various reports of the
Departments of the Interior and of Agriculture.

Considered merely as a piece of property, without
more than ordinary value, the manner in which it is
needlessly wasted without benefit to any one, would
stamp its present administration as the most imprac-
tical of which thinking man is capable, if ‘practi-
cal’? means that which can be done with good rea-
son and to some useful end, that which a practical
man would do with his property. It is inconceiva-
ble how any management could be more puerile,
more devoid of good sense, more absolutely in defi-
ance of all reason and demands of statesmanship,
than the present management of the public timber
lands.

For not only is this property not protected against
theft and fire, but by incongruous, shortsighted and
unjust regulations, these two destructive agencies
are especially invited and the resident population is
forced to resort to theft and fraud in order to supply
their present wants, at the same time endangering
their future needs and interests.

Any practical and practicable administration of
these lands must keep in view not only the peculiar
natural condition of these forests, but also the pecu-
liar social conditions of the communities adjoining
them. The problem to be solved by such an admin-
istration is, while insuring protection against fire
and illegitimate use, to provide for the satisfaction

6

82 An American Forest Administration. [266

of the legitimate wants of different classes of popu-
lation in the simplest manner without impairing the
continuity of forest cover and of reforestation.

In the Fiftieth Congress a bill (H. R. 6045) was
introduced, which proposed and outlined in full de-
tail the working of a forest administration for the
United States Government timber lands. To see
whether and how far such an administration is
practicable, it might be best to scrutinize the provi-
sions of this bill. These are briefly as follows:

1. The temporary withdrawal of all timbered land
from private entry, and the reservation, after exami-
nation, of the areas which are not agriculturally
useful, and which ought to be kept in forest growth.

2. The districting of the reserved area and the
organization of a force for its administration, which
comprises—

(a) A central directive office consisting of a com-
missioner and four assistant commissioners, in either
the Department of the Interior or of Agriculture.

(b) As many local resident managers or inspectors
as there are districts.

(c) A force of guards or rangers to protect the
property against fire and theft, and to supervise the
cutting of timber.

3. Regulations under which wood supplies are to
be obtained, under licenses, which take due regard
of the different needs of the resident population.

4. Such penal provisions as will make the execu-
tion of the administration effective. These will have
to be altered to suit the new conditions, due to the
creation of new States, by which the United States
have lost the right of penal legislation on most of
this territory. |

267] An American Forest Administration. 83

The objections made against such legislation may
be divided into those which flow from private inter-
est, and those which concern themselves with the
principles involved and the practicability of the pro-
posed plan.

The first class of objectors we may dismiss by
merely mentioning them; they are those who carry
on a nefarious trade without legal status, which
would be stopped by a proper surveillance. Un-
fortunately their cries “that the rights of the
pioneers would be curtailed and the development of
the country impeded by such a system as that pro-
posed, and that nothing practical could be done to
preserve the forest areas,” are sufficiently boisterous
to influence legislators against change of existing
conditions; and while we may neglect them in this
discussion, they are an important factor not to be
underrated when the passage of such legislation is
attempted.

All fair-minded citizens of the West will be found
of one opinion, namely, that existing conditions are
not desirable and ought to be remedied.

The first objection, based upon principle, comes
from the believers in unrestricted individualism.
They object to the holding of the land by the gov-
ernment. They contend that such timber lands are
in better hands, and will be taken care of more easily
and efficiently by private holders, and should be dis-
posed of to them. While this position may be cor-
rect as regards other classes of lands and under
stable conditions of society, experience has proven
it wrong under our conditions, and especially with
timber lands.

84 An American Forest Administration. [268

It is well known that agriculture is carried on in
the United States without system or regard to con-
tinued fertility in those parts of the country where a
thin population permits easy territorial expansion of
the individual; that is to say, the ground is worked
for what it will yield in the natural state and then
abandoned for new fields. But agricultural soils are
easily recuperated, while impairing the forest cover
on steep mountain sides, especially in such dry
regions as we have in the West, which are not read-
ily reforested by nature, imperils far-reaching inter-
ests forever, as Europeans have learned to their cost.

Furthermore, timber lands have been and are being
disposed of to private individuals on the Pacific
Coast, and the consequences are as disastrous and
unsatisfactory as they have been elsewhere.

It is also well known that in all parts of the coun-
try where timber land and non-agricultural soil is
sold to individuals it relapses to the State for non-
payment of taxes; for with the valuable timber taken
from the tracts the interest of the individual is gone
in this kind of property.

But the interest which the community has in the
forest cover, especially in mountain regions, is trans-
cendant, for the protection of the forest cover is of
importance to the continued welfare of the commu-
nity, and hence the State, which is not only the
representative of communal interests as against indi-
vidual interests, but also of future interests as against
present, can alone be trusted with the ownership of
such lands.

The objection to government holding is good only
as long as the government does not take proper care

269] An American Forest Administration. 85

of its holdings, as at present; but this is the very
thing to be remedied by the proposed legislation:

Tt might still be asked what part of the community
had best be intrusted with the care of these lands, -
whether it should be the county, the individual, State
or the general government.

It may be argued that the community making up
the county has necessarily the most interest in the
preservation of favorable conditions and can best
guard its own interests. Yet there are often con-
flicts of interests arising which can be better ad-
justed under State ownership, and before a well
settled county administration exists State ownership
would be preferable.

But even State ownership, while perhaps desirable
at a certain stage of development would not be expe-
dient now, and ownership by the general govern-
ment for the present is preferable.

My reasons for this preference are:

First. The general government does own the lands,
and the difficulties and complications attendant upon
wholesale transfer of the property can as well be
avoided. If such transfer were to be effected it
would necessitate almost a revolutionary change of
the existing land policy of the government, which
at present seems neither necessary nor advisable.

Second. The States with a scanty population as
yet, and with all parts of their economy still to build
up, had better not burden themselves with this addi-
tional duty of forest conservation, except so far as
they can aid it without cost to them.

Other political considerations, which need not be
elaborated here, lead to the same conclusions; so that
altogether the expediency of retaining the public

86 An American Forest Administration. [270

timber lands in the hands of the general govern-
ment for the present is conceded by the unbiased
students of the question, provided the general gov-
ernment will do what is necessary to preserve and
keep in permanent forest condition this property.

If we agree that the administration of these lands
is best left to the present owner of them, namely,
the United States Government, the next question
concerns practicable methods in their administration.

The first need is a proper classification of the

remaining public lands, and the withdrawal from
entry and permanent reservation of the forest
lands.
The withdrawal of these lands might be done by
gradual reservations of single parks, of which we
have several—based, however, upon other considera-
tions, than those of a rational forest policy—but if the
withdrawal is deemed necessary at all it would be
wiser to reserve all that is necessary and desirable to
reserve at once, while still in the hands of the gov-
ernment and not entirely devastated.

The practical method of withdrawing the lands to
be reserved is one of gradual exclusion, requiring
those entering public lands for occupancy under
homestead and other laws, to make affidavit to the
effect that the lands so entered are chiefly valuable
for agricultural pursuits, and not for the timber
mainiy. Meanwhile examination of all entries so
made as well as of unentered sections, will gradually
make known the character of the land and furnish
a basis for the determination of the extent of
the reserve. The final survey of these lands also
can be made gradually and without much extra
expense.

oa
-~2

271] An American Forest Adininistration.

There is next to be provided:

1. Protection against fire over a large mountainous
territory, with a scattered population, more difficult
because of the coniferous growth and dry climate.

2. Means of supplying wood material for the
various needs of the population in a legal manner
and in such a way as not to destroy the forest cover.

3. Reforestation, if possible, by natural seeding
and recuperation of the areas which have been de-
spoiled so far.

Fire is the great bane of American forests. These
conflagrations are due largely to bad habits and loose
morals;.hence it will not be possible to stop them
altogether and at once. But it is practicable to
reduce them in frequency and extent. This cannot,
however, be done by paper legislation, but only by
proper policing. For this it is necessary to divide
the territory into districts of suitable sizes, differing
according to local, social and topographical condi-
tions; to have officers each in charge of one district and
responsible for its protection; to have these officers
clothed with sheriffs’ power, and in every way
capacitated to enforce regulations, apprehend and at
once bring to court offenders, and shorten the pro-
cesses of legal procedure in cases where prima facie
evidence is at hand.

As we do not expect to have every thief prevented
or caught, we cannot expect to have every fire pre-
vented or incendiary apprehended.

But with a responsible guard for a given district,
always on the alert, fires will be discovered early
after they are started, and be confined, and put out.

To assist in confining fires, it is also proposed to
burn over safety strips at the proper season, so that

88 An American Forest Administration. [272

any running fires will be checked and a chance given
to fight the fires from these safety strips as a basis.

In regard to the methods of supplying wood mate-
rial, it is to be kept in view that, in a country which
is as yet partially settled and developed, require-
ments are of a different nature from those of the
more densely populated Eastern States. This has
been recognized by devising different classes of
licenses under which timber supplies may be obtained,
namely, one for the settler and one for the prospector,
each to supply his immediate wants on a designated
area upon payment of a small annual fee, and a
further license to the local lumberman, who supplies
the smaller communities, upon payment of additional
acreage and stumpage fees.

To satisfy the requirements of the lumber business,
a business which must exist in every developed
community, special licenses are provided, to cover
larger areas, with a longer time for cutting, with
higher acreage and stumpage fees, and other neces-
sary restrictions and regulations.

It may be stated in passing, that this system of
selling stumpage and allowing the cutting by the
purchaser, under control, is not the most desirable,
and is one to be gradually changed as changing
conditions permit, but it seems to be the only practi-
cable one under present conditions.

The third object to be attained by the proposed
administration, namely, natural reforestation, and
continuity of forest cover, is the only one in which
forestry as a science is involved.

To discuss what should or should not be done in
this direction, would mean a discussion of the prin-

273] An American Forest Administration. 89

ciples upon which technical forest management is
earried on. This would lead too far.

I can only say that this object is attained mainly
by the manner in which the cutting is done, but it
cannot be accomplished by following the simple
popular direction to cut the ripe timber.

This is a matter which cannot be determined either
by the legislator or the professor ex cathedra, a
matter that requires a different answer for different
conditions, which cannot be given from intuition,
but must be evolved from experience. And since the
cutting is to be done by licensees, who must be con-
trolled in the manner of cutting, in order to insure
proper reforestation, we see at once that here we
have reached the real difficulty of the problem,
namely, the difficulty of finding the men who com-
bine with the needful organizing and administra-
tive faculties sufficient knowledge of forestry matters
to undertake the direction of a forest administration.
In fact, the whole difficulty 7s one of men, rather than
of measures, and, if it were expected to create all at
once a fully developed forest administration, this
difficulty would appear almost insurmountable.

Such expectations can rarely be realized in human
affairs, and in the proposed forest administration
we will also have to be satisfied to find our way
through mistakes and partial failure to improved
methods, at least, in the technical part of the admin-
istration.

So little knowledge of forestry matters exists in
this country that it will be utterly impossible to
expect such from the many forest guards to be
employed. Nor will it be possible to command district
officers, with more than the teachings of woodcraft

— ¥

¢
f
\
¢

90+." An American Forest Administration. [274

from the lumber camp, yet capable of learning for-
estry principles., But the directive administration
should command experts capable of preventing, from
the start, misdirection in technical detail, and of
evolving in time a suitable system of forest manage-
ment, gradually educating the whole force to its
teachings. Such expert advisers, if they cannot be
found in this country, can be had abroad, and some
will be found among us here by the time they are
needed.

There is one other objection to the practicability
of the proposed administration urged on the score,
not of measures, but of men.

Here, again, we can discern between the real and
the imagined difficulty.

To do efficient service—and none other is desir-
able—I estimate that for, say, 50,000,000 acres -of
government timber lands, from one to two thousand
active, reliable guards, and 500 resident managers,
all men of special capacity and sound judgment, are
necessary. Can they be found? I believe that, if
paid in proportion to the service rendered, and not,
as is the rule with government service in general,
expected to be satisfied with eking out their income
by outside work and incidental favors, they can be
found.

The imagined difficulty, and the objection raised
upon it, comes from those who imagine the govern-
ment as something outside and inimical to them-
selves, and every government officer a leech upon the
public treasury, an obstacle between themselves and
their individual happiness, an element of friction.
For a self-governing American, such objection, while
containing an element of truth, seems rather morbid

275 | An American Forest Administration. 91

and puerile, and is really directed, not against a
possible forest administration, but against existing
methods of filling offices.

As long as offices are filled for political favors,
held as temporary make-shifts, bringing neither
honor, adequate pay nor assurance of continuity, this
objection may not be without foundation, but it is
hoped that the spirit of reform may have gathered
strength enough to change conditions by the time
this administration is to be organized.

To meet any objections against the practicability
of such an administration on the score of expense, a
rough consideration of this question, based, to be
sure, on slender facts, may be in place: Allowing
50,000,000 acres of timber land reserved, I find that
a tolerably efficient administration may be provided
for a round $2,500,000, or five cents per acre.

It would be satisfactory, of course, if only this
expense be covered by the revenue. While the annual
growth of wood per acre on the reserved area would
exceed in value the assumed cost of administration,
the consumption is restricted. But when we con-
sider that the present saw-mill capacity of the region
affected is over three billion feet B. M., and the resi-
dent population three million, requiring at least fifty
cubic feet of wood material per capita, sufficient
margin is assured even if only half of these amounts
are furnished from the government timber lands.

While, then, from a business point of view a national
forest administration is entirely practicable, from a
governmental and legislative point of view such diffi-
culties exist as withdraw themselves from the discus-
sion of the uninitiated. Personal considerations and
considerations of expediency offer such obstacles to

92 An American Forest Administration. [276

the enactment of thorough legislation as that pro-
posed, that there is but little hope for it.

It takes a giant, or rather two giants combined,
strengthened by the courage of conviction that this
is an urgent matter to be acted upon, to carry through
the flood of legislative streams any measure involv-
ing radical changes in the existing land policy. It
is the tremendous momentum of. bad habits, unfair
usage, and personal politics, that must be overcome,
to make a rational forest policy possible.

APPENDIX:

PROPOSED BILL

For the Protection and Administration of Forests on the Public
Domain.

DESIGNATION OF ForEst LANDS.

Srcrion 1. Be it enacted by the Senate.and House of Representatives
of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all lands
now owned or controlled, or which may be hereafter owned or
controlled by the United States, and which are now or shall here
after be devoted to forest uses, are, for the purposes of this act, de-
clared to be public forest lands.

WITHDRAWAL OF Forest LANDS FROM ENTRY.

Src. 2. That the unsurveyed public lands of the United States,
embracing natural forests, or which are less valuable for agricultural
than for forest purposes, and all public lands returned by the public
surveys as timber lands, shall be, and the same are hereby, witb.
drawn from survey, sale, entry or disposal under existing laws, and
shall be disposed of only as provided in this act, and as Congress
may hereafter prescribe.

PREVENTING Entries Upon Forest Lanps.

Sec. 3. That every person applying to make an entry or filing of
public lands under any law of the United States before the classifi-
cation and survey of the pubiic forest lands, as provided in this act,
shall be made, shall file with his application an affidavit, under
oath, corroborated by witnesses, stating that the land applied for is
not exclusively or mainly forest land, is not situated near the head-
waters of any stream, and is more valuable for agricultural or mining
purposes than for the timber growing thereon, and each such appli-
cant shall state particularly his means of information and his per-
sonal knowledge of the facts to which he testifies, and upon a
certificate from the Commissioner of Forests constituted by this act
the lands so entered may be disposed of under existing laws; and
every person swearing falsely to any such affidavit shall be deemed

94 Appendix. [278

guilty of perjury and liable to the penalties thereof; and all illegal
entries of timber lands shall be absolutely void, and, upon satisfac-
tory proof, shall be subject to summary cancellation by the Commis-
sioner of the General Land Office.

INSTITUTING A COMMISSIONER OF FORESTS.

Sec. 4. That there shall be in the Department of the Interior (or
Agriculture) a Commissioner of Forests, who shall be appointed by
the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate;
and shall have the care, management and control of all the forest
lands owned or controlled by the United States. He shall be a
suitable person, versed in matters of forestry, and shall be entitled
to a salary of five thousand dollars a year, with such allowances for
assistance and expenses as will insure a proper execution of the
provisions of this act, and as Congress may from year to year
provide. Before entering upon his duties he shall give bonds with
sureties to the Treasurer of the United States in the sum of fifty
thousand dollars, conditioned to render a true and faithful account
to the Treasurer, quarterly, of all moneys which shall be received
or expended by him by virtue of the said office.

APPOINTMENT OF Four AssISTANT COMMISSIONERS.

Sec. 5. That the President shall also appoint four Assistant Com-
missioners. The Assistant Commissioners shall act as a forestry
board or council to the Commissioner of Forests in all matters
pertaining to the administration of public forest lands, as provided
for by this act, and each shall have special charge of one division of
the forest reserves, which he shall personally inspect at least once
every year. Each of the Assistant Commissioners shall receive a
salary of three thousand dollars.

CLASSIFICATION OF Forrest LANDs.

Sec. 6. That the forest lands on the public domain shall be
arranged in three general classes, namely: First, lands distant from
the headwaters of important streams, covered by timber of com-
mercial value, more valuable for forest purposes than for cultivation;
second, lands partially or wholly covered by timber, but suitable
for homesteads and more valuable for agricultural purposes than
for timber; third, mountainous and other wood lands, which, for
climatic, economic, or public reasons, should be held permanently
as forest reserves.

ESTABLISHMENT OF Forest RESERVES.

Sec. 7. That it shall be the duty of the Commissioner of Forests
to examine and classify, with the advice and assistance of the

a

279 | Appendiz. 95

forestry board, the forests and public timber lands of the United
States, and to determine, subject to the approval of the Secretary
of the Interior, what portions of such forests and timber lands
should be permanently retained in reservations for climatic or other
economic or public reasons, and what portions may be disposed of
without disadvantage to the public interests. He shall cause to be
prepared connected maps or diagrams showing the approximate
situation and areas of public timber lands in each State and Terri-
tory, and the President shall, by proclamation, designate the per-
manent forest reserves as the same shall be selected and approved
as herein provided; and it shall be the duty of the Secretary of the
Interior to cause exterior boundary lines thereof to be run and
marked by durable monuments; and no further survey of any timber
lands of the United States shall be made until the permanent reser-
vations herein provided for are established.

RestorinG Forest LANps.

Sec. 8. That lands of the second class, when reported to the Sec-
retary of the Interior by the Commissioner of Forests, shall be
restored to: homestead entry or sale; but a special appraised price of
the timber thereon shall be paid by the person entering such lands
in addition to the usual price and fees for the land, provided that
the timber of five acres shall be allowed to the applicant free of
further charge, on the payment of the settler’s license fee of two
dollars, as hereinafter set forth, and provided also that at least five
acres of land shall be cleared and put into crops within one year
from the time when a grant shall be made to the applicant, and that
a habitable dwelling be erected thereon within one year.

Disposal oF TIMBER.

Sec. 9. That the timber on the lands of the first and third classes
shall be disposed of according to the regulations of this act as
hereinafter provided.

Domestic LICENSES.

Sec. 10. That the disposal of timber for domestic purposes shall
be made by means of licenses as follows, namely: First, a pros-
pector’s license shall be granted to any applicant by the local
(district) inspector upon the payment of two dollars. Such license
shall confer the right to prospect for minerals upon land falling
under the provisions of this act, and also the right to cut without
waste and under the general regulations of the forestry board and
the supervision of the rangers, timber for the first construction
of shanties, prospecting shafts and other necessary structures,

96 Appendix. [280

from the territories nearest to the prospector’s claim or claims.
Such license shall be good only for the district in which it is taken
out, and shall end at the expiration of one year from the time of its
issue, or whenever, sooner than that, the claim is perfected or the
prospecting is abandoned. Second, a settler’s license shall be
granted to any bona fide settler having no timber on his claim, by
the local (district) inspector upon the payment of two dollars.
Such license shall confer the right, for one year, to cut, for the
licensee’s own use only and for domestic purposes, timber, fuel
and fence material, without waste and under the general regula-
tions of the ferestry board, upon an area of five acres, which the
licensee may desigate near his settlement. Third, a timber license
shall be granted to any bona fide settler or mine operator or man-
ufacturer, for the purpose of allowing him to supply himself or
others with timber, fence material or fuel upon the payment of a
license fee of five dollars and the further payment, before begin-
ning to cut any timber, of a sum equal to one dollar for each and
every acre embraced in his license, and, in addition, a stumpage of
not less than one cent per stump, actual count, before the removal
of the timber. Such license shall be granted for one year and shall
confer the right to cut the timber on not less than forty nor more
than eighty acres, the same to be selected by the applicant and the
selection tou be approved by the local officer.

Src. 11. That all licenses provided for in section ten shall be in
printed forms, and shall be issued, upon an order from the district
inspector, by the receivers of public money upon the payment of
the license fee. Licenses shall be numbered in succession, as
applications for them are made, and priority of application shall
determine the order in which they are granted. ‘The district
inspectors shall receive applications for license on certain days of
each week, to be published and made known by them. They shall
keep open books, in which shall be recorded in proper order appli-
cations for license and the action taken upon them, with the names
and residence or post office address of the applicants. The inspec-
tors shall also notify the rangers of each license granted in their
ranges, and the rangers shall be required to aid licensees in locating
their claims. No unused ‘‘settler’s license” or ‘‘ timber license”’
shall be renewed unless good cause is shown for its not having been
previously used, nor shall any license be granted to any person who
in the use of a previous license has not complied with the regula-
tions of the forestry board. No licenses of any kind shall be trans-
ferred from one company to another and continue to be valid
unless the transfer of the same is authorized by the forestry board.

281] Appendix. 0

LUMBERMEN’sS LICENSE.

Sac. 12. That timber on lands of the first-class, which is not
needed for mining or agricultural development in the neighbor-
hood, shall be disposed of to lumbermen or others, as it may be
applied for under a “‘lumbermen’s license,’”’ in quantities not less
in amount than that standing or being on one section nor more than
that standing or being on twenty-five contiguous sections. Such
license shall be granted upon the payment of a fee of twenty-five
dollars, by the Commissioner of Forests with the approval of the
Secretary of the Interior, under the conditions set forth in section
thirteen of this act, and shall confer the right to cut timber and
sell the same from as many sections or acres as have been located
and paid for. The licensee shall also pay one dollar per acre for
the whole number of acres covered by this license, before he may
begin operations and not later than six months after the granting
of said license. Anda further charge of not less than one cent per
cubic foot shall be paid by the licensee after the timber has been
cut and before the same is renewed. Such license shall be good for
two years, and in all cases in which not more than ten sections of
timber are embraced in the license it shall not be renewed unless
reasons satisfactory to the forestry board are shown why the same
could not have been used and its privileges exhausted during the
period for which it was first given, nor in any case shall such license
be renewed more than once or for a longer term than two years.
Where the license embraces more than ten sections of timber the
same rule shall apply in regard to its renewal as in the case of
licenses for a less amount of timber, except that for every five
above ten embraced in the license there may bea renewal of the
license for one additional year. No licensee shall be authorized to
apply for or take out asecond ‘‘lumberman’s license’’ until he
shall have cut and disposed of three-fourths of the timber to which
he is entitled by the license previously given.

Sec. 138. That all applications for ‘‘ lumberman’s license ”’
are to be made to the Commissioner of Forests and must be
accompanied by a statement of the location and approximate
amount of the timber sought by the applicant, together with a cer-
tificate of the local forest inspector to the effect that the lands on
which such timber is situated are of the first-class and not covered
by any of the local licenses as provided in section ten, nor pre-
sumably needed for such within a reasonable time. Such applica-
tions shall be considered in the months of August and September
only, and no license shall be granted before at least three months
have expired from the date of application and the same has been
advertised three times in three local papers, if there be so many,

a

98 Appendia. [282

of the district in which the licensee intends to locate. If the same
location is sought by more than one applicant priprity of applica-
tion shall not rule as to applications made in the same month, but
the application for the smallest location shall, in such case, receive
first consideration. And wherever a survey of the location is nec-
essary the applicant shall pay half of the expense of such survey,
and whenever the licensee begins operations upon his location he
must notify the local forest inspector, and all cutting and disposal
of the timber and other forest products shall be done under the
supervision of the local inspector and in accordance with such reg-
ulations as the Commissioner of Forests shail prescribe.

Duties or Forrest CoMMISSIONER.

Src. 14. That the Commissioner of Forests shall properly sub-
divide and arrange into divisions and districts of proper size, such
forest lands as shall constitute the forest reserves and forest lands
remaining under his control, shall organize a forest service, and
appoint inspectors and rangers for the protection and proper admin-
istration of said forests, and establish a practicable system of for-
estry. He shall make reasonable rules and regulations for the pre-
vention of trespass on said lands and for their protection from fire
or injury from other causes, and for the conservation of the forest
growth, and he shall be empowered, if necessary, on account of
any threatened detriment to the forestry interest, and, if the local
demand warrants, to have cut and to dispose of any timber which
is not taken under the licenses herein provided. "The Commis-
sioner of Forests shall have the power to regulate pasturage and
any occupancy whatsoever upon the forest lands, and he shall make
such other regulations, with the approval of the Secretary of the
Interior, as may appear necessary to carry into effect the purposes
of this act. He shall make to Congress annually a full and detailed
report of his proceedings and those of the assistant commissioners,
and all moneys received from the sale of timber or any other
privileges he shall pay into the Treasury of the United States.

Co-OPERATION WITH OTHER OFFICERS.

Sse. 15. That the Commissioner of the General Land Office, sur-
veyors-general, registers and receivers, and other federal’ officers
connected with the public lands, are directed to co-operate with
and assist the Commissioner of Forests to the extent of their
power in the selection, classification and management of the public
forest lands.

Co-OPERATION WITH SraTE BoarpDs.

Sec. 16. That whenever any of the States in which public forest

lands are situated shall have instituted and provided for a forest

283 | Appendix. 99

commission or other forest management of the forest lands belong-
ing to the State, it shall be in the discretion of the Commissioner
of Forests, with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, to
co-operate with such forest commission and to allow the same to
act as agents for the United States, under his direction, for the pur-
poses of this act.

Provisions AGAINST UNLAWFUL CUTTING.
[To be amended by reference to State laws. ]

Sec. 17. That it shall be unlawful to cut, remove, or destroy, or
cause or procure to be cut, removed, or destroyed, or aid, counsel,
or assist in cutting, removing, or destroying any timber on lands of
the United States, except as provided for and permitted by this act»
or to wantonly burn, injure, tap, or girdle such timber, or to export,
transport, purchase, or dispose of the same, or any lumber, char-
coal, pitch, turpentine, or other product manufactured therefrom ;
and every person violating the provisions of this section shall be
guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be liable toa fine of not less
than one hundred dollars and not more than one thousand dollars
for every such offense, and imprisonment for not more than one
year; and every person engaged in such depredation upon timber
or timber lands of the United States, whether as principal, agent,
employee, carrier, mill owner, manufacturer, vendor or vendee,
shall moreover be liable in an action of trespass for the full value of
the timber or timber product at the place of delivery ; but nothing
contained in this section shall prevent any agriculturist or miner
from taking from his claim the timber necessary for domestic pur-
poses or the support of his improvements. And whenever there
exists a right, previously established by law to cut timber on the
public lands, every person or corporation exercising such right
must comply with the rules and regulations prescribed by the Com-
missioner of Forests and approved by the Secretary of the Interior.
And all persons acquiring rights to cut timber or any rights of use
and occupancy of the forests under the provisions of this act,
whether at public sale, by license, or in any other way, are to have
and to hold such rights on condition of compliance with the rules
and regulations of this act and of the Commissioner of Forests.
And a failure to comply with all the rules and regulations so pre-
scribed and approved in regard to the manner of using and occupy-
ing the public forest lands shall constitute a misdemeanor punish-
able as provided in this section.

OccuPANCY OF Forest LaANpDs.
Sec. 18. That it shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corpora-
tion knowingly to erect, establish or maintain upon public lands of

100 Appendix. [284

the United States, without authority from the Commissioner of
Forests, any saw-mill or manufactory of lumber or other timber
products, or to be engaged or be employed in the manufacture of
lumber, charcoal, pitch or turpentine upon public lands, or to use at
any such mill, manufactory, or works any timber cut or removed
from public lands; and any person violating this section shall be
liable to a fine of not less than five hundred and not more than five
thousand dollars, in addition to the penalties hereinbefore pre-
scribed; and all mills, manufactories and works so erected and
maintained upon public lands shall be absolutely forfeited to the
United States.

PENALTIES FOR TRANSPORTING AND HANDLING ILLEGALLY Cur
TIMBER.

Src. 19. That if any master, owner or consignee of any vessel, or
any officer or agent of any railroad company, shall knowingly re-
ceive for shipment any timber, lumber, or timber product taken
without authority from timber lands of the United States, with
intent to transport the same to any port or place within the United
States, or to export the same to any foreign country, every such
master, owner, consignee, officer, agent or railroad company shall
be liable to the penalties prescribed in the seventeenth section of
this act; and the vessel on board of which any such timber, lumber
or timber product shall be taken, transported or seized, shall be
wholly forfeited to the United States.

RESTRICTING QUALITY OF FOREST OFFICERS.

Src. 20. That no person who is directly or indirectly engaged in
the manufacture of lumber or timber products, or who is conduct-
ing any business which requires a large consumption of timber or
wood, shall be qualified to serve as Commissioner of Forests under
this act, or to serve in any official capacity in connection with the
public forest lands.

REPEALING CLAUSE.

Src. 21. That the acts of June third, eighteen hundred and seventy-
eight, chapters one hundred and fifty and one hundred and fifty-
one, and the first and second sections of the act of June fifteenth,
eighteen hundred and eighty, entitled ‘‘An act relating to the public
lands of the United States,’’ and all acts and parts of acts incon-
sistent with this aet, be, and the same are, hereby repealed.

a?

285] Appendix. 101

ENACTING CLAUSE.

Sec, 22. That this act shall take effect on the first day of July
next, but the President may appoint the Commissioner of Forests
prior to that date, with his duties and salary to commence at that
date.

APPROPRIATION CLAUSE.

Src. 23. That for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of
this act, for the payment of salaries, traveling and other expenses,
the sum of five hundred thousand dollars is hereby appropriated.

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