Proceedings of the American forest congress held at Washington, D.C., January 2 to 6, 1905, under the auspices of the American forestry association

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PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

American Forest Congress

Held at Washington, D.C., January 2 to 6, 1905,

under the auspices of the

AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION

‘Published for the Association
by the
H. M. SUTER PUBLISHING COMPANY
WASHINGTON, D.C.
1905

Gift,

2 0'05

PREFACE

The American Forest Congress, the proceedings of
which make up this volume, was held at Washington,
D. C., January 2 to 6, 1905, under the auspices of the
American Forestry Association. The purpose of this
Congress, as stated in the official call, was “to estab-
lish a broader understanding of the forest in its rela-
tion to the great industries depending upon it; to
advance the conservative use of forest resources for
both the present and future need of these industries;
to stimulate and unite all efforts to perpetuate the
forest as a permanent resource of the nation.”

That the time was ripe for such a meeting was
proven by the splendid attendance, both in numbers
and personnel, from every section of the country.
From its inception the plan for the Congress had the
approval of the President of the United States, as well
as many of the most prominent persons in the official
and industrial life of the country. As a result the
American Forest Congress turned out to be not only
the most important meeting ever devoted to forestry
in the United States, but one of the most influential
gatherings that has given its attention to an economic
subject. It is not too much to say that from the date
of this Congress forestry has come to have a new
meaning to the American people.

It was the wish of the delegates that, in view of the
very comprehensive treatment of the subject of forestry
at the several sessions of the Congress, that the pro-
ceedings should be collected in permanent form, which
explains the making of this volume. The plan fol-

iv PREFACE

lowed in its compilation has not been to produce a ver-
batim report of the several sessions of the Congress,
but to collect the full list of papers read and the more
important impromptu addresses into convenient form
for reading and ready reference.

ORGANIZATION OF THE CONGRESS

HHonorary President,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

President of the Congress,
HON. JAMES WILSON

Committee of Arrangements,

JAMES WILSON,
Secretary of Agriculture.
A. J. CASSATT, ;
President, Pennsylvania Rail-
road.
HowARD ELLiomTT, :
President, Northern Pacific Ry.
JOHN Hays HAMMOND,
Mining Engineer.
T. J. GRIER,
Supt. Homestake Mining Co.,
Lead, S. Dak.
FRED WEYERHAEUSER,
St. Paul, Minn.
N. W. McLEopD,
President, Nat’]1 Lumber Manu-
facturers Association.

V. H. BECKMAN,

Editor, Pacific Lumber Trade
Journal.

R. A. LONG
Bresitent: Southern Lumber

Manufacturers Association.

GEORGE K. SMITH,
Secretary, Nat’l] Lumber Manu-
facturers Association.

GARRET SCHENCK,
President, Great Northern Paper
Co.
THOMAS F, WALSH, |
President, National Irrigation
Association.
H. B. F. MACFARLAND,
President, Board of District Com-
missioners.

W.S. HARVEY,
Vice - President, Pennsylvania
Forestry Association.
JOHN JOY EDSON,
President, Washington Loan &
Trust Co.

ALBERT SHAW,
Editor, Review of Reviews.

WHITELAW REID,
Publisher, New York Tribune.

REDFIELD PROCTOR,
United States Senator from Ver-
mont.

HENRY C. HANSBROUGH,
United States Senator from North
Dakota.

NATHAN B. Scott,
United States Senator from West
Virginia.
THOMAS R. BARD
United States’ Senator from Cali-
fornia.

JAMES W. WADSWORTH,
Member of Congress from New
York.

JOHN F, LACEY,
Member of Congress from Iowa.

FRANK W. MONDELL,
Member of Congress from Wyo-
ming.
CHARLES D. WALCOTT,
Director, U. S. Geological Survey.

GIFFORD PINCHOT,
Forester, U. S. Department of
Agriculture.

F. H. NEWELL,
Chief Engineer, U. 8S. Reclama-
tion Service.
GEORGE H. MAXWELL,
Executive Chairman, The Na-
tional Irrigation Association.
B. L. WIGGINS,
Vice-Chancellor,
the South.
GEORGE P. WHITTLESEY,
Director, American Forestry As-
sociation.

University of

vi ORGANIZATION OF ‘THE CONGRESS

F. J. HAGENBARTH,
President, National Live Stock
Association.
JESSE SMITH,
President, Utah Wool Growers’
Association,
H. A. JASTRO,
General Supt., Kern County Land
Co., California.

EB. S. GOSNEY,
Manager, Gosney & Perkins
Bank, Flagstaff, Ariz.

W. A. RICHARDS,
Commissioner, General Land Of-
fice.
B. T. GALLOWAY,
Chief, Bureau of Plant Industry.
OVERTON W. PRICE,
Associate Forester,
Forestry.

Bureau of

H. S. GRAVES
Director, ‘Yale Forest School.

FILIBERT ROTH,
Director, Forestry Department
University of Michigan.
F. V. COVILLE,
Botanist, U. S. Department of
cA ieee
Wo. L. HA
Ass’t apcater: Bureau of Forestry
JAMES B, ADAMS,
In charge of. Records, Bureau of
Forestry.
HERMANN VON SCHRENKE,
Expert, Bureau of Forestry.
H. M. SUTER,
Editor, Forestry and Irrigation.
C. J. BLANCHARD,
Statistician, U. S. Reclamation
Service.

CONTENTES:

PART OE
FORESTRY AS A NATIONAL QUESTION

Toe. PORES IN’ THE Lier OF A NATION |c6 oi ijc lui ce ane ke 3
President Roosevelt.

THE GENERAL, NEED OF ForEST PRESERVATION............- 13
James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture.

dire: MORES T EGEICN, Oby FRANCE Coe Shows eee etek A 22

J. J. Jusserand, Ambassador from France.
ATTITUDE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS TOWARD FoRESTRY 29
B. L. Wiggins, Vice-Chancellor, University of the
South.
IMPORTANCE OF THE ForEstS To AGRICULTURE............ 42
John Lamb, Member of Congress from Virginia.
DEPENDENCE OF BusINESS INTERESTS UPON THE FoRESTS.. 51
Howard Elliott, President, Northern Pacific
Railroad.

PART:“Ve

IMPORTANCE OF THE PUBLIC FOREST LANDS
TO IRRIGATION.

THE CLosE RELATION BETWEEN FoRESTRY AND IRRIGATION 53
Guy FE. Mitchell.

Miensis AND) RESERVOIRS. : i. 60204 bone cl cok whe dbo baeek es 60
F. H. Newell.

RELATION OF ForEst CovER To STREAMFLOW.............. 67
J. B. Lippincott.

mieceTS OF .WAY IN: FOREST) RESERVES. 00). 4 050235 SP e5 81

Morris Bien.

Vili ConTENTS

IRRIGATION CONSTRUCTION AND TIMBER SUPPLIES......... 87
Arthur P. Davis.

IMPROMPTU ADDRESSES:
a ME? Walean era oo cae keke eee ee tee eee QI
he AS. TOURER eth talerch, Ge ncale Boe pane cole ae eee 93

PART ai:
THE LUMBER INDUSTRY AND THE FORESTS.

THE LUMBERMAN’S INTEREST IN FORESTRY............-- 99
N. W. McLeod.

CHANGED AT?riTUuDE OF LUMBERMEN TOWARD ForEsSTRY.... 103
J. E. Defebaugh.

Is ForEstrY PRACTICABLE ON LonNG LEAF PINE LANDS?.... 124
John L. Kaul. :

Is ForEstRY PRACTICABLE IN THE NORTHWEST?........... 132

Victor H. Beckman.
INTEREST OF LUUMBERMEN IN CONSERVATIVE FORESTRY..... 137

‘F. E. Weyerhaeuser.
IMPORTANCE OF FoRESTRY TO WOODWORKING INDUSTRIES... 142

M. C. Moore.

Is Forestry PRACTICABLE IN THE NORTHEAST?........... 147
John A. Dix.

Our Paciric Coast Forests AND LUMBERING AS DIFFER-

ING FROM OTHER FORESTS. .../... 00s 1:60 oe merece

George P. Emerson. ,

Risk IN VALS OF STUMPAGES os i0 (525 cece ae ce eee 163
James T. Barber.

IMPORTANCE OF LUMBER STATISTICS... 00.000 c0cecccs sees 166
George K. Smith.

OPppoRTUNITIES FOR L,UMBERING IN THE PHILIPPINES.....- 173

George P. Ahern.

Tur LuMBER DEALERS’ In’rEREST IN Forest PRESERVATION 189
George W. Hotchkiss.

CoopERACE AND Its RELATION TO FORESTRY.........-+---- 194
John A. McCann.

CoNTENTS ix

PART IV.

IMPORTANCE OF THE PUBLIC FOREST LANDS, TO
GRAZING.

PracticAL RESULTS OF THE REGULATION OF GRAZING IN

MEE POREST RESERVES | c50 o'r oh ceuite ae ae esas 210
A. F. Potter.

Tur Protection oF Home BUILDERS IN THE REGULATION OF

GRAZING ON FOREST RESERVES: ...- 0.0.5.2 .8.% 218
E. S. Gosney.

Tur ApVANTAGE OF COOPERATION BETWEEN THE GOVERN-
MENT AND THE LIVE Stock ASSOCIATIONS IN THE
REGULATION AND ContRoL oF GRAZING........ 228

Fred P. Johnson.

NEcEssity oF Usinc THE Forest RESERVES FOR GRAZING

PURPOSE Sse Acs had aie oe Ain A ORNS GN ge conte 232
Francis E. Warren.
Surep GRAZING IN THE Forest RESERVES, From a Lay-

RAIN S) (STA NDPOUNTU ? idee ne aka bm Sit tan aero ae 242
L. H. Pammel.
PEMEPROMEP TU ADDRESS 6 50d 2 os sins Walnteys & pe ee ee eles ofgce steel rele 249

R. H. Campbell.

PAE E V-
RAILROADS IN RELATION TO THE FOREST.

Wuat INFORMATION 18s Most URGENTLY NEEDED BY RAIL-
ROADS REGARDING TIMBER RESOURCES........... 253
Charles F. Manderson.
Work OF THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD IN PLANTING TIM-
BER) PDR CROSS? LIBG. 6 (steer eee at acmustee eas 260
Joseph T. Richards.
Is rt PRACTICABLE FoR RarLroaps To Horp Forest LANps
FoR FuTURE SUPPLIES OF TIMBER?.............- 265

L. E. Johnson.

x CoNTENTS

RESULTS IN THE PRESERVATIVE TREATMENT OF RAILROAD

TIMBERS To PROLONG DURABILITY.............. 276
Herman von Schrenk.
LETTER BROM “Wire JAMES Jf SELILD C2 os ethan see ssc ke noe 290
PART VI.
IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC FOREST LANDS TO
MINING.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF Water Power As RELATED TO
POREST UR ESERVES. (ues Poult Paco e eee 293
A. L. Fellows.

WILL THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE ForEst RESERVES ON
A CONSERVATIVE BAsiIs RETARD THE DEVELOP-

MENT OF: NEINENG! (7.24 25 3o 7. oss eee 302

Seth Bullock.

IMPORTANCE OF THE PuBLic Forest LANps To MINING.... 307
Po Grier.

MINING IN "tae BOREST RESERVES. 00 6. Joie... oe eee 318
F. A. Fenn.

THE VALUE oF Forestry TO COMMERCIAL INTERESTS...... 332
George H. Maxwell.

TRCPROMPIY “ADDRESS. 5), oa.) diss kuch so ke Rano eee Cee 349
David T. Day.

PART VII.

NATIONAL AND STATE FOREST POLICY.

Work OF THE BUBBAU OF FORESTRY: .oo0 00 boc. > oe ee 355
Overton W. Price.
Work OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN MAPPING THE
RESERVES ¢ o usuies win eahdoed kek oa aie nie ena ae 304
Charles D. Walcott.
Work oF THE GENERAL LAND OFFICE IN THE ADMINISTRA-
TION “OE EE! FRESE RVR 06 oe Goo G fips ale eee 381
W. A. Richards.

CONTENTS xi

Av PEDERAT, FOREST: SERVICE. 1) 055056) h 20s an a ALAR 301
Gifford Pinchot.
PROGRESS IN FoREST RESERVATION IN PENNSYLVANIA...... 306

J. T. Rothrock.
IMPROMPTU ADDRESSES:

WON ccLACy oka une enacaeeuslechae amen mares 403
Ws CNG RECR Chi orate Mie ates ire oa BET ope ako See 409
Baward Everett: ‘blales: Shciucee ie ie ee Ane
1 i Res ties ig ss pute a es ye he feet Estar aio Canta 413
Aubrey White........ Staite er tama retaace see erate 419
es, Ee, PCA ONT Ss Fo 05.2 kU PEER ee ae OLED wate A24
IVES ol Ee ON RERPATIEG y o.c, crake cue torical en bossa ete 428
| Des) cra sna 02 ol «Roe pee tn ary ec Rn aa ahat Gr cap yrL ay aS ESN 435
(BEE easel hr (c) - SNOMO te Blame Nel OMA SE aE RUN HABE FCs Celera A 437
Ruthettord Py Prayesss Vis oes o eae oc eae 439
PARE SLO MELG SA Bee CE ks a eee nae 442
Cai Cha OMIPlGS: oa ceiesia es tana ee ae halts 4AA
Chmibles Wa alge GEN Pe oe es eee Niue state a Ou 3 446
CLES SOU SITS. is RR DAR eRe pea he tee’ eee aA pe as eI a BL pain 448
et Ee ET REA TRS: rue rads a eee Mole eicieinte havigies. 66 aaa Sas 454

ANNOUNCEMENT OF AMERICAN ForEstRY ASSOCIATION.... 473

PART I.

FORESTRY AS A NATIONAL QUESTION.

ner
aes |
-

ie

fie FOREST. IN. THE, LIFE? OF A
NATION
BY
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT

T IS a pleasure to greet all of you here this

' afternoon, but, of course, especially the members
of the American Forest Congress. You have made,
by your coming, a meeting which is without parallel
in the history of forestry. And, Mr. Secretary, I
must take this opportunity of saying to you what you
so amply deserve, that no man in this country has
done so much as you have done in the last eight years
to make it possible to take a business view from the
standpoint of all the country of just such ques-
tions as this. It is not many years since such
a meeting as this would have been regarded as
chimerical ; the thought of it would have been regarded
as absolutely chimerical. In the old pioneer days the
American had but one thought about a tree, and that
was to cut it down; and the mental attitude of the
nation toward the forests was largely conditioned upon
the fact that the life work of the earlier generations
of our people had been of necessity to hew down the .
forests, for they had to make clearings on which to
live; and it was not until half a century of our national
life had passed that any considerable body of American
citizens began to live under conditions where the tree
ceased to be something to be cleared off the earth.

4 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

It always takes time to get the mind of a people
accustomed to any change in conditions, and it took
a long time to get the mind of our people, as a whole,
accustomed to the fact that they had to alter their
attitude toward the forests. For the first time the
great business and the forest interests of the nation
have joined together, through delegates altogether
worthy of the organizations they represent, to consider
their individaul and their common interests in the
forest. This Congress may well be called a meeting
of forest users, for that the users of the forest come
together to consider how best to combine use with
preservation is the significant fact of the meeting, the
fact full of powerful promise for the forests of the
future.

The producers, the manufacturers, and the great
common carriers of the nation had long failed to
realize their true and vital relation to the great forests
of the United States, and the forests and industries
both suffered from that failure. The suffering of the
industries in such case comes after the destruction
of the forests, but it is just as inevitable as that
destruction. If the forest is destroyed it is only a
question of a relatively short time before the business
interests suffer in consequence. All of you know
that there is opportunity in any new country for the
development of the type of temporary inhabitant whose
idea is to skin the country and go somewhere else.
You all know, and especially those of you from the
West, the individual whose idea of developing the
country is to cut every stick of timber off of it and
then leave a barren desert for the homemaker who
comes in after him. That man is a curse and not a
blessing to the country. The prop of the country
must be the business man who intends so to run his

AMERICAN ForEST CONGRESS 5

business that it will be profitable for his children
after him. That is the type of business that it is
worth while to develop. The time of indifference and
misunderstanding has gone by.

Your coming is a very great step toward the solution
of the forest problem—a problem which cannot be
settled until it is settled right. And it cannot be settled
right until the forces which bring that settlement about
come, not from the Government, not even from the
newspapers and from public sentiment in general, but
from the active, intelligent, and effective interest of
the men to whom the forest is important from the
business point of view, because they use it and its
product, and whose interest is therefore concrete
instead of general and diffuse. I do not in the least
underrate the power of an awakened public opinion;
but in the final test it will be the attitude of the
industries of the country which more than anything
else will determine whether or not our forests are to
be preserved. It is because of their recognition of
that prime material fact that so much has been accom-
plished, Mr. Wilson, by those interested under you
and in the other departments of the Government in
the preservation of the forests. We want the active
and zealous help of every man farsighted enough to
realize the importance from the standpoint of the
nation’s welfare in the future of preserving the forests ;
but that help by itself will not avail. It will not even
be the main factor in bringing about the result toward
which we are striving ; the main factor must come from
the intelligence of the business interests concerned, so
that the manufacturer, the railway man, the miner,
the lumberman, the dealer in lumber, shall appreciate
that it is of direct interest to them to preserve through
use instead of waste the great resources upon which

6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE:

they depend for the successful development of their
business. This is true because by far the greater part
of all our forests must pass into the hands of forest
users, whether directly or through the Government,
which will continue to hold some of them but only as
trustee. The forest is for use, and its users will decide
its future. It was only a few years ago that the
practical lumberman felt that the forest expert was a
man who wished to see the forests preserved as bric-a-
brac, and the American business man was not prepared
to do much from the bric-a-brac standpoint. Now I
think we have got a working agreement between the
forester and the business man whose business is the
use of the forest. We have got them to come together
with the understanding that they must work for a
common end—work to see the forest preserved for
use. The great significance of this Congress comes
from the fact that henceforth the movement for the
conservative use of the forest is to come mainly from
within, not from without; from the men who are
actively interested in the use of the forest in one way
or another, even more than from those whose interest
is philanthropic and general. The difference means,
as the difference in such a case always does mean, to
a large extent the difference between mere agitation
and actual execution, between the hope of accomplish-
ment and the thing done. We believe that at last
forces have been set in motion which will convert the
once distant prospect of the conservation of the forest
by wise use into the practical accomplishment of that
great end; and of this most hopeful and significant fact
the coming together of this Congress is the sufficient
proof.

I shall not pretend this afternoon to even describe
to you the place of the forest in the life of any nation,

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 7

and especially of its place in the United States. The
great industries of agriculture, transportation, mining,
grazing, and, of course, lumbering, are each one of
them vitally and immediately dependent upon wood,
water, or grass from the forest. The manufacturing
industries, whether or not wood enters directly into
their finished product, are scarcely, if at all, less
dependent upon the forest than those whose connection
with it is obvious and direct. Wood is an indispensable
part of the material structure upon which civilization
rests; and it is to be remembered always that the
immense increase of the use of iron and substitutes for
wood in many structures, while it has meant a relative
decrease in the amount of wood used, has been accom-
panied by an absolute increase in the amount of wood
used. More wood is used than ever before in our
history. Thus, the consumption of wood in shipbuild-
ing is far larger than it was before the discovery of the
art of building iron ships, because vastly more ships
are built. Larger supplies of building lumber are
required, directly or indirectly, for use in the construc-
tion of the brick and steel and stone structures of great
modern cities than were consumed by the compara-
tively few and comparatively small wooden buildings
in the earlier stages of these same cities. It is as sure
as anything can be that we will see in the future a
steadily increasing demand for wood in our manufac-
turing industries.

There is one point I want to speak about in addition
to the uses of the forest to which I have already
alluded. Those of us who have lived on the great
plains, who are acquainted with the conditions in parts
of Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas,
know that wood forms an immensely portentous ele-
ment in helping the farmer on these plains battle

8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

against his worst enemy—wind. The use of forests
as windbreaks out on the plains, where the tree does
not grow unless men help it, is of enormous impor-
tance, and, Mr. Wilson, among the many services
performed by the public-spirited statesman who once
occupied the position that you now hold, none was
greater than what the late Secretary of Agriculture,
Mr. Morton, did in teaching, by actual example as
well as by precept, the people of the treeless regions
the immense advantage of the cultivation of trees.
When wood, dead or alive, is demanded in so
many ways, and when this demand will undoubt-
edly increase, it is a fair question, then, whether the
vast demands of the future upon our forests are likely
to be met. You are mighty poor Americans if your
care for the well-being of this country is limited to
hoping that that well-being will last out your own
generation. No man, here or elsewhere, is entitled
to call himself a decent citizen if he does not try to do
his part toward seeing that our national policies are
shaped for the advantage of our children and our
children’s children. Our country, we have faith
to believe, is only at the beginning of its growth.
Unless the forests of the United States can be
made ready to meet the vast demands which this
growth will inevitably bring, commercial disaster, that
means disaster to the whole country, is inevitable.
The railroads must have ties, and the general opinion
is that no efficient substitute for wood for this purpose
has been devised. The miner must have timber or he
cannot operate his mine, and in very many cases the
profit which mining yields is directly proportionate to
the cost of timber supply. The farmer, east and west,
must have timber for numberless uses on his farm, and
he must be protected, by forest cover upon the head-

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 9

waters of the streams he uses, against floods in the
Fast and the lack of water for irrigation in the West.
The stockman must have fence posts, and very often
he must have summer range for his stock in the
national forest reserves. In a word, both the pro-
duction of the great staples upon which our prosperity
depends, and their movement in commerce throughout
the United States, are inseparably dependent upon the
existence of permanent and suitable supplies from the
forest at a reasonable cost.

If the present rate of forest destruction is allowed to
continue, with nothing to offset it, a timber famine in
the future is inevitable. Fire, wasteful and destructive
forms of lumbering, and the legitimate use, taken
together, are destroying our forest resources far more
rapidly than they are being replaced. It is difficult
to imagine what such a timber famine would mean to
our resources. And the period of recovery from the
injuries which a timber famine would entail would be
measured by the slow growth of the trees themselves.
Remember, that you can prevent such a timber famine
occurring by wise action taken in time, but once the
famine occurs there is no possible way of hurrying the
growth of the trees necessary to relieve it. You have
got to act in time or else the nation would have to
submit to prolonged suffering after it had become too
late for forethought to avail. Fortunately, the remedy
is a simple one, and your presence here to-day is a
most encouraging sign that there will be such fore-
thought. It is the great merit of the Department of
Agriculture in the forest work that its efforts have
been directed to enlist the sympathy and cooperation
of the users of wood, water, and grass, and to show
that forestry will and does pay, rather than to exhaust
itself in the futile attempt to introduce conservative

10 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

methods by any other means. I believe most emphat-
ically in sentiment, but I want the sentiment to be put
into cooperation with the business interests, and that
is what is being done. The policy is one of helpfulness
throughout, and never of hostility or coercion toward
any legitimate interest whatever. In the very nature
of things it can make little progress apart from you.
Whatever it may be possible for the Government to
accomplish, its work must ultimately fail unless your
interest and support give it permanence and power. It
is only as the producing and commercial interests of
the country come to realize that they need to have trees
growing up in the forest no less than they need the
product of the trees cut down, that we may hope to
see the permanent prosperity of both safely secured.
This statement is true not only as to forests in
private ownership, but as to the national forests as
well. Unless the men from the West believe in forest
preservation the western forests cannot be preserved.
We here at the headquarters of the National Govern-
ment recognize that absolutely. We believe, we know,
that it is essential for the well-being of the people of
the states of the great plains, the states of the Rockies,
the states of the Pacific slope, that the forests shall be
preserved, and we know also that our belief will count
for nothing unless the people of those states themselves
wish to preserve the forests. If they do we can help
materially ; we can direct their efforts, but we cannot
save the forests unless they wish them to be saved.
I ask, with all the intensity that I am capable, that
the men of the West will remember the sharp distinc-
tion I have just drawn between the man who
skins the land and the man who develops the
country. I am going to work with, and only with,
the man who develops the country. I am against the

AMERICAN ForESt CONGRESS II

land skinner every time. Our policy is consistent to
give to every portion of the public domain its highest
possible amount of use, and, of course, that can be
given only through the hearty cooperation of the west-
ern people.

I would like to add one word as to the creation of a
national forest service which I have recommended
repeatedly in messages to Congress, and especially in
my last. I wish to see all the forest work of the
Government concentrated in the Department of
Agriculture. It is folly to scatter such work,
as I have said over and over again, and the policy
which this administration is trying to carry out through
the creation of such a service is that of making the
national forests more actively and more permanently
useful to the people of the West, and I am heartily
glad to know that the western sentiment supports more
and more vigorously the policy of setting aside national
forests, the creation of a national forest service, and
especially the policy of increasing the permanent use-
fulness of these forest lands to all who come in contact
with them. With what is rapidly getting to be a
practically unbroken sentiment in the West behind
such a forest policy, with what is rapidly getting to be
a practically unbroken support by the great staple
interests behind the general policy of the conservative
use of the forests, we have a right to feel that we have
entered on an era of great and lasting progress. Only
entered upon it; much, very much, remains to be done;
and as in every other department of human activity
our debt of gratitude will be due, not to the amiable
but shortsighted optimist who thinks you have made a
good beginning and the end may take care of itself;
still less to the man who sits at one side and says how
poorly the work is being done by those who are doing

12 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

it; but to the men who try, each in his own place,
practically to forward this great work. That is the
type of man who is going to do the work, and it is
because I believe that we have enlisted the active,
practical sympathy of just that kind of man in this
work that I believe the future of this policy to be bright
and the permanence of our timber supplies more nearly
assured than at any previous time in our history. To
the men represented in this Congress this great result
is primarily due.

In closing I wish to thank you who are here, not
merely for what you are doing in this particular move-
ment, but for the fact that you are illustrating what
I hope I may call the typically American method of
meeting questions of great and vital importance to the
nation —the method of seeing whether the individuals
particularly concerned cannot by getting together and
cooperating with the Government do infinitely more
for themselves than it would be possible for any gov-
ernment under the sun to do for them. I believe in
the future of this movement, because I think you have
the right combination of qualities—the quality of
individual initiative, the quality of individual resource-
fulness, combined with the quality that enables you
to come together for mutual help, and having so come
to work with the Government; and I pledge you in the
fullest measure the support of the Government in what
you are doing.

THE GENERAL NEED OF FOREST
PRESERVATION

BY
JAMES WILSON

Secretary of Agriculture and President of the American Forest Congress

| MAKE you welcome to the Federal seat of Gov-

ernment, to consider the state of our forests, and
of our lands that cry aloud for want of trees and the
peculiar forest conditions that cannot exist without
their presence.

Forestry is not a local question. It is as wide as
American jurisdiction. It is not a class question; it
affects everybody. It is not limited by latitude or
longitude, by State lines or thermal lines, by rivers
or mountain ranges, by seas or lakes.

Steel has taken the place of wood for fencing to a
large extent. It has taken the place of wood for ships
to some extent, it is being introduced in house-building,
and is replacing wood extensively in the making of
machinery and for other purposes. Coal and gas are
taking the place of wood as fuel, and cement is taking
its place for building. The use of wood, notwithstand-
ing these substitutes, increases every year and our
forests steadily vanish before the axeman.

The extension of railroads, the settlement of the
public domain, the building of cities, towns and vil-
lages, the use of wood in paper-making and the open-
ing of mines, call for more wood every year, and the
forests respond to the demand. There are but a few
large reserves left from which to draw supplies. The
extreme east, the extreme west, and the Gulf coast are
now sources of commercial supply. The industries

14 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

of our country will be carried on at greater expense
as wood becomes scarcer and its substitutes become
dearer. Agriculture, commerce and mining will great-
ly miss the cheap supply of wood to which they have
been accustomed.

The nation is awakening to the necessity of planting
trees and making the most of those that are mature.
Our institutions of learning are taking up the study
of forestry. State societies are inquiring. ‘The ex-
periment stations of the several States and Territories
are making research. The Department of Agriculture
is training a Bureau of forest experts in woodcraft
to serve the nation, the States, companies and indi-
viduals along forestry lines.

There are hopeful forestry signs:

A disposition among lumber companies to hold cut-
over lands, protect them from fire, encourage a new
growth, and harvest the young forest, requires the es-
tablishment of forestry schools in colleges and univer-
sities where the science of forestry is being taught in
the light of experience.

The employment of foresters by large private own-
ers, who find that educated supervision is a prime
necessity.

Reforesting of large areas is being carried on by the
Bureau of Forestry and by several States, for the
purpose of giving object lessons to our people with
regard to methods of planting and varieties of trees.
The farmer is inquiring and planting for wind-breaks,
fuel, and in many cases he is planting valuable varieties
for coming generations.

Scientific study is preparing a reliable foundation
for practical forestry, with regard to the principles
that govern the life of trees in different conditions of
soil and climate.

Cooperation between the Department of Agriculture

AMERICAN ForREST CONGRESS 15

and the States, and with companies and individuals,
is progressing rapidly. Our trained foresters are get-
ting into touch with the college and experiment station
forces of the States, with companies that hold wood-
land for present and future use, and with individuals.

The Congress is giving liberally to forest research,
enabling us to do systematic work with wood in all its
uses.

The future requires planting in the uplands, at the
sources of all our streams, that should never be de-
nuded, to make the hills store water against times of
drouth and to modify the flooding of the lowlands.
We have to tell the people of the lower Mississippi
every few years to raise their levees to hold the floods
that exceed themselves as the forest ceases to hold
waters that in previous years were directed into the
hills and held back.

Every tree is beautiful, every grove is pleasant, and
every forest is grand; the planting and care of trees
is exhilarating and a pledge of faith in the future;
but these esthetic features, though elevating, are inci-
dental; the people need wood. They have had it in
abundance and have been prodigal in its use, as we
are too often careless of blessings that seem to have
no end. Our history, poetry and romance are inti-
mately associated with the woods. Our industries
have developed more rapidly because we have had
plenty of cheap timber. Millions of acres of bare
hillsides, that produce nothing profitably, should be
growing trees.

We are beginning a meeting which is national in
its significance. Never before in this country, nor
so far I know in any other country, has a body of men
representing such great and varied interests come to-
gether to discuss, temperately and foresightedly, the
policy and the methods under which the highest per-

16 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

manent usefulness of the forest can be maintained.
That we, men as varied in our occupations as are the
industries and interests we represent, are drawn to-
gether by this common cause, may well mark the
beginning of a new era in our treatment of the forest.
Your presence here is itself the best possible proof
that forestry is rapidly taking its appropriate place as
an active and indispensable factor in the national
economy. The era of forest agitation alone has en-
tirely passed. We are talking less and doing more.
The forest problem, as President Roosevelt has de-
scribed it, is recognized as the most vital internal
problem in the United States, and we are at work upon
it.

Free discussion here will aid greatly towards the
best solution of this problem. Above all, this Con-
gress affords us an opportunity to formulate a forest
policy broad enough to cover all minor points of differ-
ence, but definite and clear cut enough to give force
and direction to the great movement behind it. In the
very nature of things, these minor points of difference
will continue to exist; and this is necessary for the
highest effectiveness of our forest work in the long
run. But we are facing a problem which can be met
squarely only by vigorous and united action.

I look for excellent results from the deliberations
of this Congress, for more light upon vexed questions,
and for the statement of new and useful points of view.
But above all, I hope from our meeting here there
will come a more complete awakening to the vastness
of our common interest in the forest, a wider under-
standing of the great problem before us, and a still
more active and more earnest spirit of cooperation.

Because of your individual achievement in your
chosen fields this is a great gathering and a most

AMERICAN ForEst CONGRESS 17

effective one. It is upon you and others like you that
the future of our forests mainly depends. Unless
you, who represent the business interests of the coun-
try, take hold and help, forestry can be nothing but
an exotic, a purely Government enterprise, outside our
industrial life, and insignificant in its influence upon
the life of the nation. With your help, it will become,
and is becoming, one of the greater powers for good.
Without forestry, the permanent prosperity of the in-
dustries you represent is impossible, because a perma-
nent supply of wood and water can come only from
the wise use of the forest, and in no other way, and
that supply you must have.

I am glad to see the irrigation interests so strongly
represented here, because forestry and irrigation go
hand in hand in the agricultural development of the
West. ‘The West must have water, and that in a sure
and permanent supply. Unless the forests at the head-
waters of the streams used in irrigation are protected,
that is impossible, and irrigation will fail. Unless
we practice forestry in the mountain forests of the
West, the expenditure under the national irrigation
law will be fruitless, and the wise policy of the Gov-
ernment in the agricultural development of the arid
regions will utterly fail. Without forestry, national
irrigation will be merely a national mistake. The re-
lation in the arid regions between the area under
forest and the area in farms will always be constant.
We can maintain the present water supply of the
West by the protection of existing forests. In exactly
the same way, we can increase this supply by the for-
esting of denuded watersheds. The full development
of the irrigation policy requires more than the protec-
tion of existing forests—it demands their extension
also.

18 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

In the value of its invested capital and its product,
lumbering ranks fourth among our great industries.
But in its relation to the forest it stands first. To
bring the lumberman and the forester together has
been the earnest and constant endeavor of the Depart-
ment of Agriculture. Ten years ago, or even five
years ago, we did not fully understand each other.
To-day, in every great forest region in the United
States, lumbermen and foresters are working together
in active, hearty, and effective cooperation on the same
ground.

It is true that the area under conservative forest
management is still small, but the leaven is working
- and the inauguration of new, more conservative, and
better paying methods has fully begun. What the
general adoption of conservative lumbering will mean
to the individual lumberman, to the lumber industry,
and to the country as a whole, is beyond estimate.
And it is coming, because it will pay.

The vast area of the timber lands of the United
States is mainly in your hands. You have it in your
power, by putting forestry into effect upon the lands
you own and control, to make the lumber industry
permanent, and you will lose nothing by it. If you
do not, then the lumber industry will go the way of
the buffalo and the placer mines of the Sierra Nevada.
But I anticipate no such result. For the fact is that ©
practical forestry is being adopted by American lum-
bermen. In its results it will surpass the forestry
practiced in any other country. The development
of practical forestry for the private owner has been
more rapid here than in any other country, and I look
for a final achievement better than any that has been
reached elsewhere.

The regulation of grazing upon the public forest

a

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 19

lands is a forest question, and like all other national
forest questions its settlement should always be for the
best interests of the people most deeply interested.
Forest reserves are essential to the permanent produc-
tiveness of that portion of the public range which they
enclose. The question of grazing has from the be-
ginning been the chief problem in the management of
the forest reserves. The principles which control the
conservative use of the public range are identical with
those which control the conservative use of the public
forests. The objects are a constant supply of wood
and water on the one hand and of forage on the other.
Just as the saw mills must eventually shut down unless
forestry is applied to the forest from which the saw
logs come, so the horses, the cattle, and the sheep of
the West must decrease both in quality and number,
unless the range lands of the arid region are wisely
used. Over-grazing is just as fatal to the live stock
industry as destructive logging is to the lumber in-
dustry. The highest returns from the forest can be
had only through recognizing it as invested capital,
capable, under wise management, of a steady and
increasing yield, and the permanent carrying power
of the range can be maintained or increased only by
the wise regulation of, grazing.

The relation of railroads to the forest is no less vital
than that of the lumberman. The development of
systems of transportation upon a secure basis depends
directly upon the preservation and wise use of the
forest. Without a permanent supply of wood and
water, the business of the railroads will decline, be-
cause those industries upon whose production that
business mainly depends cannot prosper. But the
railroads are interested in a still more vital way. As
great and increasing consumers of wood for ties, con-

20 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

struction timbers, poles, and cars, they are in direct
and urgent need of permanent sources of these sup-
plies. The problem directly before the railroads is,
therefore, the forest problem in all its parts. Much
may be done by the preservative treatment of ties and
railroad timbers, which not only prolongs their life,
but also leads to the profitable use of wood of inferior
kinds and a corresponding decrease in the drain upon
the forest and the cost of its product. But, important
as this is, it merely mitigates the danger instead of
removing it. For their own protection the railroads
must see to it that the supply of ties and timbers in
the forest itself is renewed and not destroyed.

The importance of the public forest lands to mining
is direct and intimate. Mines cannot be developed
without wood any more than arid lands can become
productive without water. The public forest lands
are, and must continue to be, the chief source of tim-
bers used in our western mines. ‘The national forest
reserves are thus vital in their relation to mining;
and where mining is the chief industry, their resources
should be jealously guarded against other and less
productive use. Forest reserves impose no hampering
restrictions upon the development of mineral wealth,
either within their borders or their neighborhood, and
they alone can give the western mining industry a
permanent supply of wood, and so assure its safety
now and its largest development in the future. ,

I am particularly glad that this Congress will in-
clude a full discussion of national and State forest
policy. The forest movement in several States has
already resulted in the adoption of definite State forest
policies. In many others, the time is ripe for useful
work because of the existence of a strong sentiment
for the best use of the forest. The forest problems

AMERICAN Forest Concress 2I

in different States cannot all be solved in exactly the
same way. The methods will in each case have to
be worked out on the ground where they will be used.
But we have before us here the same Opportunity in
State forest matters as in other phases of the forest
problem, for full discussion of methods and results.
Above all we must find the most effective means of
working together towards the same great ends.

THE FOREST POLICY OF FRANCE.
BY
Mr. J. J. JUSSERAND

Ambassador from France

| AM very happy to be enabled, by the flattering

invitation of the Hon. Secretary of Agriculture,
to add French congratulations to the American con-
gratulations and American advice which this Congress
has just received from the most popular and most
eloquent voice in the United States.

The subject of your studies is one indeed which
appeals most powerfully to man’s mind, not to say
man’s heart. The forest is the great friend which
supplied the early wants of mankind, giving the first
fuel, helping to the rearing of the first real house.
And now, after the lapse of thousands of years, the
forest continues the great friend, so adaptable it is to
our wants. The more we invent, the greater become
our new needs, and the more necessary is the forest
for us. Railroads are called in French “chemins de
fer,’ but for all the iron in them, where would we be
without the forest? It supplies the dozen million cubic
meters of wood spent every. year in the world for
railways.

The forest has one singular and providential advan-
tage over most of the earth-produced elements of our
industries. When we have exhausted an iron mine,
a gold mine, an oil well, a supply of natural gas; when
the oil has been carried in immense pipes from Chicago
to New York and from thence to our private lamps, it
is finished; we can consume the thing; we cannot
make it. Not so with the forests. It is in our hands

AMERICAN Forest! CONGRESS 23

to improve or impair them, to kill them or to make
them live. As to which of these fates is in store for
American forests your presence here supplies a suf-
ficient answer.

But is there need to do anything, or have we plenty
of time to think of it? The country is immense, its
resources prodigious. The nation is a young one;
should not something be allowed to youth? Certainly,
anything, except what might maim and cramp a splen-
did future.

That something is allowed, especially in the matter
of forests, cannot be doubted. One of the first things
which struck me, coming over to America, was how
much was allowed. Going north, west or south, sights
of the same sort met my eyes and my French eyes
opened with surprise. Going to Saint Louis last year,
I noticed large spaces where big trees had been cut,
the stumps remaining as high as a man’s shoulder. So
much wood lost, I thought; so much land untillable
because of those stumps remaining in place! Coming
from Canada on another occasion the train was fol-
lowing a succession of what should have been beautiful
valleys. But they were valleys of the shadow of death.
The view was saddened by the corpses of innumerable
trees which had been cut, for what cause I do not
know; was it for their bark, or for something else?
I could not surmise. But the fact was that they were
there, crumbling to pieces, rotten and unavailable,
spoiling the landscape, and making the soil useless by
their thousands of dead bodies. Going to Louisiana,
in another case, my heart bled truly at seeing the blue
sky blackened by the smoke of forests in flames. This
terrible mode of clearing the ground seems to be still
in use; and I noticed places where the fire, being not
violent enough, had not cleared the ground, but had

24 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

ruined and killed the trees, so that it was havoc pure
and simple.

All this, of course, are a foreigner’s impressions,
and perhaps they may be considered unreasonable.
You are young and wealthy; you can afford to spend.
You can afford to spend to-day, and to-day is certainly
as bright as itcan be. But, as you know, squandering
habits, when once taken, are most difficult to check, at
a moment’s notice, just at the time wanted; and, as
your eminent President remarked, the nation should
think of to-morrow.

In France, we think much about to-morrows, because
we have known so many yesterdays. Our case is very
different. We have not your boundless resources; we
must husband what we possess. Our land is limited,
our mines of small importance; our fields have been
furrowed by the plough for’ eighteen centuries more
than yours; the accumulated public debts, left by past
regimes or caused by present necessities, weigh on our
shoulders; and yet with this weight, at this day, we
stand, and, if I may believe what I hear reported, our
friendship is still worth having, as well worth as it
was ever in times past.

There is only one explanation: What we do, we try
to do it with method; what we do, we do with care.
We have no other secret.

There is nothing lost in France, nothing thrown
away—not a rag, not a bit of bread, not a stick of
wood. Many think we are a laughing, singing nation.
If we were such, and nothing more, we should have
long since disappeared. We are a living example that
people may love to have their laugh and their song,
and yet keep their forests in good order. Method and
gloom do not go necessarily together.

That great philosopher, Bacon, who was no particu-

AMERICAN ForEsStT CONGRESS 25

lar friend of the French (he ended badly, you know),
paid us, in one of his essays, this half-hearted com-
pliment: “The French are wiser than they seem.”
Well, such as it is, I accept his saying ; to have wisdom
is the thing, and it little imports whether it is apparent
or concealed. Roots are not visible, and you know,
you foresters, that it is the root that feeds.

Our policy in the matter of forests is a time-honored
one. Like the rest of the inhabitants of our land, they
have their own code of laws, the “Code forestier,’
framed and issued in 1827, itself, in its main lines, an
adaptation of Colbert’s famous ordinance of 16609,
which ordinance, in its turn, reproduced other laws,
some dating back from the time of Charles-the-Wise,
fourteenth century.

We were early struck by the necessity of preserving
forests, and more and more so as we acquired a better
knowledge of the use and wants of these friends of
man. We have a National School of Forestry at
Nancy, where the sound principles of forestry are
taught. The practical importance of this teaching is
testified to by so many foreign students whom we are
happy to welcome there, some coming from America
—one, an eminent one, whom I would name, if he was
not so near me on this platform (Mr. Pinchot).

Our forests have not only a code, but an army of
their own, an army of six thousand men, foresters,
rangers and keepers—a real army, submitted to mili-
tary discipline, so much so that in time of war this
troop is transferred from the Ministry of Agriculture,
where all the forestry services are centered, to the
Department of War.

Several laws have been passed since the code was
promulgated, not at all to relax its rules, but to make
them more practical and efficient. In 1860 a law was

26 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

enacted making it obligatory for the owner of moun-
tains or mountain slopes to reforest them if denuded.
The application of this law is one of my earliest
souvenirs. In 1860, I was not very, very old, and I
went often with my grandfather to see our Govern-
ment-ordered plantation. The Government supplied
the seed and we had to do all the rest. For years I
went to see our trees, and I had difficulty in seeing
them, they were so small. Now when I go, the trees
can scarcely perceive me, they are so tall.

A new law was passed in 1862, giving more liberty
to the landowner. He is allowed to refuse to do the
work. The Government has then the right to pay him
a fair sum for his land and expel him and plant the
trees, so important is it considered for the whole com-
munity. For the importance of such plantations is~
more and more apparent. We see destruction and
poverty invade the parts where the rules have not been
applied; wealth and comfort grow in those where the
rules have been followed. Where there is a just pro-
portion of forest ground the temperature is more equal,
the yielding of water more regular, and, as President
Rooseveit has so well shown a moment ago, forests
have a most beneficent effect with regard to winds.
Observations in the South of France have shown that,
since the E'sterel has been reforested, the destructions
caused by that terrible wind called the mistral have
diminished.

The seacoasts of France were being gradually
invaded by the sand, and the wind carried this death
powder further inland, as years passed on. In 1810,
we tried forestry, and the forest showed itself, as usual,
the friend of man. The sand country has entirely
disappeared, as well on the Ocean as on the Channel,
and the desolate regions of yore are now wealthy,

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 27

pleasant ones, where people even flock for their recre-
ation and their health.

The same careful and methodical policy is being
introduced in our colonial dominions. ‘There the dif-
ficulties are sometimes very great, because the havoc
has been more complete. We try, for example, to
reinduce trees to give back to Southern Tunis its
pristine fertility. Most of it is now a sand desert.
What it was in Roman times we know by the ruins and
the inscriptions. The capital of the South, Suffetula,
as it was called, consists now in scattered ruins in the
midst of absolute desert. One of the inscriptions dis-
covered contains a description given by an old Roman
veteran of what his villa was. He had retired there
after his campaigns, and describes the trees, the plots
of grass, and the fluent waters which adorned his
retreat—now buried under the shroud of the desert
sand.

The Arab conquest destroyed all the trees there, and
killed the forest. The punishment was not long to
follow. No forest there. No men. Not long after
the conquest, the mischief was already considerable,
the land was desolate, and an Arab chronicler, seeing
the havoc done, recalled in his book the former times
of prosperity, adding: “But in those days, one couid
walk from Tripoli to Tunis im the shade.”

I shall add only one word. There are, as you know
full well, two great classes of forests, and no more.
There is the wild forest and there is the civilized forest.
People who know forests only through books—I mean
through bad books, not the books written by members
of this assembly—fancy that the wild forest is the
thing. A time there was, too, when people thought
that the wild man, the man in the state of nature, was
a nest of virtues, and that, leading a kind of simple

28 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

life, he led also, of necessity, a model life. The truth
is quite different: Virtue, like all plants of price, needs
cultivation; forests need the eye, the mind, and the
heart of man. Instead of being full of the most
beautiful and useful trees, the wild forest offers, by
comparison, a prodigiously small quantity of good
trees ; any have outlived their period of use, and they
prevent the growth of others; many have grown
crooked; wicked ones have injured the righteous.

Now the question is, which sort of forest is to be
favored here? It is a great thing for this country to
know what your intentions are, and what you mean
to do. In doing it, in fulfilling your duty as good
foresters, it so happens that you will, at the same time,
second what is uppermost in the mind of every good
American—that is, to help, so far as is in you, to the
spreading of civilization.

THE ATTITUDE OF EDUCATIONAL IN-
STITUTIONS TOWARD FORESTRY

BY
B. LAWTON WIGGINS, LL. D.

Vice-Chancellor, University of the South.

FE HE attitude of at least one educational institution
toward forestry will be best appreciated through
the statement of the following few facts:

The University of the South has at Sewanee, Ten-
nessee, what is perhaps the largest university campus
in the world. It comprises 7,250 acres of land, of
which 6,500 acres are wooded. In 1898, Mr. Gifford
Pinchot, Forester of the United States Department of
Agriculture, inspected the university domain and made
with the university one of the agreements which the
Bureau of Forestry has for codperating with timber-
land owners in the management of their tracts. To be
acceptable to the university, the scheme of management
had to provide for good net financial returns, for we
are in the position of most small owners of timberland
—unable to leave much merchantable timber in the
woods or to reinvest much of our profit in forest
improvements. ‘To comply with the requirements of
the Bureau of Forestry, the working plan had to pro-
vide for leaving the forest in better condition than
‘before; in other words, the working plan had to cover
the judicious selection of the trees to be cut, so as to
favor the reproduction and growth of the desirable
kinds, the avoidance of damage to small growth and of
waste in cutting logs, and protection against fire, while
at the same time assuring a profit to the university.

30 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

And what has been the result? I recall quite dis-.
tinctly that when a little while previously a lumberman
offered $2,000 for the major portion of our timber,
there were those in authority who regarded that sum
as a fair valuation. We began operations under the
direction of foresters in 1900, and have cut a little over
two million board feet of logs, at a net profit of about
$7,250. Two years more of cutting—and profit—
remain. And the condition of the forest is satisfactory
to the Bureau of Forestry, which finds that there are
plenty of vigorous small trees over the logged area
given a new lease of life owing to increased light and
erowing space, and that reproduction of the best kind
has taken place, even little yellow poplars, white ashes,
and white elms being found.

This has furnished an object lesson for our imme-
diate neighbors and for representatives of the entire
South, who visit our beautiful plateau in large numbers
every summer. They can see and hear of results from
the practice of conservative logging, and readily under-
stand the attitude of the University of the South. It
is a zealous missionary, preaching everywhere and at
all times the gospel of forestry.

I speak to you this afternoon not as a trained pro-
fessional forester, but as one whose interest in the
proper management of timberland has been quickened
and strengthened by the above-mentioned association
with foresters. President Roosevelt has told us that
the forest problem is in many ways the most vital
internal problem in the United States; that “the United
States is exhausting its forest supplies far more rapidly
than they are being produced; that the situation is
grave, and there is only one remedy; that that remedy
is the introduction of practical forestry on a large scale,
which is, of course, impossible without trained men,

AMERICAN ForEst CONGRESS 31

men trained in the closet and also by actual field work
under practical conditions.” The economic peril is
coming to be realized everywhere—less so in the South
perhaps than in any other section, though even there
the far-seeing men are now convinced that something
should be done to prevent the diminution of water
supplies, the occurrence of disastrous floods, and the
almost inevitable and speedy exhaustion of the timber
supply; and that for this purpose the trained hands
and heads of several thousand men will be required to
start and continue the work of improving our woods.

The calls for the assistance of the Bureau of Fores-
try indicate the demand for the services of trained
men, and this constant and increasing need is bound to
grow larger and more insistent each time a forester
has a chance to create practical examples of his useful
and necessary sphere in the welfare of the nation.

How are they to be supplied?

Europe has long since discovered the value and
necessity of “forest schools,” not only for turning out
trained specialists in the art of forestry, but of diffusing
among the people a general and genuine interest in
forestry; for creating a healthful public sentiment,
which constitutes the best possible protection for the
woods; for leading men to regard forests as their
friends and to understand their influence in staying
spring torrents and preventing summer droughts, and
their economic value in supplying lumber and fuel.

Recent federal and state legislation evidences a
growing public sentiment in favor of forestry, but we
must not fail to realize that all laws which are not
supported by a general public sentiment are difficult
of operation.

Ever since the founding of the American Forestry
Association in 1882 the need of providing for educa-

32 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

tion in forestry has been stressed more and more from
year to year. Yet only six years ago Doctor Fernow
spoke of the New York College of Forestry as “this
novel institution.” ‘To the bounty of the State of New
York the first professional college of forestry in the
United States owed its existence, and to Cornell Uni-
versity belongs the credit of administering it. It
began its first course, which covered four years of
undergraduate work, in 1898 with five students. When
it closed in 1902, on account of the omission from the
state appropriation bill of the clause providing funds
for its maintenance owing to misguided and selfish
opposition, it had forty-four students enrolled. All
who completed their courses promptly secured good
positions. In fact, the pressure for the services of
educated foresters was so great that leaves of absence
before graduation were allowed to some graduates,
and one senior yielded to the temptation to accept a
position before completing his course.

The Yale Forest School, opened in 1900, was the
first graduate school of forestry organized in this
country. ‘To quote Professor Graves’ own language:
“The organization had in mind the needs of two
classes of men required to carry on the work of for-
estry in the United States: First, thoroughly trained
experts, who are competent to organize and administer
the work in government, state, or private forests, or
to pursue the necessary scientific study of our forests;
and second, men with a general knowledge of forestry
and special skill as woodsmen, qualified to act as
rangers, inspectors, foremen, etc. The first class of
men will be called upon to assist in the organization
of the work of forestry on government, state, or
private tracts; to direct legislation; to creat public
sentiment in favor of forestry; to pursue the scientific

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS a3

study of our trees and forests; to solve the difficult
problems of the influence of fire, grazing, and excessive
lumbering on forests, as well as the problems connected
with the protection of the head waters of rivers; and
to carry on and direct the practical management of
forests of every character and size. In order to do
this work intelligently and successfully a thorough
special training in forestry is required, in addition to
a general education. ‘The forest school has been made
a graduate department, to which only college gradu-
ates are admitted without examination, in order to
attract educated men to forestry and to produce men
of the highest possible training for the work of devel-
oping the profession. The fact, however, was not
overlooked that there is a class of work for which so
thorough a training is required, and the summer school
is especially designed to furnish instruction sufficiently
comprehensive for this work.”

Notwithstanding the high standing required for
admission, the registration has increased from a begin-
ning of five to sixty-three at present. The students
have come from thirty-three of the United States and
from the Philippines, Japan, South Africa, Canada,
and Sweden. In one respect, says President Hadley,
the Yale Forest School is a model to the other depart-
ments of the university, in that it is in active touch
with the demands of practical life and the opportunities
for employment therein. It gives the students of Yale
an assurance that side by side with their training in
general culture and public spirit, they are adapting
themselves to speedy usefulness in the complex organi-
zation of modern commercial life.

The Biltmore Forest School opened in 1897, and is
therefore the oldest in the United States. Although
not connected with an established educational institu-

34 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

tion, it has the great advantage of being located on
Biltmore estate, where Mr. Pinchot introduced scien-
tific forest management into the United States in 1891,
which good work has been kept going by the able
founder and director of the school, Doctor Schenck.

The two years of graduate forest work afforded
‘by the University of Michigan began in 1903, and the
department has grown in every way.

Harvard, Maine, Minnesota, and Nebraska univer-
sities, and Iowa State College of Agriculture and
Mechanical Arts have departments of forestry. Most
of the agricultural colleges offer some instruction in
forestry in connection with the courses in botany,
horticulture, or the like.

In several cases high schools are following the lead
of the universities, and more would doubtless do so if
the teachers were properly equipped. ‘The Secretary
of Agriculture declares that the rapid increase of inter-
est in forestry throughout the country is nowhere more
noticeable than in educational circles.

Such is the attitude of many of our educational
institutions toward forestry, and yet only a short time
ago I heard it argued that instruction in forestry
should be given in isolated, independent schools; that
it should constitute no part of a university course.
Continental Europe settled that question more than
a quarter of a century ago, when, says Mr. B. G.
Northrup, ‘‘a congress of foresters, which was at Frei-
burg and attended by nearly four hundred members,
representing all parts of Germany, Switzerland, Aus-
tria, and Russia, after a long and spirited discussion
by prominent professors from both classes of forest
schools, decided by an almost unanimous vote (only
sixteen dissenting) in favor of combining instruction
in forestry with other departments in the university ;

AMERICAN Forest! CONGRESS 35

and this leads me to the question, “What should be the
attitude of our universities toward forestry?”

Is not a university a place of universal search for
universal truth? Let whoever is disposed to be impa-
tient of the progress that is being made reflect upon
the history of recent university development. We must
look backward in order to look forward.

It was not until late in the last century that science
received recognition, and provision was made for its
teaching. When graduates of American colleges real-
ized that they had failed to get what they needed for
their life work and that there was a strong prejudice
against the admission of applied sciences on a proper
basis, they began to endow coordinate faculties, which
continued for a long time as separate faculties, and
are not even now completely assimiliated. It was some
time also before pure science, which had been taught
in a most elementary way, met with a suitable response
—that chairs were established and equipments pur-
chased. Who does not recall the crusade of science
against philology and the conflict which was waged
almost unremittingly for half a century or more
between the advocates of classical and scientific study ;
the latter claiming that we must reconstruct our aca-
demic and university systems after the inspiration of
modern ideas, and must substitute those studies which
would be more efficient in their disciplinary value and
more useful by reason of their closer affinities with the
practical tendencies of our modern scientific life; the
former, while admitting freely the claims of science,
maintaining that the classics were needed more than
ever to resist the utilitarian and materialistic tendencies
of the age, and that an education cannot be full-orbed
and rounded off without the classics. Greek and Latin
had been supreme for so many centuries that the physi-

36 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

cal and natural sciences were not without a struggle
admitted to equal rank.

This led to a readjustment of the long-established
and closely articulated curriculum, which resulted
finally in the adoption of the elective system. And this
was the beginning of a recognition granted to what
one might call the new learning—modern science,
economics, political science, and the like, which proved,
when properly taught, in no respect inferior to the
subjects of the old curriculum, either in training the
mind or preparing for future careers. ‘The limitations
of the traditional college education of the past, which
was intended for only certain of the learned profes-
sions—law, medicine, and particularly theology—soon
became apparent. The world was moving on. New
constituences and new demands were arising, new
problems were being projected on the economic and
political horizons, new questions were pressing for
answer. Must we not readjust our education forces
to meet the needs of that large majority of men pre-
paring to engage in banking, railways, insurance, trade
and industry, forestry, diplomacy, journalism, and pol-
itics? Are not these several callings as important to
the life of the nation as the traditional professions?
State universities derive their support from the taxa-
tion of the whole people, representing in a large meas-
ure the fruits of the toil and self-denial—whether
voluntary or enforced, whether direct or indirect—of
the common people. Are they justified in spending so
much money to furnish a certain kind of education for
the benefit of a privileged class, where there is this
growing demand for the diffusion of higher learning,
for its much wider application to the daily life and
institutions of the whole people?

Do not all professions and callings require, and will

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 37

they not more and more require, thought and discip-
linary training as well as technical training? Is it
true, as Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Schwab have said, that
the most efficient school of business is business? If
so, ought it not be otherwise? We are told that
President Thwing, who has been looking into the
matter of salaries received by graduates of regular
colleges and scientific schools, finds that in the long
run the college graduates do the best; that scientific
methods are supposed to fit men for immediate employ-
ment; that graduates of these schools seem to find
employment somewhat more readily and at somewhat
higher pay than the college graduate; but that the
difference is not great even at first, and that after a
few years the college graduate has the best of it. Only
a few years ago a director of the Pennsylvania system
of railroads remarked that in future promotions pref-
erence would be given college men—men who had
been trained in the principles as well as in the practice
of the profession, and who had acquired not only the
technique, but also the capacity to think and to com-
prehend all the problems which might arise. For, as
Mr. Laughlin expressed it, “While a school of mechan-
ical engineering is required to fit a man for the
practical parts of railroading, there exists in that pro-
fession a far more important career for the man who
is competent to direct the traffic, classify goods, fix
rates, watch the coming financial depression, know the
signs of coming prosperity, have insight into as well
as experience with the questions of labor and the rela-
tions of employers to employees, who can understand
the duties as well as the privileges of corporations, and
who has the masterly mind to direct and carry out
great financial operations involved in the management
of securities on a scale hitherto unprecedented.”

38 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Purely technical or engineering training will not then
suffice the man who aspires to leadership in railroading
or in any like calling; he must be schooled in legal,
political, and economic science as well.

There is no profession I know of that requires wider
knowledge than does forestry. All the things which
the best railroad man needs, the successful forester
must have, with more besides. Since he deals scien-
tifically with the soil and a product of it, he must be
much of a geologist, botanist, zoologist, and chemist.
The harvesting and manufacture of his crop calls for
no mean engineering skill and knowledge. The
managing of his property is likely to call for legal
knowledge. And so on through many other essentials
in his education, which only a real university can give
him.

Another and most important reason why forestry
should be a university course and not a separate school
is that the forester is above all a man with practical
problems to handle—a man who must come in contact
with men. So he needs the democratizing influence
of university life, the broadening of his point of view
from association with men from everywhere and with
different aims in life. Without this breadth of view
how could foresters properly handle the many prob-
lems discussed before this Congress? It will take men
far more catholic than those who academically settle
affairs on the basis of knowledge acquired in their
back yards to give a square deal to all the interests
concerned in the creation of forest reserves and in the
granting of timber and grazing permits on them; to
devise schemes of fire prevention and extinction for
all parts of our overburned country; to insure the
crowing of the right kind of trees in the right places ;
to improve our already expert logging and milling

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 39

operations—no easy task, for the skill of our loggers
and lumbermen is proverbial.

If I may as a Southerner use my section of the
country as an example of the varied problems confront-
ing the forester, I will say that we need him to point
out our natural forest areas, and thus save us the time,
effort, and substance which we otherwise might waste
in clearing them only to find through bitter experience
that they would grow nothing else than trees; to
indicate the methods of logging which would insure
the perpetuation of our standard trees, the yellow
poplar, oaks, hickories, gums, cypress, and pines. One
has already shown us a way to gather turpentine
which has added millions to the revenues of the pine
belt through improving the product, and which has
greatly lengthened the period during which trees may
be bled. We need him to solve our fire problem and
devise means for prevention of and protection from
this arch enemy of forest management. Huis scientifi-
cally established facts regarding tree growth, influ-
ences, and value present and future will strengthen
our pleas to state legislatures for wisely conceived,
far-sighted tax laws.

So we repeat this question: Why should not our
universities offer courses which will fit men for all,
instead of a few, professions? I know there are dan-
gers to be apprehended, and that it will require the
utmost care to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis of a
narrow utilitarianism and the pursuit of art and science
as ends in themselves; but of the many advantages,
not the least will be the introduction of a vitalizing
and democratizing element into the student community
which will cause our universities to come forth from
their cloistered seclusion into a closer touch with the
activities of life.

40 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

This is the great problem of the twentieth century.
It overshadows all others. Signs are not wanting that
we shall witness the full realization of all that
President Hadley has so admirably expressed in the
following words:

“Our brotherhood knows no bounds of: occupation.
The day when people thought of the learned profes-
sions as something set apart from all others, the
exclusive property of a privileged few, is past. Opin-
ions may differ as to the achievements of democracy ;
but none can fail to value that growing democracy of
letters which makes of every calling a learned and
noble profession, when it is pursued with the clearness
of vision which is furnished by science or history and
with the disinterested devotion to the public welfare
which true learning inspires. We are proud to have
with us not only the theologian, the jurist, or the
physician ; not merely the historical investigator or the
scientific discoverer ; but the men of every name, who,
by arms or arts, in letters or in commerce, have con-
tributed to bring all callings equally within the scope
of university life.”

We are about to see the proper university recogni-
tion given to the callings upon which so much of our
national welfare depends—agriculture, the production
and harvesting of field crops; silviculture, the produc-
tion and harvesting of forest crops.

For the fulfilment of this prophecy, the recent utter-
ances of our educational leaders and the munificent
gifts of our men of wealth give us hope and encour-
agement. It is of the very spirit and life of our
democracy, and it must come. Of all the great move-
ments of the twentieth century, none will prove more
characteristic of democracy and more vital and vivify-
ing than the establishment of “an elementary school

AMERICAN ForEST CONGRESS AI

in every home, of a secondary school in every city,
township or incorporated village, and of a university
in every state’”—a university which will be the insepa-
rable adjunct as it is the apex of the whole educational
system, where all branches of human learning are
taught and all professions and callings—law and medi-
cine, theology and teaching, commerce, trade, and
industry, agriculture and silviculture—are made equal,
a federation of them all being recognized as the only
basis of educational solidarity. Then there will be
coordination and cooperation instead of competition
and rivalry. There will be gathered the representa-
tives of every class and station, of every calling and
profession, of every political and religious creed, con-
stituting a body politic, a vertitable democracy, learning
the lesson of citizenship as well as of scholarship;
lighting at this central fire the Torch of Universal
Truth and passing it from teacher to pupil, onward to
the end of time.

IMPORTANCE OF THE FORESTS) (i
AGRICULTURE

BY
HON. JOHN LAMB

Member of Congress from Virginia

‘THE preservation of the forests of America is a
subject of vast importance, and one that has been
too long neglected.

Should the deliberations of this Congress result in
calling the attention of our landowners, farmers and
mechanics to this impending national danger, beyond
the power of figures to compute, its members and
delegates will richly deserve the gratitude of future
generations.

Within the lives of many of us the question of the
destruction of the forests did not arise. We have
seen the log piles, and witnessed the destruction of
millions of feet of the finest timber that ever grew,
that the land might be cultivated in corn, cotton and
tobacco. Some of us have seen this land turned out
to grow up in scrub pines and oaks, while fresh forests
were denuded of timber that would have enriched the
next generation.

The unnecessary destruction of the forests in this
way has brought untold loss to the Alantic States,
from New England to the Gulf of Mexico. It has
been estimated that in the State of New York alone
between 1850 and 1860, more than 1,500,000 acres of
timber land were cleared for purposes of lumber and
agriculture. During that decade more than 50,000,000
acres in the whole country were brought under culti-
vation.

AmErIcAN Forest CoNncrREss” 43

The destruction of the forests during the Civil War
has not and cannot be computed. This loss affected
the agricultural interests in every State that was the
scene of operations. The destruction of large forests,
the gradual growth of hundreds of years, caused im-
mense loss. Both armies contributed to this. Costly
bridges, dwellings, and out-houses were consumed by
fire. The relaying of railroads and rebuilding of
bridges and dwellings demanded a new supply, and
helped to drain the country of timber that was left.
Native Virginians in some sections refused to remain
where all the timber had been swept away. For the
same reason emigrants declined to come to some of
the finest parts of the State.

The menace to health is greatly augmented by the
destruction of the forests, and the farmers of this
country have suffered and are still suffering, to an
alarming extent from this cause. We have no dry
statistics on this point, but the experience of many,
and the observation of all who travel, will confirm the
statement.

The counties of Culpeper and Fauquier, in Virginia,
were singularly free from malaria while their forests
stood comparatively undisturbed. After the destruc-
tion of these, through war and other causes, fevers,
before unknown, became prevalent.

The elderly physicians of Eastern Virginia might
furnish an interesting chapter to history on this point;
for it is one that deeply concerns the welfare of the
farmers of the whole country, who are suffering in
many ways from the wasteful destruction of the for-
ests. It is to be hoped that our Department of
Agriculture will investigate the health conditions that
prevail after the removal of the forests from certain
localities, and request the medical fraternity to furnish
their valuable experiences along this line.

44 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

It is well known that a house surrounded by forest
trees is nearly always healthy. A gentleman who
occupied such a home for ten or twelve years in one
of the eastern counties of Virginia had no sickness
of consequence in his family and did not pay a phy-
sician fifty dollars during that time. He afterwards
purchased a large farm, surrounded by large tracts of
cleared land with few trees, and lost in a few years
several members of his family, and contributed to the
doctors a goodly part of his profits.

The ceaseless reproduction of the pine forests of
the South Atlantic States is all that has saved the
farms and farmers of that section from destruction.
For over two hundred years there has been a ceaseless
war upon the forest. The early settlers cut it down
and burned it up, and their children, with few excep-
tions, followed their example. Then came the general
consumption for rails and wood; the demand for
mechanical industry; the destruction for liquidation
of farm debts; the sale of cordwood and sawed
lumber to northern markets, till every tree of the
original growth in most of the States have been re-
moved. The second growth of old field pine is now
receiving the same treatment, with smaller profit to
the seller and poorer results to the consumer. Could
the farmers of these States be persuaded to adopt the
intensive system of farming, and have their poorer
lands grow up in timber, they would improve their
own condition, and hand down to their children valu-
able possessions. A gentleman of my acquaintance
informed me that where he planted corn when a boy,
he had cut from the land, a few years ago, cordwood,
which he sold for eight dollars a cord in New York
city.

Many thoughtful persons have claimed that the wood

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 45

and timber interests of some sections of the South
have militated against agriculture in various ways—
not to mention the effect on the waterfall—and the
injury resulting from overflows and freshets.

The disastrous results of the latter, caused by the
removal of the forests along the banks of the rivers,
cannot be learned from any statistics. The report
made to our Committee of Agriculture shows a dis-
tressing condition, and one that appeals strongly for
Federal and State legislation. Many valuable farms
have been impaired in value, and some utterly de-
stroyed, by the sand and debris washed down by the
overflows. Cities and villages that were not affected
years ago are now often flooded with water, eight to
fifteen feet deep. All this shows the importance of
forests to agriculture, and appeals to the American
people to spare the trees, and will in time—not far
off—compel the State legislatures, as well as the
Federal Government, to take action in the premises.

We learn from the experiences of other nations the
consequences of the continued destruction of the
forests. Palestine, Egypt, Italy and France have seen
some of their populous regions turned into a wilder-
ness, and their fertile lands into deserts. The danger
here is greater than many suppose. Immediate action,
both for prevention and restoration, is needed.

“Bernard Pallissy,” the famous “Potter of the Tuil-
leries,’ one of the most profound men ever produced
in Europe, plead for the wood in France as follows:

Having expressed his indignation at the folly of
men in destroying the woods, his interlocutor defends
the policy of felling them by citing the examples of
divers bishops, cardinals, priors, abbotts, monkeries
and chapters, which by cutting their woods have made
three profits; the sale of the timber, the rent of the

46 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

eround, and the good portion of the grain grown
by the peasants upon it. To this argument Pallissy
replies: “I cannot enough detest this thing, and I call
it not an error but a curse and calamity to all France;
for when the forests shall be cut all arts shall cease, and
they who practice them shall be driven out to eat
grass with Nebuchadnezzar and the beasts of the field.
I have divers times thought to set down in writing the
arts that shall perish when there shall be no more
wood, but when I had written down a great number,
I did perceive that there could be no end of my writing,
and having diligently considered, I found there was
not any which could be followed without wood. * * *
And truly I could well allege to thee a thousand
reasons, but ’tis so cheap a philosophy that the very
chamber wenches, if they do but think, may see that
without wood it is not possible to exercise any manner
of human art or cunning.”

G. P. Marsh, in his valuable work “Man and Nature,”
page 232, says: “There are parts of Asia Minor, of
Northern Africa, of Greece, and even of Alpine
Furope, where the operations of causes set in action
by man has brought the face of earth to a desolation
almost as complete as that of the moon; and though,
within that brief space of time men call the ‘historical
period’ they are known to have been covered with
luxuriant woods, verdant pastures and fertile meadows,
they are now too far deteriorated to be reclaimable by
man; nor can they become again fitted for human use
except through great geological changes, or other
mysterious influences or agencies of which we have no
present knowledge, or over which we have no pros-
pective control.

“The destructive changes occasioned by the agency
of man upon the flanks of the Alps, the Appennines,

AMERICAN ForEST CONGRESS 47

the Pyrennes, and other mountain ranges in central
and southern Europe, and the progress of physical
deterioration, have become so rapid that, in some
localities, a single generation has witnessed the begin-
ning and the end of the melancholy revolution.

“Tt is certain that a desolation like that which has
overwhelmed many once beautiful and fertile regions
of Europe awaits an important part of the territory of
the United States, unless prompt measures are taken
to check the action of destructive causes already in
@peration, FF) * *

“The only legal provisions from which anything
can be hoped are such as shall make it a matter of
private advantage to the landholder to spare the trees
upon his ground, and promote the growth of young
wood. Something may be done by exempting stand-
ing forests from taxation, and by imposing taxes on
wood felled for fuel or timber ; something by premiums
or honorary distinctions for judicious management
of the woods. It would be difficult to induce gov-
ernments, general or local, to make the necessary
appropriations for such purposes. But there can be
no doubt that it would be sound economy in the end.”

It is claimed that about two hundred square miles
of fertile soil are washed into the rivers annually in
the United States, while the loss in crops and other
property destroyed by floods will run up into the
millions.

The most of this loss can be traced to the destruction
of the forests along the river banks.

Forest-covered areas retain a large percentage of the
rainfall, while regions where there are no forests allow
a much greater proportion of the rainfall to at once
find its way into the streams. It is well known that
many of our streams are subject to more disastrous

48 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

floods and to lower water stages in dry seasons than
was the case before the forests were cut off.

Whether forests increase the amount of precipitation
or not—on this authorities are not agreed—it is very
certain from the observation and experience of those
who live in the country that local showers are raore
frequent in the neighborhood of dense forests. We
may well contend that the forest helps to water the
farm; that it protects from disastrous wind storms,
both in winter and summer; prevents the spread of
disease, besides furnishing an inexhaustible and self-
renewing supply of a material indispensable to the
successful exercise of every art of peace, as well as
much of the destructive energy of war.

So important is this subject that the farmers of this
country should hail with delight the work of this.
Congress, and join hands with you in the earnest effort
you are now and will hereafter make to save America
from the disaster that has overtaken many countries
in Europe.

Experience has shown that no legislation can secure
the permanence of the forests in private hands. The
farmers must be educated along this line. The earnest
efforts of the Department of Agriculture must be
encouraged, and the means necessary for the sending
out of literature must be furnished by the Congress.
Such Bulletins as Nos. 67 and 173, by B. E. Fernow,
of the Division of Forestry, will accomplish a great
deal. The farmers’ institutes in the states must take
up the subject and help to create a public sentiment
that will change present conditions and lead to tree
planting on many other than Arbor days.

Every word written, printed or spoken on this sub-
ject will bring a blessing and the author will deserve
public thanks. As a subject of political economy no

AMERICAN ForEst CONGRESS 49

more important one can be brought to the attention
of the citizens of this republic.

As a people we have solved some vexing problems.
Many others confront us to-day, and will tax our
patience, courage, and endurance. Profiting by the
experience of other countries, impelled by the imminent
dangers of the present time, and encouraged by the
prospect of laying up for future generations a supply
of material necessary to their comfort and safety, we
should devote our energies to the work of restoring
the American forests. We know that growth is slow,
and restoration tedious. We also know that the perse-
verance and energy of the American is equal to any
task he assumes.

We have 5,674,875 farmers in this country. Could
one-third of these be induced to plant half an acre
each in forest trees a year, we would have nearly a
million acres a year added to the forests. Ina decade
at this rate we would have gone very far in solving a
problem of great moment, and feel that we had done
much towards offsetting the destruction and prevent-
ing the coming desolation.

The preservation and restoration of the American
forests will greatly add to the comfort and beauty of
our homes, and tend to keep the youths of the land in
the rural districts, free from the temptations and vices
of city life. The migration from country to city is an
alarming feature of our social life. There are already
indications of the returning tide. The preservation of
the forests and the beautifying of country homes will
strengthen the patriotic sentiment in the country and
intensify reverence for home.

A lack of reverence is a growing evil in our land.
We observe it everywhere, North, South, East, and
West. Students, philosophers, and divines inveigh

50 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

against it, offering various remedies for the evil.

We suggest the preservation of home and home ties,
the cultivation of reverence for Mother Earth, and the
preservation of the noble forests.

It is the earth alone of all the elements around us
that is never found an enemy to man. ‘The great body
of waters oppress him with rain and devour him with
inundations. The air rushes on in storms and prepares
the tempest or lights up the volcano; but the earth,
gentle and indulgent, ever subservient to the wants of
man, spreads his walk with flowers and his table with
plenty; returns with interest every good intrusted to
her care; and though she produces the poison, still
supplies the antidote; though teased more to supply
his luxuries than his necessities, yet even to the last
she continues her kind indulgence, and when life is
over piously hides his remains in her bosom.

DEPENDENCE OF BUSINESS INTERESTS
UPON THE FORESTS

BY
HOWARD ELLIOTT

President, Northern Pacific Railway

MM may, and do, differ widely in their views as
to the extent to which Federal control and
supervision should be applied to various forms of
business in the United States, but there can be less
difference of opinion over the idea that the preserva-
tion and reproduction of the forests must, at present,
be undertaken by the Federal or State Governments,
or both, if the work is to be done at all. Possibly as
the subject becomes better understood private capital
can undertake this work in some sections where the
conditions are favorable, but, at the present time, it is
probably true that forest reproduction by individuals
will not stand the test of yielding an adequate return
on the investment. Recognition of these conditions,
and the importance of forest preservation to the
reclamation of the arid lands have resulted in the
adoption of a public Forest Reserve policy which
should receive support, suggestion, and approval.
Business enterprises that are dependent upon the for- |
ests should recognize this condition and plan accord-
ingly.

I feel that I owe some apology for venturing to say
anything to this meeting, composed of men who have
spent more time than I have, and who know more
than I do on the general subject of forestry, and its
relations to the welfare of the country, now and in the

51a PROCEEDINGS OF THE

future. A very great personal and business interest
in the subject is my excuse for being here.

The Northern Pacific Railway Company, of which
I have the honor to be the president, traverses states
in which there are forest reserves as follows:

Existing Proposed Total

State. Acres. Acres. Acres.
Ts iS CCo=.6 1 RAE Roe LD pave CANN 708,840 798,840
Blea iahc tie 2 eed teat ra eee es 7,882,400 4,077,700 11,960,100
TAAWO (ie beck viahoseie was aie 3,955,220 3,501,520 7,450,740
WiasiNetae) (ice soc sae 7,012,960 2,603,480 9,616,440
OPA Gs sige ea eve 18,850,580 10,891,540 20,742,120

a total in which the Northern Pacific Railway Com-

pany is interested, of nearly 30,000,000 acres.
Included in this acreage are lands granted to the

Northern Pacific Railway Company, amounting to:

Mbdeyrstenrneg 2 0 oor Gs ghd gC Ri seiola a otaeiteanlate Wi wie eh eee 1,507,130.53
TUNG N ie an ce Ye tact Ue hres shats, Seah alar eael a ea 228,208.36
AV US TANT DOME 5s !0o55 Jane Wwe Robie mien cle Ane chee cele aoe te 1,292,562.93

ALTE Sar ects eran Woe aC a eae eA ne 3,027,901.82

These lands were given by the Government in 1864,
to induce the building of the road at a time when even
the wisest owners of capital hesitated about undertak-
ing an enterprise so large, and so doubtful as to the
outcome; and the discouragement and losses to those
investing in this railroad, until within the last few
years, are a matter of common knowledge.

During the last five years, of the freight handled
by the Northern Pacific Railway, forest product ship-
ments were:

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 51b

Tons
For the year ériding June 30, 1000... 6.1 csi cece ees ce 2,207,526
Hor the year ending June 30, 1901... ..5.2.00...-05000 2,741,708
Hor the year etiditia June’ 30, T1002. . 5s bss gs od oe os 3,694,604
Hor the year ending June’ 30, 1003....5.5. 00.5.3 es 0008 5,090, 387
For the year ending June 30, 1904. .........2+.20220+ 5,285,077

The prosperity and future growth of North Dakota,
of Montana, of Idaho, and of Washington, are depen-
dent very largely upon the successful irrigation of
lands adjacent to the streams and rivers which find
their source of supply in the mountains covered by
the existing or proposed forest reserves.

And the Northern Pacific, in common with all other
railroads, is vitally interested in the subject of ties and
timber with which to maintain existing railroads, and
to build new ones.

So the interest I represent is, and will be, affected
very directly by the work of the Government in con-
nection with the forests, and to-day an earnest effort is
being made to arrive at some fair basis of adjustment
between the Government and the Northern Pacific
Railway Company so as to obtain the best results in
the Forest Reserves controlled by the Government, and
preserve to the railroad its acreage for its use in ob-
taining ties and timber in the future.

Hence, when your gifted Forester, Mr. Gifford
Pinchot, and your worthy and energetic President,
the Honorable Secretary of Agriculture, asked me
to participate in this meeting, I hesitated, but finally
accepted with some reluctance, feeling that I could
bring little that was new to the discussion. I accepted
because it seemed ungracious to decline the cordial
invitation, and because I wished to express, so far as
possible, by my presence here, the interest that the
Northern Pacific Railway Company takes in the whole

51c PROCEEDINGS OF THE

subject, and to encourage other railroads to do like-
wise ; to express, further, the willingness and intention
of our company to cooperate on reasonable lines with
the Federal Government for better forest methods and
wood treatment, and to emphasize the importance to
many large interests and to railroad business particu-
larly, of being less wasteful and prodigal with the
wooden materials used in commercial enterprises in
the United States.

The first great business directly dependent upon the
forest is that of the lumberman; there is probably in-
vested in logging camps, saw mills, planing mills and
other enterprises incident to producing forest products
in the rough, over $1,000,000,000. Upon this great
business, employing many men, and paying out mil-
lions annually in wages, depend in turn very many
manufacturing enterprises scattered from one end of
the United States to the other; depend the wood pulp
and paper business of the country; depend in part the
successful prosecution of many mining enterprises.

The transportation business is dependent upon the
success of these commercial enterprises, and they in
turn are dependent upon a safe, efficient, prompt, and
economical system of transportation.

Many of the manufacturing interests will be slack-
ened, depressed, and perhaps stopped entirely, unless
steps are taken to use to the best advantage the forests
we now have, and to arrange to reproduce them for
use in the future.

The railroads represent in round figures an invest-
ment of about $13,000,000,000. They collect and dis-
bursement annually about $2,000,000,000, of which
$800,000,000 goes directly to labor. They carry in a
year 21I,000,000,000 passengers one mile; they trans-
port in a year 180,000,000,000 tons of freight one mile

AMERICAN ForEsT CONGRESS 51d

at an average rate of three-fourths of a cent per ton
per mile, far lower than the rates in any other country
in the world; and they do this with wages far higher
than in any other country in the world, and with a
general service far better than that given by any other
nation.

An absolutely essential part of a modern railroad is
a safe, strong, and good track, and these figures about
railroads are given simply to show the magnitude of
that business in investment, in wages, in work done,
and in the price paid therefor. Anything that tends
to make the maintenance and operation of this great
commercial tool more expensive must be offset either
by a decrease in wages, by an increase in rates, by a
decrease in efficiency, by a decrease in returns to own-
ers, or by all combined.

To have good track the railroads must have some
form of support under the rails, and the present prac-
tice is a wooden tie. In this item alone, based upon
the actual requirements for a period of years by one
large system, it is estimated that the total annual con-
sumption of ties, for renewals only, in all of the rail-
roads of the United States, is at least 100,000,000, to
which add 20,000,000 for additional tracks and yards,
and for the construction of new railroads, and the total
is the equivalent in board measure of more than 4,000,-
000,000 feet.

The significance of these figures is more apparent
when it is remembered that about 200 ties is the aver-
age yield per acre of forest, varying very greatly in
different localities; so that to supply this single item
necessitates the denudation annually of over one-half
million acres of forest. But the cross tie supply is
only one of the forest products required by the rail-
roads. There are bridge timbers, fence posts, tele-

51e PROCEEDINGS OF THE

graph poles, building timber of all kinds, car material—
all of which together, it is estimated, will equal in
board measure the cross tie item, so that it is possible
that the railroads of the United States, for all purposes,
require, under present practices, the entire product of
almost one million acres of the forest annually.

So the railroad business, as well as the manufactur-
ing business, in a number of directions, is interested in,
and very dependent upon, the preservation of the for-
ests of this country, and in a wise handling of the
subject by the Government, both National and State;
in the continuance of the supply of timber for use now
and in the future; in the revenue derived from the
transportation of forest products; in conserving the
water supply of the country so that the maximum
amount of arid land may be irrigated and thus support
a producing and consuming population.

Until the time came when the increase in distance
from the point of supply of timber, and the increase
in the value of the stumpage, resulted in an increase
in the cost of all items of forest products, not much
attention was paid by business interests, excepting by
a far-seeing few, to the necessity for a conservative
policy about the forest supply. Happily, before too
late, there has been an awakening, the credit for which
is due to the persistent efforts of those present.

On the part of the railroads, this awakening has
taken the practical form of preservation of cross ties
and other timbers so as to lengthen the life of the
wood; to a greater use of metal, stone and cement; to
the wiser cutting, handling and seasoning of ties and
timber, and to a utilization of different kinds of wood
for ties, and what is true with the railroad is also true
with other important business interests dependent upon
wood for their successful operation.

AMERICAN ForEsT CONGRESS 5if

This is something in which, as you will all know,
this country is somewhat behind Europe, but I am
glad to say nearly all the railroads in the last few years
are thinking, and thinking very hard, on the subject,
because the problem of how to support their rails is
more perplexing each year.

If the American railroads are to continue to be the
efficient commercial tool that they now are; to continue
the very low average rates, and the high scale of wages
now in effect, the question of the increased cost of ties
and timber is of greater and greater importance to
those who pay transportation charges ; to wage-earners,
and to railroad owners.

The fact that so many large interests are so depen-
dent upon the wise handling of the forests remaining
in the country, will insure a greater cooperation in the
future than there has been in the past between those
who cut down and use the forests for money-making
purposes, and those who are studying the subject in
order to safeguard the interests of those who come
after us.

This codperation is very necessary, and the work of
the National Government, the various State Govern-
ments, the state agricultural colleges, and the forest
schools should, so far as possible, be along the same
lines.

With such odperation I have faith that the ingenuity,
perseverance and ability of the American man will
solve this important question; and that, in spite of a
somewhat lavish use of our forest resources in the
past, we shall be able, by a greater care in the future,
and by a more extended use of materials, other than
wood, preserve for ourselves and for those that come
after us, the forests of the country for business, health,
and pleasure.

PART IL.

IMPORTANCE. OF THE PUBLIC FOREST
LANDS TO IRRIGATION

THE CLOSE RELATION BETWEEN FOR-
ESTRY AND IRRIGATION
BY
GUY ELLIOT MITCHELL

Secretary, the National Irrigation Association

‘T BE connection between a comprehensive system
of forestry and irrigation is a somewhat local

though vital one, directly affecting as it does but one-
half of the territory of the United States—the arid
region. Forestry itself, as affecting water supply, is
a broad national question, as well as a local one in each
state and drainage basin. The forest movement, there-
fore, has a country-wide interest, and whereas Cali-
fornia is alarmed over the destruction of its mountain
forests and the drying up of its streams which form
the life-blood of its communities, Pennsylvania and
New England are only to a less extent exercised over
the threatened danger to their water sources, necessary
for city and town supplies and for power development.

In the Western half of the United States the destruc-
tion of forests has an intimate, immediate bearing
upon the capacity of the States to sustain population,
for population results from irrigation; irrigation de-
pends upon water supply and the water supply is the
melting snows caught and held by the forests clothing
the great mountain chains of the Sierras and the
Rockies—nature’s great storage reservoirs.

Three things are necessary to insure a maximum
water supply for irrigation:

First, prevent wholesale destruction of timbered
watersheds.

C

54 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Second, substitute therefor a rational system of
timber cutting; and,

Third, reforest and afforest lands where the value
of the increased water supply will warrant this most
advanced and expensive feature of the American forest
plan.

The first of these should receive immediate consid-
eration; the present tremendous waste should be
checked and the second part of the plan promptly
adopted before it is too late, and the third and most
expensive part becomes the only remedy.

So far as the Government timber lands are con-
cerned, aggregating many millions of acres outside
of the national forest reserves, for every thousand
dollars now expended in carrying out the first two
provisions of the plan—where all that is required is
to properly direct timber cutting to husband the re-
sources of nature, new growth—it is probably a con-
servative estimate to make that a million dollars, and
much time will be required to attain the same results
through forest planting.

This latter creative plan while less pressing and
vital than the need of conserving what we already
have, holds out wonderful eventual possibilities. The
statement of Mr. Gifford Pinchot, Forester, United
States Department of Agriculture, at the Twelfth Na-
tional Irrigation Congress, at El Paso, Texas, Novem-
ber, 1904, that experiments and the observations of
years have proven that enormous areas of the West
can, by systematic planting, be made into forests with
the effect of restoring streams which have disappeared,
possibly thotisands of years ago, and of creating en-
tirely new streams, holds out startling and almost
unrealizable probabilities for future agricultural devel-
opment to the forest and water student.

AMERICAN ForEst CONGRESS 55

What is needed to-day, immediately, is vastly more
strength to the arm of American forestry for the
vigorous prosecution of its well matured plans to
save what we now possess. ‘The two greatest problems
before this country to-day, well worthy the expenditure
by the nation of millions and hundreds of millions of
dollars instead of thousands and hundreds of thou-
sands, are forestry and irrigation. They will return such
expenditure, principal and interest, many times over,
and the carrying out of such a policy will demonstrate
its wisdom within the present generation. It is a
question demanding our immediate consideration, and
is not, as many patriotic citizens seem to believe, a
remote problem which must be solved in the distant
future. I make no careless, ill-considered statement
when I assert that these two correlated subjects form
the most important question before the United States
to-day and through whose wise solution the country
has more to gain than from any other resource, within
her borders or over seas. For can anything be of
greater import than the creation of an empire within
our midst which will support a population as great
as that of the entire country to-day?

The work of the Bureau of Forestry of the Depart-
ment of Agriculture has come, within the past two
years, to be recognized as a practical, hard-headed
business proposition. When the present Forester, Mr.
Gifford Pinchot, took up this work he gave lumbermen
credit for shrewdness and ability; he did not claim to
know more than they about lumbering; but he did
contend that lumbering could be carried on profitably
without forest destruction. Later, when criticised for
his enthusiasm in the setting apart of forest reserves
and his supposed substitution of practical lumbering
for the zsthetic considerations, he made the notable
response ;

56 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

‘“T am not a preserver of trees. I am a cutter-down
of trees. It is the essence of forestry to have trees
harvested when they are ripe, and followed by successive
crops. The human race is not destroyed because the
individual dies. Every individual must die, but the
race lives on. So every tree must die, but the forest
will be extended and multiplied. Yet it by no means
follows that the face of the land shall be denuded, so
that the character of the watersheds shall be altered,
with the resulting injury to streams and to agricultural
lands depending upon them.”

The United States is quite fortunate in the posses-
sion of Gifford Pinchot as Government Forester; the
President is fortunate in having a man to carry out
this advanced forest policy, a man who is striving
solely to conserve one of the greatest of America’s
natural resources, thus erecting to himself and his
period a monument which will endure for all ages.

President Roosevelt has uttered some notable truths
as to the relation of forest preservation to agriculture
and home building. Speaking at Leland Stanford
University last year, he said: “In many parts of
California the whole future welfare of the State de-
pends upon the way in which you are able to use your
water supply; and the preservation of the forests and
the preservation of the use of the water are insepara-
bly connected. Whatever tends to destroy the water
supply of the Sacramento, the San Gabriel, and the
other valleys strikes vitally at the welfare of California.
The forest cover upon the drainage basins of streams
used for irrigation purposes is of prime importance
to the interests of the entire State.” And, again:
“Now keep in mind that the whole object of forest pro-
tection is, as I have said again and again, the making
and maintaining of prosperous homes. Every phase

AMERICAN Forest CoNGRESS 57

of the land policy of the United States is, as it by right
ought to be, directed to the upbuilding of the home-
maker. The one sure test of all public land legislation
should be: Does it help to make and keep prosperous
homes? If it does, the legislation is good. If it does
not, the legislation is bad.

“Certain of our land laws, however beneficent their
purposes, have been twisted into an improper use, so
that there have grown up abuses under them by which
they tend to create a class of men who, under one color
and another, obtain large tracts of soil for speculative
purposes, or to rent out to others.”

Two bills are pending in Congress to-day, the pas-
sage of which will prove a distinct gain to American
forestry. They are little understood, probably, by
the American people as a whole, yet it is doubtful if
there are any pending before Congress fraught with
greater import to the nation. One has passed the
House and the other one has passed the Senate. The
former bill consolidates the entire government forest
work, now badly divided and cut up among different
bureaus and divisions, into one bureau under the De-
partment of Agriculture.* It has the unanimous sup-
port and approval of various officials, the heads of
departments and the Executive. It should promptly
become a law and the country should then stand by
its Bureau.of Forestry with such support as is neces-
sary to carry out its forestry plans in the broadest and
most comprehensive manner, for by doing so it will
conserve greatly its own wealth.

The other measure has likewise the unqualified sup-
port of the President, all forest officials and heads of
departments. It passed the Senate without a dissent-

*This bill has since passed Congress and was signed by
President Roosevelt, February I, 1905.

58 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

ing vote. It provides for the substitution of the timber
and stone law with a plan to allow the general govern-
ment to retain title to all its timber lands, but to sell
the timber thereon under such regulations as will insure
the perpetual reforestation of these lands, their timber
cropping, and the preservation of their water supplies.

Under the present law timber land of great value is
disposed of by the Government at $2.50 an acre, is
carelessly and wastefully lumbered so that entire water-
sheds are denuded of their forest cover, destructive
fires are allowed to sweep over them leaving them
~ bare and unable to retain the moisture upon which
irrigated communities depend. This law was passed
to enable settlers to purchase small tracts of timber
land, presumably adjacent to their homsteads. Its
provisions have been evaded, as the President inti-
mates, to such an extent that enormous tracts of land
have passed into speculative ownership without result-
ing good to the communities; in fact, with the utmost
danger to their prosperity and well being. This
measure should likewise receive the prompt considera-
tion of that branch of Congress before which it is
pending.

There is yet another law which stands as a great
menace to forest preservation. It is the forest reserve
lieu land law, known as lieu land or scrip law. It
allows the owner of land within the forest reserves to
exchange that land for other unreserved public land
of the reserves. Under it vast areas of almost worth-
less land, in many cases previously denuded of its tim-
ber by its owners, have been exchanged for the finest
timber lands in the Northwest. This law should be
repealed, and where private individuals or corporations
own land within the forest reserves which they do not
desire, it should be appraised by the Government and

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 59

the cash value paid to the owner of one or two dollars
an acre, or whatever it may be worth, rather than that
he should be allowed to exchange it for equal areas of
our finest timber lands worth $20, $50, and possibly
$100 anacre. The particularly evil feature of this law
is that lieu land right is a floating, purchasable com-
modity, and has resulted in the acquirement of immense
tracts under single ownership.*

With these three measures acted upon by Congress
the nation will emerge from the present area of lumber
waste and timber land speculation into one of forest
conservation, husbandry, and thrift which will result
in both timber supplies and water resources for the
coming generations, where the present outlook indi-
cates timber famine and vast loss to irrigation.

*The lieu land law was repealed by Congress in March of
this year.

FORESTS AND RESERVOIRS
BY
FO NEWELL

Chief Engineer, United States Reclamation Service

LL are aware that the Government, through the
operation of the Reclamation Act of June 17,
1902, is building large irrigation works throughout
the West. The fund for that purpose now amounts
to about $25,000,000. ‘These works, national in char-
acter, are being constructed as rapidly as possible. The
protection of these works, their future use, their sta-
bility through all time, is largely dependent upon the
proper treatment of the forests upon the mountains
above the reservoirs. In fact there is hardly a project
now under consideration whose future success is not
closely joined with the questions of the best use and
preservation of the forests and to a less degree of the
grazing land immediately adjacent. ‘These works are
being built to last for all time, and if they are to be
preserved in their best condition, it must be after we
have solved this question of the best protection and use
of the forest.

A number of the delegates present have come from
the far West. Many others are deeply interested in
Western development, not only from general con-
siderations, but because the creation of a home in the
West means the creation of a home in the manufac-
turing districts of the East, and possibly the creation
of a home for a man who is employed by the trans-
porting interests. The transportation men, so well
represented at this Congress, have an immediate and
vital concern in this whole subject of conservation of

AMERICAN Forest! CONGRESS 61

water and, growing out of that, the conservation of
the forests.

It is desirable to review briefly something of what is
going on in the Western States and Territories. Take
Arizona, for instance: Here the Reclamation Service
is building a storage dam at Roosevelt, costing probably
$3,000,000. When built it will enable the creation of
homes for many thousands of people, and render pro-
ductive a large area now desert. In California is the
Yuma project, which it is expected will be begun soon ;
and also another project in the northern part of the
State, around the Klamath lakes. For the protection of
an Arizona reservoir a forest reserve must be had above
the reservoir in order to prevent, as far as possible, the
washing of soil which follows upon the destruction of
tree growth. In Colorado is the Gunnison tunnel, the
contract for which is being let now—a tunnel 30,000
feet in length, to take water from the Gunnison River
into the Uncompahgre Valley, a broad, fertile, but arid
plain. The head waters of that river must be pro-
tected in part by the forests as well as by reservoirs.

In Idaho, the same is true; there on the Snake River
a dam is being built across the stream. Its utility for
all time depends largely upon the good treatment ac-
corded to the head waters of that stream. This matter
of the development of the West is not a State question,
but is interstate. We must build reservoirs in Wyo-
ming ; we must conserve forests in Wyoming to benefit
the arid plains of Idaho. For Western Kansas, Mr.
Reeder has already spoken briefly of the great interest
in irrigation, and although having no forests, yet the
rivers that come into Kansas, as the Arkansas, depend
partly for their continuity of flow on proper treatment
of the woodlands on the mountains in the central part
of Colorado.

62 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

In Montana are similar conditions. The Yellow-
stone River, rising in Wyoming, derives a large water
supply from wooded areas which must be protected in
order that the flow of that stream may be properly
safeguarded. In Nebraska, the conditions are similar
to those in Western Kansas. The North and South
Platte Rivers coming into that State, are dependent
for their waters, in part at least, upon the flow from
the high mountains of Central Colorado and Southern
Wyoming. In Nevada is under construction one of
the largest irrigation works in the world, taking water
from Truckee River over into the Carson. ‘The in-
tegrity of that great system, which will cost at least
$3,000,000 and possibly $5,000,000 when it is com-
pleted, will depend largely on the conservation of the
forest growth in the State of California; there again
is the same question of protection of forests in one
State to secure the prosperity of the homes in another.
In New Mexico is being built on Hondo River, a tribu-
tary of Pecos River, a reservoir which receives its
waters from forest reserves in central New Mexico.
There is in contemplation a great work on the Rio
Grande, interstate and international in character; that
river in turn must be reservoired and every drop of
water held. Here again comes the question, how are
the head waters of that river in Colorado to be best
protected for the waters which are to be used in Colo-
rado, New Mexico, Texas, and Old Mexico?

North Dakota is far out on the plains and there are
few forests in the State. The great river of the State
is the Missouri, rising in Montana. This stream de-
pends largely for its flow on the waters from forests at
its head. South Dakota has a mountain region of its
own and a. forest ‘reserve in. the Black “Pails:
Coming from the Black Hills are streams, not very

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 63

large but of very great importance in the development
of that State. On the Belle Fourche River there is
being planned a large irrigation system irrigating vast
tracts of land north of the Black Hills, lands which
will form homes for thousands of families. Again
we have the same old story that we must go.back to
the forest reserves to see that the head waters are pro-
tected.

In Oregon we know of the wonderful extent of the
forest reserves and of the value of the timber, but
even in that State we are asking for better and larger
attention to the forest reserves, especially in the Blue
Mountain region and particularly on the head waters
of the Malheur, Umatilla, and other streams where
development to a high degree will be possible. Okla-
homa, out on the plains, has, it is true, but little forested
area, but even there, are questions of water storageand
of the best protection of a little reserve in the Wichita
Mountains. In Utah the same is true. There we are
studying Utah Lake and the best use of waters which
flow through it and out into the Jordan; also the best
use of Bear Lake. Here we come back again to the
question, What is Mr. Pinchot going to do with the
forest reserves? Mr. Pinchot and the engineers of
the Reclamation Service are working hand in hand on
all the large projects which look to home-making and
upbuilding of the country.

In Washington the same condition exists. The
Palouse project, in that State, is for storage of water
at the head of the Palouse River and for taking it out
to reclaim a sandy desert above Pasco. This will be
made one of the most productive sections in the United
States. Last, but not least, we come to Wyoming, the
central, the pivotal State of the arid region; a State of
great elevation. There we must have forest reserves to

64 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

protect the head waters of the Missouri and Yellow-
stone, the head waters of the Platte and all of the innu-
merable streams which flow, not only to the East, but
also into the Snake and into the Green Rivers to the
South.

In each of these States is a great irrigation project
under construction or under consideration. In Wyo-
ming is a large reservoir on the North Platte River—
the Pathfinder. The contract for the outlet tunnel will
be let in a few days. And in the northern part of Wyo-
ming is a project on the Shoshone River with the
object of reclaiming vast tracts of arid land.

I have cited these cases to illustrate the fact that
forest protection has an important practical and defi-
nite value, not only to the people of the West, but to
the people of the whole country in the upbuilding and
making of homes and the creation of a large population
which will support itself from the soil. And which will
be drawing upon the East for its manufactures and
drawing upon all the transportation interests to carry
these manufactures backward and forward.

Those of you who are interested in the details of this
great work of reclamation are cordially invited to go
into the details with the engineers of the Reclamation
Service who represent the different States and who are
now holding a conference to consider some of the
larger problems of construction and of management.
These works are not built as are those constructed
under such appropriations as that provided for in the
River and Harbor Bill. They must be built, on the
contrary, with the idea of repaying to the government
the cost of construction. This involves a financial
problem—that of getting back into the reclamation
fund the amount which each project has cost. If it
has cost $3,000,000 dollars and will-reclaim 100,000

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 65

acres of land, then each acre of land must be assessed
thirty dollars, and that thirty dollars must be paid back
in ten annual installments of three dollars each. Mean-
while the fund is increasing, but every dollar of it must
be guarded and the engineers in charge of the work
must be business men and financial men as well, and
see that the expenditures they make are such that the
money will get back without undue hardship to the
people who will obtain that land and cultivate it.

These great works belong to the National Govern-
ment, but when the distribution system is paid for in
the ten annual installments, it will be turned over to
the people who own the land and cultivate it and will
be operated by them very much as a school district is
operated, or any other public corporation or munici-
pality. During the time of construction and operation
of these works up to the period when they are paid for,
the engineers who have built them will see that they are
operated properly and will gradually pass the control
over to the communities until ultimately the community
will assume full control. By that time the future
owners will be educated to a true appreciation of the
great works and to a realization of what it means to
them to conserve the forests of the head waters.

The organization which is carrying on that work
known as the Reclamation Service, has been created
under the Geological Survey in order to take advantage
of the good precedents and business-like ability of that
organization. All of us appreciate the enormous bene-
fit it is to have, the protection of the older organization
which has been in existence a quarter of a century and
which has been conducted without favoritism and with-
out reference to politics.

Building up on that foundation and having the pro-
tection of good precedents and good methods, we are

66 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

endeavoring to develop a strong organization. We ask
you who are interested in forestry and in all its prac-
tical developments and ramifications, to stand with us
and give us your assistance to keep and protect this
young organization along the lines of good, hard busi-
ness sense. -Not only for the sake of the development
of the country, not only for the sake of the reclamation
of the West, but for the good example and encourage-
ment it affords to other organizations of the Govern-
ment, such as the Forest Service, to pursue the same
lines in carrying on the work on a thoroughly sound
financial basis, of getting back what the service costs
and not making it a burden upon the country.

It is of the highest importance to demonstrate to the
public and to Congress, the fact that public business
can be transacted on business lines. There are many
good men who scoff at the idea that the public service
can be conducted on a sound basis of that kind, but I
believe it is possible for the Forestry and for the
Reclamation Services to be carried on as a business
proposition and pay for themselves and not call upon
the Federal Treasury for a cent. And to upbuild and
utilize all the resources, if you business men, who are
citizens who are interested in good government, will
stand with us and insist that these sound principles be
carried out.

RELATION. OF FOREST. COVER TO
STREAM FLOW
BY

J. B. LIPPINCOTT

Supervising Engineer, United States Reclamation Service

"THE relation of rainfall to run-off is very uncertain,

depending upon the nature of the storms, whether
gentle showers or violent rains; the steepness of the
drainage basin and its covering, and whether the pre-
cipitation is snow or rain. It has been found that in
the districts where the forest cover is small the output
of the basin occurs in violent floods of short duration.
Because these floods are violent, and of large volume,
and owing to the fact that the soil of the drainage
basins is not hold together by a network of roots, ex-
tensive erosions occur in these barren basins and the
stream carries much silt in suspension. Where the
basin is covered by forest, the mat of twigs and leaves
which covers the ground is an absorbent sponge,
retaining in itself large quantities of water and pre-
venting evaporation from the underlying soil. This
permits of a holding back of the floods and the gradual
draining off of the water, thus largely accomplishing
the purpose of regulating reservoirs.

A striking example of the output of a barren, tree-
less, drainage basin is shown in the case of Queen
Creek, Arizona, for the year 1896. This stream dis-
charges only in violent freshets, recurring usually as
great flood-waves, subsiding almost as rapidly as they
arise. By making from two to three current-meter
measurements of each of these freshets, and keeping

68 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

an hourly record of the gauge-height, the discharge
was approximated. The floods are usually not to ex-
ceed twelve hours in duration. During a larger por-
tion of the year the channel is nearly dry. Queen
Creek rises in the mountains to the southeast of
Phoenix, and flows in a generally southwesterly direc-
tion, losing itself in the desert north of the Gila River
Reservation. The area of the drainage basin is 143
square miles, of which 61 per cent. is above an elevation
of 3,000 feet, and 39 per cent below that elevation.
The annual discharge is approximately 10,000 acre
feet. The basin is almost entirely bare, there being a
few pinion trees and very little brush or grass. The
following table of discharge for the year 1896 for
Queen Creek is taken from the Eighteenth Annual
Report of the Geological Survey, Part IV, Hydrog-
raphy. It represents a typical year’s output:

ESTIMATED MoNTHLY DISCHARGE OF QUEEN CREEK AT WHIT-
Low’s, ARIZONA. DRAINAGE AREA, 143 SQUARE MILES.

Discharge in Second feet.

Month, 1806. Max. Min. Mean.
Faniaey tse ee ei. 63.0 2. 2 2.0 2.0
Bemridatys cto ae iM hss 2 2.0 2.0
OCIA hae eyo es whe era We oe 2 2.0 2.0
Pea RN A RR 2 1.0 Ls
UWL aN eA Pea ele a I 1.0 1.0
June: :: Ree I 1.0 1.0
EGS OS og ol encase baretane, OOD 0.0 121.6
PUUGUSE sos Se Seren CEASS 0.6 13.1
September. 2s. 0. ee aes | dee 0.5 rt
Gerber. nt. oe ee leo 0.5 13.3
November si.2). 0k oes 80 0.6 1.3
December ci Vee ae 207 0.6 2.0

9,000 0 15.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 69

In contrast with the Gila River and Queen Creek in
Arizona, is the discharge of Cedar Creek Washington,
for the year 1897. The point of measurement of this
stream is at Clifford’s Bridge, in Section 19, Township
22 North, Range 7 East, Willamette Meridian. The
drainage area is estimated to be 143 square miles, and
it, therefore, is the same as the area of the basin of
Queen Creek. The basin of Cedar Creek lies on the
western slope of the Cascade Mountains. It is heavily
timbered and, in addition, the ground is covered with
a very heavy growth of ferns and moss. The precipi-
tation for the year 1897 was about 93 inches in the
lower portion of the basin, and is estimated to have
been as great as 150 inches on the mountain summits.
The rainfall of the Queen Creek basin is estimated to
be about 15 inches. The maximum flood discharge
in 1896 on Queen Creek was 9,000 cubic feet per
second, and the maximum flood discharge on Cedar
Creek in 1897 was 3,601 cubic feet per second. The.
mean discharge for Queen Creek was 15 cubic feet
per second, and for Cedar Creek 1,089 cubic feet per
second. While Queen Creek is frequently dry, the
minimum discharge of Cedar Creek during the period
in question was never less than 27 per cent of the
mean for the year. These two streams represent
extreme types. The radical difference in their char-
acter is believed to be largely due to the difference in
forest cover. The discharge of Cedar Creek for the
year 1897 is believed to be fairly representative. The
following table of discharge is taken from the Nine-
teenth Annual Report of the Geological Survey, Part
IV, Hydrography.

It will be noted that the vertical scale showing the
discharge is twice as large on the Cedar Creek diagram
as on that of Queen Creek. If they were on the same
scale the contrast would be greater:

70 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

EstiMATED MontTHLY DISCHARGE OF CEDAR RIvER NEAR SEAT-
TLE, WASHINGTON. DRAINAGE AREA, 143 SQUARE MILEs.

Discharge in Second feet.

Month, 1897. Max. Min. Mean.
Jamar eee tebe fire 2,812 815 1,430
PEWMUATY Se ob dee dhe 2,415 823 1,303
DR GGH EY coMiuceiata sete 1,306 723 QOI
Vet 11 5 aR a AOA Cpe isd ~ 790 1,599
Treen ie ee Sake: corel toate te 2,143 939 1,562
AMER awk dec nate ete 1,410 780 1,060
Mya ie hata saoevaiachave 2,284 572 1,135
WAGOUSES Ne oye eae ge 561 342 427
HepreINbehs Cobo cuss 418 311 350
REE ONC jest siah Scjoneteiaee 433 294 339
Nivenmiber oii c's nie dia 3,155 323 ~ 1,318
WRereniber es sissies Sets. s 3,601 674 1,639

otaheiak fore ete OOK 204 1,089

The amount of solid matter carried by a stream
is a very serious problem in connection with the
construction of storage reservoirs thereon. The most
astonishing stories are told of volumes of sediment
carried by the rivers of southern Arizona from their
barren drainage basins. It is said that when these
floods first appear, discharged off of ranges that have
been travelled by the large herds of cattle in quest of
grass, the soil which has been exposed to the direct
action of the sun, being exceedingly light and dry, is
washed off in quantities that are enormous. In order
to determine the amount of silt in the Gila River at
The Buttes, which stream has a similar basin and
regimen to that of Queen Creek, the Geological Survey
has made observations by taking samples of the water
daily, and permitting the mud to settle in graduated
tubes. The amount of mud is then determined by

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 71

reading its height upon the graduations. The mud
which is deposited has then been treated in the case
of numerous samples to a temperature of 212 degrees
Fah., and the final amount of solid matter determined
by weight. Observations were continued from July
29, 1895, to December 31, of the same year. Begin-
ning on January I, 1899, and continuing until July
31, 1899, similar observations were made at the same
station, the amount of mud and solid matter being
determined as previously. During the first period the
volume of water discharged at The Buttes was 360,523
acre feet, and it was found that this contained 37,984
acre feet of silt by volume wet. This reduced to 7,704
acre feet of solids. The average amount of light sedi-
ment during this first period was 10% per cent by
volume wet, and the amount of solids a little over 2 per
cent. The total amount of water discharged during
the second period in 1899 was 118,981 acre feet, which
contained 1.6 per cent of solids, or 8 per cent of mud
by volume wet. Frequent observations were- made,
showing 20 per cent of silt by volume wet during the
high stages of the stream, and in one instance 27 per
cent was observed. The average amount.of silt for the
twelve months’ observation was 10 per cent by volume
wet, and the amount of solids 2 per cent. No other
stream in the United States is known to carry such a
high per cent of sediment. This is in striking contrast
with the clear streams of our northern forested basins.
The water supply used for domestic purposes from
Cedar Creek, Washington, does not require filtering or
settlement.

The serious nature of this silt problem can readily
be appreciated by those who have studied the storage
of water for irrigation. It is probably the gravest of
all the engineering problems related thereto. Forestry

72 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

should assist greatly in removing difficulties of this
nature. |

Mr. Marsten Manston made certain stream measure-
ments on the Yuba River, California, for the Geological
Survey. In an article, entitled “Features and Water
Rights of Yuba River, California,” Bulletin No. 100,
United States Department of Agriculture, in discussing
the stream flow from certain portions of this basin, he
makes the following interesting comparison between
a forested and denuded basin. Both of these catch-
ment areas are situated on the western slope of the
Sierra Nevada, adjoin each other, and have exposures
of marked similarity.

“On the south fork of the north fork we have a
watershed area of 139 square miles, which was gaged
on September 19, 1900, after three successive seasons
of deficient rainfall, and gave a minimum run-off of
113 cubic feet per second or 0.8 cubic foot per second
per square mile. This area is well covered with timber
and brush, and in one hundred and twenty days gives
a minimum run-off of 1,441,152,000 cubic feet. The
drainage basin of the north fork is more heavily
timbered than the basin of the other forks, and conse-
quently has a deeper soil, and although only one-tenth
the total drainage area, it furnishes 75 per cent of the
low-water flow of the entire drainage basin above
Parks Bar.

“On the south fork, above Lake Spaulding, there is
a watershed of 120 square miles, which has heretofore
been described as comparatively bare of timber, and
the timbered areas which once existed have been cut
off. The run-off of this area is practically nothing
for one hundred and twenty days each year, due to
this absence of forests and brush. If this area were
afforested and gave a minimum run-off of 0.8 cubic

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 73

foot per second per square mile, the discharge would
be 100 cubic feet per second, or equivalent to 1,036,-
800,000 cubic feet effective storage capacity, a dis-
charge more than equivalent to one-half the storage
capacity of all the reservoirs above Lake Spaulding
dam. These aggregate 1,375,000,000 cubic feet, and
the low-water discharge of 100 cubic feet per second
for one hundred and twenty days is equivalent to a
storage capacity of 1,036,000,000 cubic feet. As the
basis of the above estimate is the extreme low-water
discharge, it is safe to assume that by afforesting the
watershed, this costly and extensive system of reser-
voirs might be safely drawn upon for double their
present capacity. When this reasoning is applied to
the entire 1,357 square miles, instead of to small
fractions thereof, the force of the argument becomes
more apparent.

“It would appear from the foregoing that the solu-
tion of the problem of storage of flood waters is not
in the retention of a small percentage of the storm
waters behind dams, but in applying storage over the
entire watershed by the systematic protection and
extension of forest and brush-covered areas.”

Professor James W. Toumey, a collaborator of the
Bureau of Forestry, has selected certain small and
adjoining drainage basins in the San Bernardino
Mountains in a portion of the catchment area proposed
to be utilized by the Arrowhead Reservoir Company.
Throughout this area this corporation for a term of
years has been making exhaustive hydrographic studies
of the available water supply. A large number of rain
gauges have been established and stream measurements
are carefully made over weirs by skilled engineers.
Automatic clock registering devices have been installed
to give a continuous record of the flow at these various

74 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

stream gauging stations. It is proposed to divert the
water flowing from a number of these small mountain
basins which are situated on the northerly slope of the
San Bernardino Range by means of gravity canals and
tunnels to the southern side of the range and into the
San Bernardino Valley. This Arrowhead Reservoir
Company has placed its hydrographic data at the
disposal of the Bureau of Forestry, which organiza-
tion made a forest study in connection therewith. The
data that is presented by Professor Toumey is perhaps
the most precise and definite information on the sub-
ject of related stream flow to forest cover that we
have so far been favored with in the West. His
conclusions, while they were to be expected, are grati-
fying in their definiteness. We can do no better than
to quote from Professor Toumey in extenso:

“Because rainfall is most abundant where forests
grow, many believe that forests exert an important
influence on the amount of precipitation. A more
reasonable inference, however, is that raimfall is the
great factor in controlling the distribution and density
of forests.

“Precipitation occurs whenever the air is suddenly
cooled below the dew-point. The most effective cause
of this is the expansion of air on ascending. This
upward movement is caused very largely by cyclonic
storms. Whether forests have any appreciable effect
in cooling the air to below the dew-point is uncertain.
From the known effect of forests on the temperature
and relative humidity of the air, it is reasonable to
infer that they may have some effect, at least to a
small degree, and consequently that they have some
influence in increasing precipitation. The present evi-
dence, however, derived from many series of observa-
tions conducted in Europe and elsewhere, is so con-

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 75

flicting that a definite answer to this question, having
the stamp of scientific accuracy, is not possible.

“In a careful study of the behavior of the stream
flow on several small catchment areas in the San Ber-
nardino Mountains, it has been found that the effect
of the forest in decreasing surface flow on small
catchment basins is enormous, as shown in the follow-
ing tables, where three well timbered areas are com-
pared with a non-timbered one:

PRECIPITATION AND RUN-OFF DuRING DECEMBER, 1899.

Areaof Condition Pre- Run-off Run-off in
catchment as to cipita- per square percentage of
basin. cover. tion. mile. precipitation.
Sq. miles, Inches. Acre feet. Percent.
0.70 Forested. Igt+ 36— 3
1.05 Forested. 19+ 73+ 6
1.47 Forested. 19+ Fi 6 6
53 Non-forested. 13— 212+ 4O

“This is the stream discharge during a month of
unusually heavy precipitation.

“At the beginning of the rainy season, in early
December, the soil on all four of these basins was
very dry as a result of the long dry season. The
accumulation of litter, duff, humus, and soil on the
forest-covered catchment areas absorbed 95 per cent.
of the unusually large precipitation. On the non-
forested area only 60 per cent. of the precipitation
was absorbed, although the rainfall was much less.

76 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

RAINFALL AND RuN-orr DuRING JANUARY, FEBRUARY, AND
MarcCH, 1900.

Areaof Condition Pre- Run-off Run-off in
catchment as to cipita- per square percentage of
basin. cover. tion. mile. precipitation.
Sq. miles, Inches. Acre feet. Per cent.
0.70 Forested. 24 452— 35
1.05 Forested. 24 428— 33
1.47 Forested. 24 557— 43
53 Non-forested. 16 828— 95

“The most striking feature of this table as compared
with the previous one is the uniformly large run-off
as compared with the rainfall. This clearly shows
the enormous amount of water taken up by a dry soil,
either forested or non-forested, as compared with
one already nearly filled to saturation. During the
three months here noted, on the forested basins about
three-eighths of the rainfall appeared in the run-off.

RAPIDITY OF DECREASE IN RuN-oFF AFTER THE CLOSE OF THE
RAINY SEASON.

Areaof Condition Pre- ° April May June

catchment as to cipita- run-off run-off run-off
basin. cover. tion. per sq.m. persq.m. per sq. m.
Sq. miles. Inches. Acre feet. Acre feet. Acre feet.
0.70 Forested. 1.6 153— 66— Pee
1.05 Forested. 1.6 146— 70— 30—
1.47 Forested. 1.6 166— 74— co
53 Non-forested. I 56— 2— 0

“The above table clearly shows the importance of
forests in sustaining the flow of mountain streams.
The three forested catchment areas, which, during
December, experienced a run-off of but 5 per cent.
of the heavy precipitation for that month and which

AMERICAN Forest CoNGRESS a9

during January, February, and March of the following
year had a run-off of approximately 37 per cent. of
the total precipitation, experienced a well-sustained
stream flow three months after the close of the rainy
season. ‘The non-forested catchment area, which,
during December, experienced a run-off of 40 per
cent. of the rainfall, and which during the three fol-
lowing months had a run-off of 95 per cent. of the
precipitation, experienced a run-off in April (per
square mile) of less than one-third of that from the
forested catchment areas, and in June the flow from
the non-forested area had ceased altogether.

ANNUAL RAINFALL AND RUN-OFF ON ForESTED AND NOoN-
FORESTED CATCHMENT AREAS IN THE SAN BEr-
NARDINO MouNTAINS, CALIFORNIA.

Areaof Condition Pre- Run-oft Run-off in
catchment as to cipita- per square percentage of
basin. cover. tion. mile. precipitation.
Sq. miles, Inches. Acre feet. Per cent.
0.70 Forested. 46 7a 28
1.05 Forested. 46 756 30
1.47 Forested. 46 om pe4 36
53 Non-forested. 23 1,192 69

“In conclusion, it may be said that although the
forest may have, on the whole, but little appreciable
effect in increasing the rainfall and the annual run-off,
its economic importance in regulating the flow of
streams is beyond computation. The great indirect
value of the forest is the effect which it has in pre-
venting wind and water erosion, thus allowing the soil
on hills and mountains to remain where it is formed,
and in other ways providing an adequate absorbing
medium at the sources of the water courses of the

78 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

country. It is the amount of water that passes into
the soil, not the amount of rainfall, that makes a region
garden or desert.”

The drainage basin of the Sacramento River in-
cludes the greater part of northern California. It has
been occupied by Anglo-Saxon settlers for the last
fifty years. During the first portion of the American
occupation of this State, sea-going vessels are reported
to have proceeded up stream as far as the present city
of Sacramento. The tidal range of the river was
observed also at this point. Placer mining was the
first industry. This work consisted in washing the
oriferous gravels found along the western foothills of
the Sierra Nevadas. The resulting debris was dis-
charged into the streams and has to a very material
extent filled their channels, so that to-day the head
of tidal water is many miles below Sacramento, near
the upper end of Grand Island, and only flat bottom
river steamboats are able to ascend the Sacramento
River as far as the city of that name. This stream
condition has been still further aggravated by the
destruction of extensive areas of forest, both by fire,
lumbering, and sheep grazing. Yet the lumber in-
dustry is but in its infancy in this section, and plans
are being perfected to cut down great areas of virgin
forest. Extensive forest reserves have been provis-
ionally set aside, covering most of the remaining tim-
bered portions of the basin. These contemplated re-
serves have been greeted with a storm of public protest
from central and northern Galifornia that has been
hard to allay. In February, 1904, northern Califor-
nia was visited by heavy rain storms. While the
precipitation was great, according to the statement of
Professor McAdie, of the Weather Bureau, it was by
no means the heaviest rain which has occurred in this

AMERICAN ForEST CONGRESS 79

section, and it was one that could reasonably be ex-
pected to be exceeded in violence in the future. How-
ever, with the combined conditions of reduced forest
cover and filled river channels, a flood condition was
produced in the Sacramento Valley last February
which has no known equal in the previous history of
the State. Fully 800,000 acres of valley lands were
submerged and the damages are estimated to have
reached into the millions. All this is in spite of the
fact that over twenty million ($20,000,000) dollars
had been expended in the construction of levees to
prevent these overflow conditions. A great State con-
vention was called in San Francisco to consider the
disaster that threatened the commonwealth. Eminent
engineers have been brought to California from the
lower Mississippi basin and elsewhere in the East to
study this great overflow problem. Organizations
have been perfected to urge, if not demand, both from
the State and from the nation, relief from impending
disaster. It is contemplated that a comprehensive
levee system must be constructed the entire length
of the valley at enormous expense.

What a beautiful assemblage of contradictions this
situation presents to the forester! A great intelligent
State with popular sentiment, at least in the injured
section, set against the creation of forest reserves in
this basin! The assemblage of conventions and engi-
neers to devise plans to prevent flood overflow at a
contemplated expenditure of millions. Doubtless with
the channels of the stream in the condition that they
now present a levee system will be required, but the
greatest and most lasting preventative for these con-
ditions would be the adequate protection of the forest
reserves.

It may be stated that while there is no definite scien-

80 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

tific information that forests increase rainfall, yet we
have certain striking instances presented where the
rainfall is greater on adjacent forested areas than on
those that are denuded. At least in the arid regions
it may be stated that the total annual output from a de-
forested drainage basin is greater than from a tim-
bered area, but that the regimen of the stream is dis-
tinctly to the disadvantage of all who are interested
in the use of the watered resources of the country,
whether he be navigator, irrigator, or water-power
investor. From the denuded area the floods are
greater and the drought is more intense. ‘To remedy
this condition, one naturally turns to the storage reser-
voir for relief, yet even in this extremity one is con-
fronted with adverse conditions. The violent flood
from the bare basin rushing through the mountains
carries with it eroded sediment, which it deposits in
the first pool of still water that it encounters. The
result is the reduction of the storage capacity of the
reservoirs along its course. Forests are the natural
and greatest storage reservoirs and regulators of water
supply. On few streams do we find reservoir capaci-
ties even approximating the total annual output of
the drainage basins above them. Accepting the facts
as outlined above, the great importance of preserving
the forests, particularly in the semi-arid regions of
our country, is most manifest. In southern California,
Arizona, and New Mexico particularly, we are so
closely bordering on a condition of desert that when
the forest is once destroyed the difficulty of reproduc-
ing it renders the task well nigh hopeless. We should,
therefore, all join with the Bureau of Forestry in its
effort to “save the forests and store the floods.”

RIGHTS OF WAY IN FOREST RESERVES

BY
MORRIS BIEN

Consulting Engineer, United States Reclamation Service

"THE Forest Reserve Act of June 4, 1897, contains

two provisions which affect rights of way within
the reserves ; namely, that actual settlers residing with-
in the boundaries of the reserves shall for purposes of
egress and ingress, be permitted to construct wagon-
roads and other improvements necessary to reach their
homes and utilize their property, under rules and regu-
lations to be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior,
and also that all waters on the reserves may be used for
beneficial purposes under the State laws or under laws
of the United States and the rules and regulations
thereunder.

In the administration of the first of these provisions,
for wagon-roads and other improvements, the General
Land Office regulations provide for the construction
of private wagon-roads and county roads wherever
they may be found necessary and useful; no right,
however, can be acquired upon the public lands for
such roads as against the United States. No public
timber, stone, or other material can be taken for the
construction of such roads, without permission from
the Secretary of the Interior, the application giving
necessary details concerning the extent, location, and
estimated value of the material to be taken.

The second provision, concerning the use of the
waters, merely confirms the application to forest re-

82 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

serves of the laws then existing, but did not make ap-
plicable to such reserves any laws which did not then
apply to reservations. ‘These laws were of several
kinds, and provided for rights of way and for irriga-
tion, electric and other purposes.

A subsequent act, approved February 15, 1901, pro-
vides for right of way over forest and other reserva-
tions in general and certain national parks in Califor-
nia, for electrical plants, telephone and telegraph lines,
canals and other water conduits for any beneficial use
of water. These acts provide that the allowance of
such rights of way within the reservations shall be
subject to the approval of the department having
supervision over them.

At the time of the passage of the Forest Reserve
Act, there was no provision for right of way for
railroads through such reserves. Consequently, it be-
came necessary for each railroad company desiring to
cross a reserve to obtain a special act of Congress, and
during the years 1898 and 1899 several such acts were
passed. In each of them was incorporated a provision,
which was first inserted at the instance of the General
Land Office, that no timber shall be cut by the railroad
company for any purposes outside the right of way
actually granted.

By the act of March 3, 1899 (30 Stat., 1233), au-
thority is given to the Secretary of the Interior to
approve rights of way in the form provided by existing
law, for wagon-roads, railroads, or other highways
across any forest reservation, when in his judgment
the public interests would not be injuriously affected.
From that time on, there was no need for a special
right-of-way act across a forest reserve.

Nevertheless, during the session of Congress in
1goI-2, a bill was introduced providing for right of

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 83

way for the Central Arizona Railway Company
through the San Francisco Mountains Forest Reserve
in Arizona. In reporting upon this bill, the General
Land Office referred to the legislation of 1899, and
stated that there was no need of such law, and that it
would be better for application to be made in the
regular way, subject to the general regulations in
force. The bill was, however, passed without change,
and was presented the President. At this stage, those
interested in the matter, fearing that it would be vetoed,
secured the passage of a resolution (April 12, 1902;
32 Stat., 1767), asking for the return of the bill. This
was not done, but the bill was vetoed by the President
April 23, 1902. At the next session of Congress a
bill of an entirely different character was introduced.
This provided simply that the company would be
granted right of way upon compliance with the general
regulations of the department. Such a bill was of
no practical use, but it was not objectionable. It be-
came a law February 25, 1903 (32 Stat., 907).

Every application for right of way over a forest
reserve for any purpose is reported on by a forest
superintendent or supervisor, who is required to make
a statement in detail upon every point affecting the
interests of the government in regard to the preserva-
tion of the reserves.

A bond is required from the applicant that he will
pay to the United States, for any and all damage to
the public lands, timber, natural curiosities, or other
public property on such reservation, or upon the lands
of the United States, by reason of such use and occu-
pation of the reserve, regardless of the cause or circum-
stances under which such damage may occur. Such
a bond is required in every case except those of small
importance, a definite limit being fixed in the regula-
tions.

84 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

The applicant is required, also, to file a stipulation
that the right of way is not so located as to interfere
with the proper occupation of the reservation by the
Government; that no timber will be cut from the
reserve outside of the right of way; that the applicant
will remove no timber within the right of way, except
only such as is rendered necessary by the proper use
and enjoyment of the privilege; that he will also
remove from the reservation, or destroy under proper
safeguards as determined by the General Land Office,
all standing, fallen, dead timber, as well as all refuse
cuttings, etc., for such distance on each side of the
line as may be determined by the General Land Office
to be esesential for the protection of the reserve from
fire; also that the applicant will furnish free of charge
such assistance in men and materials for fighting fires
as may be spared without serious injury to the appli-
cant’s business.

With a careful scrutiny of all applications by forest
officers on the ground, and a thorough enforcement of
rules, regulations, and stipulations such as those indi-
cated, it is believed that the occupation of the reserves
for these necessary rights of way can be permitted
without detriment to the Government interests.

The present laws relating to rights of way upon
the public lands, as well as upon forest reserves, are
such as to facilitate the operations of speculators to
obtain, secure, and retain controlling points for the use
of water for railroad, irrigation, power, and other pur-
poses. The railroad and irrigation acts provide for a
forfeiture at the expiration of five years from the date
of location, but such forfeiture cannot be declared
except by Congress or through courts.

Inasmuch as there are many thousand miles of rail-
road and irrigation rights of way which are now

AMERICAN Forest CoNnGRESS 85

subject to forfeiture, the declaration thereof by pro-
cedure in the courts is practically out of the question,
except in a few specific cases where the interests of the
public or of bona fide enterprises demand action.

It is important, however, for the proper development
of the entire West, that these abandoned rights of way
should be cancelled at the earliest possible date, for
the reason that as soon as any bona fide enterprise is
started, these rights, which are practically dead, are
at once revived, and make enormous claims for the
rights which they hold and which cannot be set aside
without such delay as to seriously jeopardize the pro-
posed development.

Congress should declare the forfeiture of all rights
of way now subject to forfeiture, and authorize the
Secretary of the Interior to declare the forfeiture of
other rights already granted and to be granted in the
future, upon the expiration of the time allowed for
construction by the law.

This, however, would remedy only one feature of
the difficulty. It would be just as easy, as the laws
now stand, to tie up these rights, for five years at
least, in the future. In order to meet this phase of the
situation, it is recommended that a reasonable charge
be made for the use of these rights of way upon public
lands and forest reserves. ‘This charge should be suf-
ficient to deter the application for these rights merely
for speculative purposes, and yet not so great as to
interfere with future development of railroad, irriga-
tion, and electric enterprises.

The time has now come when the value of these
lands to the public is so great that their further disposi-
tion should be most carefully scrutinized. The great
increase in recent years in the number of these appli-
cations shows very impressively the need of such safe-

D

86 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

guards to protect the interests of the public in the
future.

These considerations apply with particular force to
the forest reserves, because no claim should be allowed
to attach to lands within them except for actual use
for public benefit, and it is exceedingly urgent that
this Congress make a special effort to impress upon
the Congress of the United States the necessity for
immediate action along the lines indicated.

IRRIGATION CONSTRUCTION AND TIM-
BER. SUPPLIES

BY
ARTHUR P. DAVIS

Assistant Chief Engineer, United States Reclamation Service

"THE relation of scientific forest protection and cul-

ture to irrigation may best be discussed and
appreciated by considering its importance to the suc-
cessful operation of the Reclamation Act, which has
become by the logic of events, the main exponent of
irrigation development.

The broad object of that law is the creation under
irrigation, of the maximum number of prosperous
homes. These homes will depend in a great degree
upon the forests, which are secondary in importance
only to the supply of water and land.

The main reasons for the economic importance of
the scientific culture and preservation of the forests,
are the protection and regulation of the water supply,
the preservation of the lumber industry, and the con-
tinuation of the supply of wood for fuel and numerous
other domestic requirements. In all these the irrigator
is intensely interested, and all have an important bear-
ing upon his future prosperity.

The utility of the forest cover in conserving the
water supply is generally recognized, and its impor-
tance is becoming more and more appreciated. The
protective effect of the mluch of leaves and twigs, and
the dark coolness of the forest shade, appeal to all as
beneficial regulators of run-off, and preventatives of
evaporation. Nor does it require scientific demonstra-

8S PROCEEDINGS OF THE

tion to convince the settler of the importance to his
welfare of a continued lumber and fuel supply. The
‘great value to the settler and the settler’s live stock,
of the shade and shelter afforded by the trees of the
forest and woodland are fully appreciated. Even the
aesthetic and sanitary value of forests are not over-
looked.

Related to the above is the influence of forests on
irrigation construction. ‘This may not be obvious to
the average person, but the tendency of modern con-
struction is to the use of the more permanent materials,
less subject than wood to destruction and decay. This
is facilitated by the development of the useful proper-
ties of concrete, iron, and steel, and their combinations.
The Reclamation Service in particular is endeavoring
to build, “not for a day, but for all time,’ and the
wooden gate, the wooden flume, and other structures
so much in evidence in the past are to be entirely
superseded by more permanent materials.

To this end, massive gates of cast iron and bronze,
set in abutments of concrete, are being introduced.
Experiments have been made on reinforced concrete
for use in pressure pipes and flumes, and the wooden
dam is being superseded by that of concrete, masonry,
or earth. ‘To the same end the proportion of tunnels
is increased, underground conduits being the safest and
most permanent yet devised.

The effect of such a policy upon the consumption of
wood is not, however, so great as might be supposed,
especially in the construction period. The require-
ments for timber are still very great for piling and
subaqeous structures to which wood is well adapted,
and for buildings and the large class of temporary
structures required on great irrigation works. No
satisfactory substitute has yet been found for timber in

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 89

tunnelsand every structure of concrete requires wooden
forms. So numerous and so great are the indispensa-
ble uses of timber in such works, that the existence of
a supply of timber near a projected work frequently
has an important bearing upon its feasibility and cost.
Nor is this fact often appreciated fully. We are ac-
customed to estimate the utility of a lumber supply
on the basis of its selling price, rather than of the cost
of obtaining the supply elsewhere. For example, the
cost of sawing and hauling timber to the point of use
on a certain large project in the west is about twenty-
five ($25.00) dollars per thousand. Were it not for
the small forest from which this supply is obtained,
it would be necessary to import lumber from a distance
at a cost of over fifty ($50.00) dollars per thousand,
and this represents the real utility of the local supply
as a factor in the construction. It is not too much to
say that the feasibility of some important irrigation
works depends upon the proximity of ample timber
supplies.

The development of irrigation will in the future
lead to the rapid opening and development of timbered
areas which are now merely in their natural state.
This fact emphasizes the necessity of placing the forests
at once under the rigid scientific supervision of trained
government experts. If left to the manipulation of sel-
fish interests as in the past, the result will be lavish and
wasteful use, and probably destruction of the forest.
Every tree that will make lumber will be cut, the best
parts hauled away, the branches and part of the trunk
left on the ground to feed the fires that will soon follow
and destroy all that the axe has left. Temporary
profits will be reaped by a few, and the community
will be robbed of its natural heritage. Eventually, the
forest must be replanted and restored at enormous

go PROCEEDINGS OF THE

expenses of time and money, which can all be saved
by a wise supervision without diminishing the present
utility of the forest, nor destroying its future value,
by merely protecting and fostering the tendency of na-
ture.

Such policies of protection would have popular sup-
port, but the local communities have not the means,
authority, nor skill to insure proper supervision, which
much be provided by the Government under the policy
already proposed, the efficacy and wisdom of which
has been so thoroughly demonstrated both at home
and abroad. The policy that provided for present
needs without mortgaging the future.

FOREST AREAS OF CATCHMENT BASINS

(Impromptu Address)
BY

H. M. WILSON

United States Geological Survey

| AM very much interested in one feature of the dis-

cussion that has been brought before you to-day,
and that is the relation of run-off from catchment
basins to the forested areas of those basins. ‘There is
nothing new on this subject, however, which it seems
to me I can bring before you. I heartily concur in the
general opinion expressed by two of the speakers,
Messrs. Lippincott and Davis, upon the effect of forests
in regulating the discharge of streams and thus adding
to their usefulness as providers of water for irrigation
and upon the effect of this regulation in preventing
disastrous floods which, by eroding the surface of the
soil, carry vast amounts of sediment to the streams
below and destroy both them and the surfaces which
they erode. There are other features, however, of the
subject of forest influence on water supply which are
frequently noted in connection with the preservation
of forests, which it might be well for me to qualify.
We are familiar with the old-time claim of the effect
of forests in increasing the rainfall and all of the
foresters present who have looked into the subject, I
am sure, believe now that whereas it is possible that
forests may have some effect upon the amount of pre-
cipitation, there is as yet no definite information avail-
able from any source, either of experiment or investi-
gation, which goes to prove it. And that feature of the
subject of the effect of forests on water supply is one
which I think the Weather Bureau, or possibly the

92 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Bureau of Forestry, should have an opportunity to
investigate in a way in which it has never as yet been
investigated, so that we may learn positively if there
is any such effect; and it is not a form of investigation
that is difficult to carry out. It has been attempted
in haphazard ways over limited areas in Europe, but
never by the wholesale method of detailed regional
study.

There is another feature of the subject that occurs
to me, and that is the claim not infrequently made that
forests increase the discharge from streams, and that
claim is also not infrequently put forward by over-
zealous friends of forestry. And that, too, may be
correct, though from any investigation or any research
yet made into the subject I fail to find that there is any
clear evidence that forests do increase the amount of
water available for discharge by streams, and for the
uses of man. And that is another investigation which
might readily be undertaken in this country by the
proper Government officials or others and thrashed out
to a definite conclusion, and which might react very
favorably upon the subject of forest preservation. I
can conceive now that the Reclamation Service or the
Hydrographic Branch of the Geological Survey, over
which Mr. Newell presides, might undertake such ex-
periments as those of Professor Toumey, of the Bu-
reau of Forestry, which Mr. Lippincott illustrated here
in the upper diagrams. I can conceive that Mr.
Newell’s bureau, with the facilities that it has, might
readily be encouraged to take up the question of the
discharge of streams from forested and from non-
forested areas of like conditions and show what Euro-
peans, the people of India, and older countries inter-
ested in forestry, have not yet been able to show,
whether or not forests have any actual effect in in-
creasing the water supply.

FORESTS AS A FACTOR IN SHAPING
THE PHYSIOGRAPHIC FORM OF
MOUNTAINS

BY
J. W. TOUMEY

Professor of Forestry, Yale Forest School

‘THE effect of forest cover upon the surface flow of .

water has been for many years an inviting field
for speculation and research, both in this country and
abroad. Since the extended researches of Ebermayer
of Bavaria, more than a quarter of a century ago, most
writers in this field have placed special emphasis upon
the effect of forests in providing a larger and better
absorbing medium. It has been argued that the chief
influence of the forest upon the flow of streams, lies in
the fact that it provides a looser and deeper soil, cov-
ered with a variable depth of humus and litter, into
and through which the precipitation freely seeps.
Therefore, a much larger part of the rainfall is taken
up by forest soil than by soil in the open, and there
is less to pass directly into the streams by flowing over
the surface. As a result, the flow of streams in fo)
ested regions are more sustained than similar strear
flowing from naked drainage basins.

There is at the present time no serious opposition
to the view as here set forth. In recent years, how-
ever, special emphasis has been placed upon the follow-
ing, viz., that the proportion of the rainfall that reaches
the streams and the manner of its reaching them de-
pends chiefly upon the physiographic features of the

94 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

region. The contention is made that when other con-
ditions are similar, it is the physiographic form which
most largely determines the amount of run-off in
proportion to the precipitation and the fluctuations in
stream-flow as well.

I wish to emphasize the fact that the physiographic
form of the drainage basin, more particularly those
features which most largely influence stream-flow, have
been brought about by forest growth acting through
long periods of time.

In checking wind and water erosion at the sources
of our mountain streams, the forest produces a much
greater effect upon physiographic detail than generally
recognized. On the summits of mountains and on
ridges, where the forest has a density of .8 or greater,
and where the forest floor has been undisturbed by
fire and grazing, the wealth of litter, humus, and min-
eral soil takes up practically all of the precipitation ;
which, seeping through the soil, reappears on the sur-
face at lower elevations without bringing silt and other
eroded material with it. Erosion, therefore, in such
regions is very slow as compared with non-forested
regions.

Vertical corrasion in the channels of the intermit-
tent and permanent streams is also a slower process,
because there is but little grinding material carried
by the moving water.

On the other hand, when summits and ridges have
been without forest cover for long periods, there is not
only an almost total absence of litter and humus, but
a scant covering of mineral soil as well. The absence
of an absorbing medium causes the larger part of the
rainfall to flow over the surface from the place of fall-
ing. This surface flow causes rapid erosion.

The forest, in preventing the transportation of soil

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 95

at the sources of mountain streams, ultimately brings
about a very different physiographic configuration from
that of non-forested areas under otherwise similar
conditions. In well timbered mountain summits and
ridges are usually broad and rounded. On the other
hand, non-timbered summits and ridges are inclined to
be sharp and jagged, with very precipitous slopes. The
former have a convex physiographic form, while the
latter have a concave. This condition can be observed
in all the mountain ranges of the West. Even in the
same range, these features above or below timber line
have sharp ridges and concave lines, while in the dense
timber the ridges are rounded and the form is convex.

I am well aware that convexity in physiographic
form is indicative of youth, while concave physio-
graphic form indicates age. Although in a broad way
this is true, the concave or old type is reached at a com-
paratively early age on elevations that do not bear a
forest cover, while it is almost indefinitely postponed
on elevations that sustain an uninterrupted forest
growth.

The convex configuration of forested summits and
ridges is the ideal type for the retention of a maximum
amount of the precipitation on the higher portions of
the drainage basin to ultimately seep through the soil
and give the streams a sustained flow.

The concave configuration, which is so character-
istic of non-timbered mountains, permits the precipi-
tation for the most part to escape over the surface, not
only on account of the absence of an absorbing me-
dium, but because of the more precipitous slopes.

The former condition causes a large percentage of
the rainfall to be retained at high elevation from
whence, through seepage, it gives perennial flow to
mountain streams. The latter condition results in the

96 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

greater part of the precipitation rushing over the sur-
face to lower levels. Only a small percentage of the
rainfall is retained at the higher elevations, hence there
is but little seepage to feed the streams and they become
dry soon after the flood waters subside.

I cannot here enter into the various observations and
researches made under my direction during the past
four years, which bear upon the relation of forest cover
to stream flow. These investigations and the conclu-
sions which they appear to warrant are soon to be pub-
lished in bulletin form by the Bureau of Forestry, U.
S. Department of Agriculture.

The single point that I here desire to emphasize is
this: forest cover in mountain streams, through its
influence upon erosion, has a very appreciable effect
upon physiographic form, and this effect of the forest
working through long periods of time, is of the utmost
importance in its influences upon the flow of mountain
streams.

PART Ill

THE LUMBER INDUSTRY AND THE
FORESTS

“ean apes

e oath gs =

cad a
(35 oy
etree

THE LUMBERMAN’S INTEREST IN
FORESTRY

BY
N. W. McLEOD

President, National Lumber Manufacturers’ Association

S UCH an assemblage as the one before me would

have been quite impossible ten years ago. The
lumberman and the forester were then far apart. So
long as forestry was regarded as merely scientific, but
little progress was made; but as it came largely
through the influence of our Bureau of Forestry, to
be more clearly understood as a musiness matter, the -
_ prospect has brightened rapidly. The very fact that
this American Forest Congress has assigned one ses-
sion of its meeting to the discussion of the lumber
industry and the forests is excellent evidence that the
development of forestry is in the right direction. And
in developing an American system of forestry founded
upon sound business principles and adapted to local
conditions, the Bureau of Forestry is doing a very
important work.

For a number of years at the annual meetings of the
various lumber manufacturers’ associations, the
Bureau has been represented by some well equipped
member of its staff, who delivered an address of
interest and value to practical lumbermen. The
Bureau has in a large measure succeeded in convincing
the lumbermen that forestry is not antagonistic to the
lumbermen’s interest, but in line with it. At present
while forestry is accepted tentatively, the individual
is backward about inaugurating an innovation in his

L. ¢

100 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

own operations, as any plan that requires years to
prove profitable; the commercial mind is slow to em-
brace.

The facts that must deeply impress the individual
are those which influence matters of personal interest.
The lumberman centers his attention on that part of
the forest which he can profitably convert into money.
The young, immature trees are obstacles to him, which
increase the cost of transporting timber to the mill.

T!-2 forester, on the other hand, considers young
trees as the basis of future returns.

In order that the best results may be obtained, the
forester must understand the economic problems that
confront the lumberman. The manufacturer of lum-
ber faces the necessity of providing raw material
(standing timber) for from five to twenty years, de-
pending on the size of his plant, in order to justify his
investment. He usually has maturing payments on
his timber land, that have to be met from the returns
of operation. ‘This necessity has generally precluded
in the earlier years of a lumberman’s operation serious
consideration of anything but the production of the
lumber at the lowest possible cost. The practice of
forestry would increase the cost of production per
unit on account of the less amount of timber imme-
diately available from a given area. The percentage
of increase in cost of production would be very slight
where there is a heavy stand of timber, but in a light
stand the percentage of increased cost would be quite
large. The individual operator has always had to
consider—first, the necessity of employing a larger
investment; second, competition of manufacturers,
who are operating regardless of the principles of
forestry. This competition during periods of general
commercial depression might force the manufacturer

AMERICAN ForREST CONGRESS IOI

who is practicing forestry to run his plant at a loss,
or suspend operations until the conditions of supply
and demand were favorable.

About two years ago a number of gentlemen who
were large holders of timber lands made an effort to
consolidate practically all of the larger yellow pine
holdings of the South into a single timber company,
contemplating the cutting and sale of timber to lumber
manufacturers under the application of forestry. That
is, that the amount of timber in one year should not
exceed the amount produced, except where the land
would produce greater returns as agriculture, when
it would naturally be cut clear. If this plan could
have been put into operation, the increased cost of
transporting the mature timber over larger areas made
necessary by the application of forestry, would have
been more than equalized by the advance in the value
of stumpage, on account of the smaller amount imme-
diately available.

It was found, however, that the general public, as
well as many timber owners, did not understand
forestry sufficiently well to look favorably upon an
investment of either capital or timber on the scale
proposed.

A meeting such as this gives promise that the for-
ester will increase his knowledge of economic problems
before the manufacturer, and that investors and hold-
ers of timber learn that the forester does not desire
to place obstacles in the way of profitably converting
the forests into lumber, but by forestry to protect them
from fire, disease, and useless waste, thus making
forest investments safe and permanent.

That forestry is practicable upon large timber hold-
ings, either in private or Government ownership, is
unquestioned by all who have given the matter careful

102 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

thought. Lumbermen who have studied the timber
situation realize that in the future, as in the past, the
largest returns will not be obtained through their
manufacturing plants only. The great fortunes that
have been made in the lumber business have been ac-
quired by the owners of large bodies of timber lands,
and this condition will continue. For the purpose
of illustration, let us consider the supply of timber
as represented by one circle, and the annual consump-
tion by another circle. The circle representing con-
sumption is annually increasing, as the result not
only of increase in population but of a material
increase in per capita consumption of wood.

On the other hand the circle representing supply is
annually decreasing, and unless the forests are reserved
for use, instead of being sacrificed for the sake of the
cost of immediate production of lumber, the circle of
supply, as far as it can be considered a commercial
factor, must disappear. If this be true, all Govern-
ment timber lands should be withdrawn from sale or
entry and placed under conservative forest manage-
ment, all mature timber being for sale, provided proper
protection is given the young timber. In this way, at
least, a partial supply of timber for future generations
can be perpetuated.

THE CHANGED ATTITUDE OF LUMBER-
MEN TOWARD FORESTRY

BY
J. E. DEFEBAUGH

Editor American Lumberman

R ECALLING the history of the lumber industry of

America and of forestry in this country, we are
filled with mingled emotions of pleasure and surprise as
we attend the sessions of this Congress and behold the
character and diversity of this assembly. It reminds
me of the story told by Dr. Henry Van Dyke of the
little girl who asked her father:

“Papa, where were you born?”

“Tn Boston, my dear,” he answered.

“And where was mamma born?”

“In San Francisco, my dear.”

“And where was I born?”

“Tn Philadelphia, my dear.”

“Well,” said the little one, “isn’t it funny how we
three people ever got together!”

There are present, through the most altruistic mo-
tives, not only men to whom forestry is a science and
an occupation, but men whose business is the cutting
of the forest, and men who are neither lumbermen nor
professional foresters, but who occupy high places in
our national life and are interested in the forestry
movement because it is for the national good.

There is to participate in the proceedings of this
convention the most distinguished forester in the nation

104 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

and consequently the most distinguished forester in the
world—the President of the United States.

To him who in the love of nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language—

and Theodore Roosevelt has held communion with
nature possibly more extensively and certainly more
intensively than any of the rest of us here. He has
learned to know nature, and consequently the forests,
from their romantic and practical sides, and he has
demonstrated his practical sympathy with the forestry
movement as has no other in this country.

Another high forester, who has been an efficient
stimulus to forestry and along effective lines, is the
President of the American Forestry Association, the
Secretary of Agriculture, James Wilson. Of him
Senator Mark Hanna, the sincerely lamented _ states-
man from the Buckeye State, said to a great audience
of lumbermen assembled in this city two years ago:

“TWncle Jimmy’ knows his business and he has
taught the people of this country on the farm, in the
forests and in the mines—all of the great productive
interests of the United States—more in the five or six
years he has been at the head of that department than
all the rest of the scores of the departments put
together. He is the right man in the right place.
And it makes no difference what changes may come
in the political atmosphere here, we will keep him here
if we have to run him on a separate ticket.”

Another forester among us, of national reputation,
and a fame peculiarly his own because his work has
been and is largely altruistic, has given a large per-
centage of the present impetus to forest work—Gifford

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 105

Pinchot, the chief forester of the Government. A
man of culture, he has decided to make his life work
one for which not only the present but future genera-
tions will “rise up to call him blessed.”

All within sound of my voice, therefore, are for-
esters; and so I feel some confidence in a kindly
reception of this effort. The subject has been a cause
for comment, not only in the lumber trade but among
all interested in forestry: “The Changed Attitude of
Lumbermen Toward Forestry.”

I think, however, it is hardly adequate to assume
that only the lumberman’s position has changed; the
change has been as great, or greater, in the conditions
surrounding us, and in the attitude and policies of
specialists in forestry.

No reasonable man would be disposed to denounce
the early settlers of the timbered portions of North
America for cutting away the forests. Cleared land
was necessary for the growing of food products which
were essential to the sustenance of life. A man with
a family, by a courageous enterprise or by the force of
circumstances projected into the wilderness, would not
hesitate to cut down and clear off the tree growth as
rapidly as his strength permitted. Self-preservation
is the first law of nature, and the pioneers in our forest
areas had. to clear the land or starve. Moreover, in
the early period of settlement he was considered the
greatest benefactor to the state and to the community
in which he lived who slashed down the most forest
and cleared the land most rapidly and thoroughly.

At first there was no thought of the future value of
timber; at the moment it was a cumberer of the
ground, like ledges of rock and the loose stones of the
glacial drift. It was thought to be a fortunate possi-
bility that a portion of the cumbersome forest growth,

106 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

that must be cleared from the land anyway to make
room for towns, villages, highways, and farms, could
be utilized. Inthe process of clearing farms, if any of
the timber could be sold and shipped to the European
and seaboard markets or used for local improvements
it was a clear gain, profit accruing from a gratuitous
resource, like game from the woods or fish from the
waters. There was no thought that the trees would
in time acquire a distinct and appreciable value simply
because they had become scarce.

Another reason why the early lumberman from his
own viewpoint saw no particular value in standing
timber was that he found it hard work to make a profit
when he had an unlimited privilege to cut all the
timber in sight. In the beginning of operations in the
three northwestern white pine -states—from 1830 to
about 1845—all the mill operators had to do to secure
logs for sawing was to obtain from the Indians the
privilege to cut timber, which permits were usually
sanctioned by the Government. A few goods given
to the Indians were sufficient to secure all the logs
necessary to supply any of the mills of that day. Tim-
ber that would run 60 per cent uppers could be secured
in exchange for whiskey that would run 90 per cent
adulteration.

The early operators penetrated the deep woods far
from settlement, going along the lake shore and up the
rivers 100 or 200 miles from any considerable base of
supplies, and after great hardship and excessive labor,
and often loss by flood and fire, managed to saw a
little lumber in the primitive saw mills of that day and
raft it out to the market. It goes without saying that
these early operators had no thought for the preserva-
tion of the forests. They took the nearest and best
trees for their purpose, as they needs must if they were
to make any profit in their enterprise.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 107

After the pine lands had been surveyed and settle-
ment had developed a general demand for lumber, pine
holdings began to have a specific value—but at first it
was a acreage price at Government figures. It was
cheap property and so esteemed. The main thing with
the lumberman was the expense involved in building
mills, in cleaning out streams for the floating logs,
putting in camps, and all else that was involved in
logging, milling, and marketing.

As to pine stumpage, the mill operators from 1850
to 1880 thought there was no limit to it. Its possible
exhaustion was considered so far in the future as to
be a negligible quantity in the equation. The location
of a mill at an advantageous site for floating logs
down to it and for shipping lumber when produced
was the prime consideration. The investment was in
these things; the value of the raw material on the
stump was the minor factor in the problem.

And yet with stumpage worth but $1.25 an acre
lumbermen found it difficult to make profit in their
business from 1850 to 1857, and, in the latter disastrous
year and the several years following, hundreds of them
in Michigan, Wisconsin, and along the Mississippi
River went to the financial wall. After the civil war
there was a revival, with some few successes and some
slight increase in timber values. In 1873 came another
financial revolution and more depression in the lumber
business, accompanied by many bankruptcies.

Not until 1879-80 did the northern pine business
reach a plane of commercial activity where stumpage
values began to be considered. At that time the pine
owners who had hung on to their stumpage despite
hard times, low prices, and meager profits in lumber
production began to realize that they possessed wealth
in their pine trees. Then standing pine began to be

108 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

closely estimated and the value of an acre of land was
determined by the number of thousands of feet of logs
that could be cut from it. But, as in nearly all cases
where their is an advance of stumpage values, there
was not a commensurate rise in the value of sawed
product. Operators with large holdings of standing
timber were made rich by the advancement in the
value of their stumpage, while they found it necessary
to pursue the strictest business methods and use the
most economical appliances in order to produce lumber
at a profit on the basis of stumpage values. Conse-
quently there followed the utmost utilization of the
pine on a given area of land. As the years passed
standing pine continued to advance in price in greater
ratio than sawed product, and the effort to convert
every possible tree into salable lumber increased. A
great change was induced, a change from the old
method of cutting all the larger trees and those nearest
the water, as was done in the ’40s and ’5os, to the
latter-day practice of scraping the land of every tree
that would produce mechantable lumber, down to those
that would turn out only a 4x4, with possibly bark on
one or more corners of the piece. Sometimes have
been cut in this way trees whose product would not
pay the saw bill. Yet there was produced from them
a product useful to the community at large which from
the lumberman’s point of view would have been wasted
had they been left in the woods, and his natural desire
for thrift and economy led him beyond the point where
his operations would result in profit to himself.

The development of railroad logging has also had
its notable influence in this direction. The expense of
building logging railroads into the timber is so great
that only comparatively solid bodies of timber will
carry it. When the merchantable timber is taken out

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 109

the road is also taken up and moved elsewhere; and it
is desirable that before this is done the logging shall be
thoroughly completed. Under such conditions it often
is very unlikely that even if the smaller trees be left
upon the tract there will ever again be a sufficient stand
of timber to justify the rebuilding of the logging road.

The point aimed at in this cursory review of the
evolution of the pine lumber industry is to show that
the lumbermen all along pursued a strenuous course in
their endeavor to make a profit in their business. In
their enterprise they had to be pioneers in a vast wil-
derness; they had to cover wide extents of territory
in carrying out their plans; they were forced to clear
out streams, build dams, put in booms, erect mills, and
latterly construct railroads, build and purchase vessels,
equip lines of barges, and establish docks—all of
which required capital and necessitated great economy,
business acumen, and thoroughness in order to secure
profit in operation. It was a business that required
much money and credit and considerable time before
any profitable results could accrue. Is it any wonder,
then, that the lumbermen looked upon their stumpage,
or any stumpage, as merely raw material from which,
if conditions were favorable, they could extract a
money profit?

Fifty years ago in this country a general application
of forestry methods would have been absurd. There
were some cases where forests in particular places
should have been preserved, but up to that time and
even later the forest as a whole was an encumbrance.
In the eastern part of the United States, which had the
people, not only the lumberman but the settler also was
engaged in removing the forest, with the difference,
however, that the settler was making little or no use
of it, but merely destroying it to get it out of his way.

iio PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Modern civilization cannot exist in the shade nor
live on mast. The forests had to be cleared away in
order to give place for growing corn and wheat. So
there was the peculiar combination of dependence upon
the forests for fuel and building supplies and at the
same time the obligation to remove them to make room
for other crops. The lumberman, therefore, was not
a devastator, but performed a useful function in the
community at a profit to himself by removing that
which had, as it stood, little or no value. The public
cannot with justice condemn the lumberman for chop-
ping down the trees when it recalls the conspicuous
example set by the Father of his Country.

Furthermore, until recent years the Government,
which owned the forests in the unused areas of the
United States, placed no special value on them. It
invited acquisition by any one, including the lumber-
man ; consequently the lumbermen came into possession
of much of the timbered area and practically all the
pine, hemlock, and similar woods which grow in solid
forests. ‘There was thus set up a property interest
which had to be treated like any other private interest.
Many had their fortunes invested in timber and the
only way in which they could realize on the investment
was by manufacture.

It is true that with recent years standing timber has
come into greater prominence as an opportunity for
investment, and there are now large holdings in the
hands of capitalists who have never owned nor
operated a saw mill and perhaps never expect to do
so. Such owners hold their timber for an enhancement
of values as would an investor in real estate, but they
expect to hold only so long as it seems more profitable
to hold than to sell. They are not holding their timber
for posterity, but only for the best marketing oppor-

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS III

tunity. The same question of present versus future
markets confronts the timber owner who is also a
manufacturer, modified somewhat by the inclination to
keep the mill in operation. It determines somewhat
the capacity of the mill to be built upon a given site
with a known amount of tributary timber, and after
it is built determines whether the output shall be
restricted or pushed to the limit according to the cur-
rent market demands. That is the point of view of
any other owner of pine timber or of any other sort
of timber that has tangible value. The tree represents
a definite asset to be converted at the earliest favorable
opportunity, and without reference to any possible
interest that posterity might have in its being per-
mitted to remain on the stump.

The increase in value of all timber holdings within
recent years makes advocacy of forest preservation,
as far as merchantable timber is concerned, properly
a plea for so managing the forest as to get the greatest
amount of commercial product from it at the present
time without impairing any more than necessary its
productive capacity for the future. The holder of a
timber estate is actuated by exactly the same consid-
erations as the holder of other property—he wishes it
to produce more money than he has put in. If he can
be convinced that the timber is such that its growth
will give him greater earnings on his investment than
its cutting at the present time he may be induced to
hold it; but he is not likely to let his forest stand solely
for the benefit of posterity, or unless it is practically
shown that this procedure will lead to enhancement in
the value of his estate. In so far, however, as the
timber is already matured the time of its harvest is
already at hand. The owner, of course, desires to
harvest it in the most economical manner; and if

112 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

timber owners and lumbermen can be instructed in this
particular and induced to practice timber management
in accordance with the plan advocated by trained for-
esters much will be accomplished in the direction of
prolonging existing timber supplies. But it should
be admitted by everybody that the money value of
standing timber will inevitably determine the disposi-
tion of it, except where it has been reserved by the
Government.

If there has been any tardiness in recognizing the
necessity for forest regulation and reforestation it
should be understood that the forestry idea has been
slow in gaining ground even with a disinterested gen-
eral public, a fact chargeable neither to the lumbermen
nor to the forestry advocates.

We have heard much of the “wasteful methods” of
the lumbermen, but in the early days of lumbering
there was no waste that was not necessary, or, rather,
no waste that was not more economical than to save.
No property owner can afford to spend dollars when
he will receive only cents in return. Under the condi-
tions, the waste in tree tops, tall stumps, thick slabs,
edgings, and trimmings and much sawdust was, from
a financial standpoint, no waste at all. The lumbermen
did with their property only what would yield the best
returns.

To an industry established on such a basis there
came the advocate of forest preservation. Originally
—during the early agitation of the subject and up to
within fifteen or twenty years—forestry advocates
were manly of two classes, either sentimentalists or
technicists ; the latter being trained in the forest meth-
ods of the old European countries where conditions
were entirely different from those that obtained in
the United States. The former scolded or tearfully
implored, while the latter proposed the impossible.

AMERICAN Forest CoNncRESS 113

Listening to the abuse that was showered upon
them; to the seemingly impracticable theories; to the ~
petitions which, if granted, would have wiped out their
properties, is it any wonder that lumbermen were at
first indifferent or even were aroused to hostility?
Some of them were incensed, others threatening, and
others were amused by unjust criticism.

Beware the wicked lumberman,

That wasteful, hasteful artisan.

But while the logger you discuss

A glance take at the rest of us—
The camper with his cheery blaze
That blows around in many ways;
The hunting man with pillar bright
Of smoke by day and fire by night;
The farmer with his log heap high,
His stump-fire when the weather’s dry,
His fancy, solid walnut fence—

He worries not about expense.

Oh, when the logger you condemn
Consider well the rest of them.
Consider the farmer of the field

Who loves the flaming torch to wield;
The campers toil not, neither spin,
Yet pretty blazes they begin—

Nor Solomon, in all his ease,

Burned money up like one of these!

However, a change in conditions was going on. Up
to the point where the natural growth of the forest
would more than take care of the needs of a community
the surplus was valueless and would better be disposed
of in some manner than preserved at any material cost.
But when we reached the stage where the forests were

114 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

reduced to the point where the natural annual increase
would not more than take care of the present and
prospective needs of the country, then values advanced
and the lumbermen have come to see some practicality
in the proposition that methods of forest preservation
should be introduced.

Like all methods that effect great changes in society
or economics, the forestry idea in the United States
has been an evolution. It must be confessed that
foresters of the present day discard some theories
that were considered important by American forestry
experts of thirty years ago.

There’s that dear old rainfall theory once held in such
esteem

By which a dampness was produced by such a simple
scheme.

As Aaron smote the rock of old and found a water
power

So might we plant a tamarack and start a summer
shower.

Behold the forester of old, the optimistic fellah—

A planting trowel in one hand, in the other an umbrella.

Our duty is not particularly to refrain from chop-
ping down trees ripe for the ax ,but to be active in
replacing them. Coincident with this duty is that of
cutting only mature timber, where that is possible,
and of guarding timber tracts from fires and other
destructive agencies that often are due to carelessness.

There is nothing truer than the old saying that you
cannot eat your cake and have it, yet it never restrained
very many people from eating the cake, for the cake
must be eaten to be enjoyed. The thing to do is not

AMERICAN Forest CoNnGRESS 115

to weep over the cake after it has disappeared, but to
get out the recipe book and make another.

No one will question the soundness of the lumber-
man’s belief that his method gets the greatest use out
of the tree. Though the old theory is now seriously
questioned if the standing tree encourages the summer
shower, the sawed shingle is necessary to protect the
head of the man from the thunder storm. Nothing in
the world can suffer a better fate than utilization.
When the tomato was the ruddy “love apple” of our
youth it was a beautiful object, but who will deny the
more potent attraction of the tomato stew? We are
compelled to admit that the mature tree must come
down. Once down, that particular tree is eliminated.
I am reminded of the question asked of the Swiss
guide by the tourist. He was gazing over the edge of
the precipice and remarked to the guide: “I suppose
people often fall from here?” “No,” replied the guide,
“only once.” <A tree is felled but once and the next
and only thing is to replace it where that is practicable.

That there has been a change of heart within recent
years on the part of American lumbermen toward the
forestry idea there can be no doubt. If you should
ask me to what I ascribe this sentiment I would say
that the most important step forward was made by the
disciples of forestry when they ceased to preach the
doctrine of indirect and deferred benefits and began to
demonstrate that direct benefits could be made to result
from forestry as a science and as a practice. Proper
forestry regulations and successful reforestation can
~ never be brought about except by a demonstration of
direct results. All that has been said about the influ-
ence of forests on climatic conditions, on watersheds,
bird life, etc., may be, much of it is, absolutely true,
but the great and vital question that appeals to the

116 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

American lumberman is: “How can I cut my timber
now and at the same time grow a new timber crop for
future supply?”

Inasmuch as my intereest in the forestry movement
began contemporaneously with my identity with the
lumber press, many reminiscences occur to me in con-
nection with the subject which time does not permit
me to indulge in; but I do not know that I could better
illustrate the progress which has been made during the
last decade than by giving a few brief excerpts from
an address which I made upon this subject during the
proceedings of a forestry congress at Chicago in the
summer of 1893, arranged by Hon. W. I. Buchanan,
chief of the Forestry Department of the World’s
Columbian Exposition. Regarding the attitude of the
lumberman at the time, I said:

“He is as heartily in accord with all movements
looking toward the welfare of the coming generation
as.any one can be who *;:* * has to maken:
living in this, .* .* .* Talk to him-as a,cetimengen
a philanthropist and you at once gain cordial attention
and arouse his interest in a way, which as far as the
exigencies of his business will permit, will be reflected
by his actions, but as a lumberman he is face to face
with the hard actualities of life. He sees the practical
side perhaps all too plainly, but that practical side
cannot be ignored. The present is an overpowering
fact, while the future has but a shadowy influence.”

In that address I referred to the then almost irre-
sistible incentives to the employment of lumbering
methods wasteful from the standpoint of the forester
but inevitable in the stress of competition, and admitted
our absolute dependence for forestry results upon
governmental control. Upon this I said in part:

“The lumberman will have no objections to govern-

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS Gey,

mental regulations which shall require him to clear of
the debris remaining therefrom the land on which he
conducts his logging operations; but he would insist
that such regulations shall be * * * applied
impartially to all sections, as otherwise an artificial
inequality would be brought about. State regulations
will hardly answer, for stringent enforcement of rules
in Wisconsin may put the operator in that state out of
competition with his competitor in Minnesota or Mich-
Leo a a eile

“This the Government can do: It can refuse to sell
or give up control of timber standing on Government
land. It can perhaps, even now, gain some small
revenue from allowing timber to be cut under proper
restrictions, for which a royalty shall be paid. * * *
It is possible that the Government might purchase
standing timber so located that its preservation might
have some marked effect on the watersheds and natural
reservoirs of the country, but it is doubtful if even this
rich nation could do much in this direction.”

What the Federal Government has accomplished
since that time in the establishment of forest reserves
and in arranging for the lumbering of the mature
timber from certain of them under forestry regulations
is a matter of history. It is to be regretted that thus
far no attempt has seemed feasible to compel the clean-
ing up of forest debris in lumbering operations upon
private holdings. Such a law universally enforced
would effect a decreased loss through forest fires which
would more than pay the increased cost of operation.

Regarding the application of forestry methods to
lumbering I said at that time:

“What is wanted is a commercial conservation of
the forests, but this involves conditions so different
from those now prevailing that it is difficult to see

E

118 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

how any immediate headway can be made. But agita-
tion for anything theoretically desirable is a good
thing, for the dream of one generation is the reality
of the next. Conditions are shifting fast in this new
country of ours and the next fifty years are likely to
show great changes in fundamental things.

“The time is comparatively near at hand when the
virgin wealth will all be exhausted or closed to the
pioneer, and when the conservator must take the place
of the developer and promoter. It is therefore not too
soon to begin the study of this important subject of
forestry, as perhaps before we are aware of it the
conditions may have so changed that what now has its
existence only in theory may have been materialized
into concrete form.”

During the eleven years that have passed since that
time the cause of forestry has made great headway
under the intelligent direction of the Bureau of For-
estry, although that bureau has been until very recently
handicapped by a division of its natural duties between
three branches of government lacking intelligent cen-
tralized control. It has, however, brought the practical
and the theoretical into more harmonious relations
with each other and has promoted a broader and deeper
understanding of all the elements which enter into the
problem and has prepared all of those who are inter-
ested in the subject for effective co-operation. What
has been accomplished is much; it is hardly more than
preliminary and preparatory for the actual work of the
next decade.

I want to call your attention to the fact that the
inhabitants of great timber states have not been
unmindful of this question. They have viewed with
concern the rapid disappearance of their woods, and
have to a large degree come to a realization of the

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 119

serious meaning of the annihilation of their forests.
Neither are the men who are engaged in the lumber
industry unmindful of the seriousness of the situation.
Within a few years there has been a marked change
among lumber operators in this respect. This has
~ come about largely because of the increased wealth
and intelligence of the men who now control a large
percentage of the merchantable timber of the country.
Lumbermen in the old days struggled for a mere
existence; in these modern times many of them have
emerged from the status of the pioneer to that of the
well-to-do business man; many are legislators, nearly
all are men of affairs in other lines than lumber, and
in point of intelligence and broadness of view they
rank with any other class of people in the country. It
is impossible that such men should not realize the
importance and benefit expressed in the term “for-
estry.” They are in favor of forest reserves, properly
administered, in certain portions of the country where
such reserves will do the most good. They indorse
the wisest and most thorough economy in the manage-
ment of their own forest holdings. They would be
glad of any plan for economical cutting and marketing
that would be an improvement on present methods.
Indeed the tentative efforts that have been made in
these directions by owners of yellow pine stumpage in
the south prove this. ‘These owners have seen how
northern pine has been slaughtered to near exhaustion
and wish to avoid such a precipitate, headlong rush
toward the end.

The fact that there was in the past season almost
unanimous cooperation among yellow pine manufac-
turers, and is now among Pacific coast producers, to
curtail the mill output to coincide with the actual
demand, shows that there has been an awakening to
the evil of sacrificing timber by forcing the sawed

120 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

product on the market to the extent of breaking down
values and causing unprofitable prices. It is true a
commercial motive enters here to prevent the slaugh-
tering of the forests, but the result is the same. In
one sense there are no purely unselfish motives
touching economical questions. Even the disciples of
forestry wish to preserve, propagate, and perpetuate
the forests because the results would be of economic
benefit to mankind. The underlying motive is the
benefit that largely can be expressed in dollars and
cents. So it is an encouraging sign to see the lumber-
men awakening to the fact that it is to their individual
interests and to the interests of their heirs to make the
most of their timber by the prolongation of cutting and
by the preservation and nurture of the young growth.
In this awakening they are in direct accord with the
most advanced forester. Moreover, it can be said that
the present spirit of the lumbermen in respect to for-
estry is but a foretaste of what it will be as the years
pass. Forestry is a cause that shall grow in earnestness
and power until it shall have become the undisputed
dictum as applied to the management of the woodlands.
In saying this I believe that I voice the faith that is
erowing in the minds of intelligent lumbermen.

Let it not be supposed that the lumberman is any
less public-spirited, any less a sentimentalist, than he
who is engaged in any other line of business. He sees
as much beauty in a noble oak or elm as does any one.
He would preserve nature’s landmarks if he did not
have to pay all the cost himself. He sees the value of
a forest cover on the mountain slopes and at the head
of the waters of the streams. He sees all these things
but he does not wish to pay, himself, the entire cost or
more than his fair share of the cost. His attitude
toward forestry has changed with the conditions, and,
while there may be exceptions, the average operating

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS I2I

lumber manufacturer is disposed to show the Govern-
ment that he will be satisfied (if the Government will
hold and care for the forests) with buying from the
Government the surplus timber.

I could paint a glowing picture of the great interest
that has been aroused in forestry, augmented by the
individual work and advice of the Bureau of Forestry
and its able and efficient head, Gifford Pinchot; but I
surmise that you want a true picture of actual opera-
tions and to know to what extent they conform to
accepted forestry practice. I wish I were able to
report that 90 per cent of the lumbermen of the country
cut their timber in accordance with rules supplied by
Mr. Pinchot and his assistants. It would be gratifying
to me to say that 75 per cent did this; that 50 per cent
did! that 25 per cent did. Throughout the country
from the Atlantic to the Pacific from the Lakes to the
Gulf, I find but a few isolated cases, and most of these
of comparatively recent origin. Why? Because here-
tofore it has not been practicable. While this is true
to-day a far different story can and doubtless will be
told five or ten years hence. It is not so important
that two or three lumbermen have been induced to
make a start as that all are being educated and pre-
pared for a general movement in this direction in the
fullness of time. During the last few years the Bureau
of Forestry has received requests from several lumber
concerns for plans for cutting their timber so as to
insure a future supply. These plans, except as above
stated, have not yet been put into operation, because
conditions have not been such as to warrant it. But
the opening has been made. Lumbermen realize that
not only is it possible to carry on their work in this
manner but circumstances are so adjusting themselves
that it is imperative that it shall so be done.

The lumbermen of the country have keen interest

122 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

in the work which has already been done by the Bureau
of Forestry, and in other practical features of its work
which have been hardly more than initiated. They
appreciate the bureau’s investigation of the results of
grazing in forest reserves, the prevention and extin-
guishment of forest fires, etc. They are, and will be,
quickly responsive to any practical appeals along
forestry lines. They particularly appreciate practical
work, as that, for instance, shown by the bureau at the
Louisiana Purchase Exposition in determining the rel-
ative values and costs of different methods of the
preservation of timber and ties; its exhaustive and
reliable tests of the strengths of various commercial
woods, and especially its eminently practical studies of
timber diseases, and the causes of and remedies for
blue stain, one of the most prolific sources of trouble to
lumbermen during the past thirty years. The bulletin
which has been issued upon this subject, entitled “The
Blue Diseases of Western Yellow Pine,” is therefore
of eminently practical interest; and, indeed, all the
bulletins of the Bureau of Forestry have reached a
higher level of practical usefulness than ever before in
its history. Full many a publication bearing the stamp
of the Government Printing Office is sent out to gush
unread and waste its wisdom on the musty air of attic
or cellar, but the additional imprint of the Bureau of
Forestry is a most infallible prophecy of a welcome
from an interested reader.

Perhaps in this connection better than elsewhere can
be illustrated a phase of the change in attitude of lum-
bermen and those in allied trades toward forestry
methods. ‘Twenty years, even a decade ago, lumber-
men had a nebulous idea of governmental forestry
work. Most of them regarded it with careless toler-
ance as the labor of impractical experimentalists. The
reverse was the condition at the recent world’s fair.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 123

The exhibits in the great Forestry building, and its
outlying forest planting area, attracted widespread
attention and proved instructive to the lay observer ;
but the lumbermen and their allies, the great lumber
consumers—railroad lumber consumers, manufactur-
ing consumers, and the builders of great structures—
while interested in these things, already more or less
familiar to them, found their inspiration and instruction
largely in the experimental station in the Mining Gulch
conducted by the Bureau of Forestry. Here were
congregated every day of the exposition the high
officials of the railroad companies, the great lumber
consumers, such as the proprietors of agricultural
implement works, hardwood consumers seeking sub-
stitutes for woods constantly enhancing in price,
manufacturers and users of the soft woods searching
for enlightenment on methods of preservation and
other economic questions. No more complete tribute
could have been paid to the work of the bureau and
possibly no better illustration can be cited of the change
in attitude toward practical forestry:

I would not say to man: “Forbear

To use the things God putteth here.”

I would not say to man: “Restrain

Thy wish for wealth, thy greed for gain.”
But rather would I say to man:

“Use its fruition of a plan;

Take then these gifts God giveth thee—
The golden fruit, the mighty tree,

All pleasant things the fields produce —
And render them to proper use;

And, in return, one thing I ask,

One simple, easy, proper task:

That which from nature you efface
With its own seedling life replace.”

IS FORESTRY PRACTICABLE ON LONG-
LEAF PINE LANDS?
BY
JOHN L. KAUL

President Kaul Lumber Company of Alabama

a HE, subject assigned to me is “The Practicability

of Forestry on Longleaf Pine Lands.” My
acquaintance with the Southern pine belt has extended
over a period of seventeen years. During that time I
have constantly observed the deplorable effect upon the
forest of lumbering without regard to the future.
My experience with the actual application of forestry
to longleaf pine lands, however, has been limited to
the tracts in which I am particularly interested. I
have thought, therefore, that the Congress would be
more interested to hear of the plans which have been
made for the management of the forest on these
lands and of the results which have thus far been
attained.

I shall deal directly, therefore, with the timber
lands of the Kaul Lumber Company, and what forestry
offers for them.

These lands are located in central Alabama, and
comprise mainly a forest of pure longleaf pine. Situ-
ated at a rather unusual elevation for the species, and
on the extreme north of its range, the timber is,
nevertheless, equal to the best in the more widely
known pineries of the Atlantic Coast and nearer the
Gulf. The fine quality of the timber and the char-
acter of the market which the product reaches has
enabled the company to make a specialty of the choice
grades of finishing and edge-grain flooring.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 125

The company has lumbered about 25,000 acres in
a county adjoining that in which a portion of its
present holdings are located, and where conditions
are very similar. These cut-over lands had no general
value for agriculture and were without satisfactory
market value for other purposes. Their best use is
for the growing of timber. A large amount of
small timber was left standing on these lands after
lumbering, because it did not pay to handle it. As
a result, however, of ordinary methods of logging,
the timber thus left was not sufficient in amount nor
in a conditions to promise another cut of timber
within a reasonable period and was an absolute waste.
This prompted the company to give serious considera-
tion to the practicability of introducing modifications
in the method of lumbering which would insure the
leaving, in good condition, of a sufficient basis for
another crop of timber. It was at this time that the
Kaul Lumber Company availed itself of the offer of
the Bureau of Forestry to cooperate with private
owners in the conservative management of their
timber lands, and a working plan was prepared for
the management of the forest in accordance with
which the lumbering is now being done.

At the present rate of production, the company will
lumber over its holdings in about twenty years’ time.
The kernel of the problem was, therefore, to so adjust
matters that at the end of this period a second crop
might be ready for cutting and lumbering might
continue without interruption. What the company
particularly wanted, then, were the measurements
necessary to show with a fair degree of accuracy the
rate of growth of the important tree—the longleaf
pine—under the conditions obtaining on its cut-over
lands, the rate of increase in material, and also in

126 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

money per acre per annum, and the return on the
capital invested in the land and that portion of the
merchantable timber which it would be necessary to
hold over until a second cutting.

Actual measurement of the forest on 5 per cent.
of the lands developed the fact that by curtailing the
present cut by less than 20 per cent. the company
could, after twenty years, again obtain an amount
equal to 45 per cent. of the present cut. This at the
present value of stumpage, figuring at compound
interest, is a 2 per cent. investment, but assuming a
rise in stumpage value to $5, it is a 6 per cent.
investment. Should the value of stumpage reach $10
per thousand, which we confidently believe will be the
case, the value of the timber in twenty years’ time
will represent an investment of 10 per cent: Included
in the calculation is a liberal allowance for the value
of the land and of the timber held over, and for
taxes, and cost of protection.

This assumption of a rise in the value of yellow
pine stumpage leads to certain general considerations
which influence the practicability of forestry, and
brings in a speculative feature of the lumber business
in the South. It is only recently that economic
conditions have justified the yellow pine lumberman
in considering seriously the possibility of holding his
cut-over lands to lumber a second time. Up to a
comparatively recent date the value of pine stumpage
in the South was exceedingly low; means of transpor-
tation to market were unsatisfactory; the market
itself was restricted and uncertain; and competition
with Northern pine was keen. Of late years, however,
the development of Southern timberlands has been
phenomenal. The growing scarcity of longleaf pine
and the steadily increasing demand for it renders

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 127

certain a further rise in its stumpage value. Many
lumbermen who acquire stumpage at 50 cents per
thousand now credit it in their operations with $2.50
to $3.50, and believe that in twenty years it will have
a value of at least $10 per thousand. This probable
rise in the value of longleaf pine stumpage is the
obvious reason for the existence of companies which
hold large timber tracts, but do not operate them.

Just here it will be well to emphasize a point which
has an important bearing upon the calculations of
the financial results of lumbering longleaf pine
conservatively. The timber which the Kaul Lumber
Company leaves standing after lumbering, consists
entirely of small trees below 18 inches in diameter
on the stump, the value of which is considerably below
the average run of the forest. Every tree contains
more or less material which produces lumber of so
low a grade that it hardly pays the cost of manufacture,
but the smaller trees saw out the grades of low value
in far greater proportion than the larger trees.

In connection with the preparation of a detailed plan
for the conservative management of the company’s
timber lands, an extensive investigation was made
in our saw mill at Hollins, Ala., to determine the
amounts and comparative values of the grades which
trees of different sizes will produce. The result of
this experiment proved conclusively the relatively low
value of the lumber produced from small trees, and
was an important factor in influencing the company
to lumber conservatively—in other words, it went
still farther to establish the bad business policy of
putting small trees into the mill, rather than leaving
them to reach a more profitable size.

I have found that in forestry, as well as in lumbering,
close attention to details is the key to success, and

128 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

often marks the difference between conservative and
destructive lumbering. A general lack of appreciation
among the woodsmen of the value of the raw material,
coupled with an entire disregard of the potential value
of immature trees, leads naturally to many forms of
excessive waste. Stringent rules and constant super-
vision are necessary to enforce careful work in the
woods.

On our lands we have developed a system of
markings for cuttings which is cheap and effective.
Instead of marking all to be left standing or all trees
to be cut, we mark to be left standing only those trees
slightly below the diameter limit; for example, if we
are logging to 18 inches, we rok to be left standing
ineés from 12 to. 17 inches which might otherwise be
cut. It is obvious that the marking of smaller trees
is not necessary, since they would not be taken in any
case. Under this system the markings cost us approxi-
mately 3 cents per acre.

Great care is taken in the fellings not to oe or
otherwise injure the small growing timber. Trees
are thrown away from clumps of promising young
growth, and slash is not allowed to accumulate around
trees which are left standing—a precaution necessary
to avoid damage in case of slash fires.

In our railroad construction we avoid as much as
possible the use of longleaf pine; not only that which
is merchantable at present, but those trees which will
become merchantable within the next twenty years.
On our main line longleaf pine ties are still used, but
they are either sawn at the mill from rough and
knotty top logs, or they are hewn from dead and |
down timber throughout the forest. Ties for the
temporary spurs are hewn from valueless hardwoods.
For corduroy and cribbing, defective pine is used, and

AMERICAN Forest CoNGRESS 129

this only when hardwood of proper dimensions is not
available. ‘The logging engines burn either coal or
pine knots, or wood cut from tops; no live timber is
cut for fuel. The use of tops, both in logging opera-
tions and for fuel, is encouraged, for this not only
saves much valuable timber, but cleans up the slash
and reduces the danger from fire.

Except where extra length is required to fill special
bills, it is a rule to cut short logs in 12 to 16-foot
lengths. This makes it possible to work the trees well
up into the tops, and uses the timber much more closely
than is commonly done in longleaf pine logging where
log lengths of 25 to 36 feet are out and often a very
large amount of merchantable material is left on the
ground in tops.

Tapping for turpentine has been a fruitful cause
of destruction in forests of longleaf pine. With the
greatly increased demand for naval stores, it has
become customary all over the South to box the
smallest trees for turpentine. After a few years an
abandoned turpentine orchard is a scene of utter ruin.
The loss entailed to the productive capacity of the
forest is enormous. Improved methods of turpentin-
ing are suggested which greatly limit the boxing and
chipping of the trees. Small credence will be placed
in their effectiveness in avoiding deterioration of the
forest, especially by the lumberman who has seen in
thousands of cases the loss in lumber value through
the after effects of fire and decay which has resulted
from the mere notching of trees to test their grain.
On our lands turpentining has been limited absolutely
to the trees which will be cut for the saw mill, and we
turpentine only two years in advance of lumbering.
The same mark indicates the trees which are not to be
turpentined nor cut for lumber. As long as tapping

130 . PROCEEDINGS OF THE

for turpentine is confined to those trees which will
within the next two years be cut for sawlogs, damage
to the timber is improbable, and the question of the
advisability of boxing for turpentine is reduced to
one of present profits. Whether the revenue derived
from turpentine or from the lease of boxing rights
exceeds the loss from the deterioration of the timber
before it can be cut is a question which, in my judg-
ment, depends very largely upon the promptness with
which logging can be made to follow the orcharding.

In conclusion I want to say a word about the
methods of the Bureau of Forestry as I know them
on the ground, and regarding, from my own expe-
rience, the opportunity which cooperative work with
that Bureau offers to lumbermen. The working plan
for our lands, which, I am told, you will soon have
an opportunity to see in the form of a bulletin of the
Bureau of Forestry, has pleased me greatly. It has
taken up in a direct and practical way the business
considerations which the best management of the forest
presents.

I am free to confess that I turned to forestry with
some doubts. I was not entirely sure that its policy,
admirable in the abstract, concerns itself sufficiently
with business considerations to be of real use to the ©
actual operator, but in taking up, on our own ground,
the forest problems which confronted us, the Bureau
of Forestry has demonstrated, on our tract at least,
the eminently practical character of its work.

I have been struck for a long time, and with in-
creasing force, with the fact that the lumber industry
deserves recognition in the scientific work of the Gov-
ernment just as much as the work of the farmer and
the stockman. We lumberman represent as a whole
the fourth greatest industry of the United States, and

AMERICAN ForEst CONGRESS 131

it is upon our use of the forests, the experts tell us,
that the national prosperity largely depends. In the
Bureau of Forestry, I have found that recognition
of the lumber interests which it was my opinion that
the Government should offer. I wish, simply because
we have profited by the work of this Bureau, to urge
upon you your opportunity to take advantage of the
same offer of cooperation which has benefited us.

IS FORESTRY PRACTICABLE IN THE
NORTHWEST ?
BY
VICTOR H. BECKMAN

Editor Pacific Lumber Trade Journal

‘THE Committee on Arrangements honored me

by assigning me the question of “Is Forestry
Practicable in the Northwest?” This is a pretty diffi-
cult subject, from the purely commercial standpoint,
but one that admits, nevertheless, of much thought and
study by the constituency I represent.

Lumbering is the chief industry of the Pacific
Northwest, comprising the States of Washington,
Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, and the province of
British Columbia. In this vast section, bounded on
the north by Alaska, on the south by California, on
the west by the boundless Pacific Ocean, and on the
east by the Rocky Mountains, are upward of 165,000
men employed in the destruction of the “last and best
stand of timber,” for commercial uses, to whom are
paid annually in wages approximately $75,000,000,
and upon whose labor depends the bread and butter
of nearly 400,000 people. The annual output in this
territory is about 5,000,000,000 feet of lumber and
6,000,000,000 shingles.

The amount of accessible timber in the Pacific
Northwest is about 400,000,000,000 feet. Forest fires,
owing’ to lax methods and laws, have destroyed as
much timber as has been cut by the lumbermen, and
the result of the depletion by man and the elements
is apparent in the fact that the best timber contiguous
to water and railroad has in many instances been cut

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 133

off, and logging railroads are yearly being introduced
for the purpose of going further into the heart of the
forest. Much timber is annually destroyed by the
ranchers, who burn off large areas for clearing pur-
poses. The time, therefore, is not far off when the
logging operations must be transferred to the moun-
tains. Therefore the shrewd lumberman is giving
some thought to preserving the existing forests and
the propagation of new timber.

Reproduction of trees without assistance is a slow
process and not entirely successful. The greatest
commercial wood in the Pacific Northwest is Douglas
fir. This occurs in vast bodies and is intermingled
with spruce, hemlock, and red cedar. The great belt
of spruce lies on the west side of the coast range of
mountains, the finest area of red cedar is found in
the northwestern portion of the State of Washington,
and British Columbia, and apparently ceases after it
passes the Columbia River. Hemlock is found with
fir, spruce, and cedar, and is more of a general char-
acter than the two latter woods. In Eastern Wash-
ington, Idaho, and Montana the principal commercial
woods are white and yellow pine and tamarack—all
reproducing readily. In Southern Oregon sugar pine
appears and is a continuation of the belt having its
origin in California.

Observation shows that in seven cases out of ten,
when Douglas fir is cut, the reproduction is hemlock,
an inferior wood, commercially speaking, although
superior to the Pennsylvania variety. Where the
ground has been burned over by forest fires many
years elapse before the soil becomes sufficiently nutri-
tious to reproduce its species. Where hemlock is
found intermingled with fir it becomes necessary to
cut the former at once, because when left without

134 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

the sheltering shade of the fir it soon dies and decays.

There has been no systematic effort in the direction
of tree planting in this section, the aim being rather
to preserve the standing timber from forest fires and
waste in cutting. Two years ago the writer took up the
matter of an effective forest fire law, and the result
was the passage of an act by the legislature of the
State of Washington making it a penalty to set fires
during the closed season, without permits from the
county commissioners. The law has worked very well,
but it is in need of enforcement, and to this end it is
quite probable a State fire warden will be appointed at
the coming session of the legislature. Oregon and
Montana are also awake to the needs of ample forest
fire protection and will probably enact proper laws
before long.

The waste in the woods and mills amount annually
to about 25 per cent.; or, in other words, about
I,000,000,000 feet per annum is burned in the woods
or the refuse burners, because there is no market
available for the by-products. This is equivalent to
100,000 dwellings. Distance from market and prohibi-
tive freights are responsible for this waste. For
example, the Missouri River territory, composed of
Nebraska, Kansas, and South Dakota, consume an-
nually 162,000 car loads of lumber products, of which
the Pacific coast contributes 9,165 car loads annually,
and although the difference in the haul from Portland
to St. Paul and Omaha is only one mile, it costs $15
per 1,000 freight on lumber sold at the mill for $5 to
ship same to Omaha, as against $12 per 1,000 feet to
St. Paul. Consequently the side lumber is burned.

Forestry is practicable in the Pacific Northwest.
The standing timber is its greatest crop—a crop that
can be harvested at any time, and is not dependent on

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 135
climatic changes. It should be propagated as well as
preserved. Individuals will not do it, and the burden
will fall on the State and Federal Government. It
occurs to me that if it were possible to enact laws
similar to those in force in Germany and Sweden,
where the lumberman is compelled to plant a tree
for every one cut down, the question of the future
supply of timber would take care of itself. In some
of the European countries, I am told, the State encour-
ages the planting of trees on waste places by children,
at certain times of the year, where each public school
scholar plants a tree, and the idea of forest culture
and preservation is one of the studies of the public
school system. This idea would be worthy of emula-
tion in the United States. Logged off lands should
be looked after by a State forester, and should be
re-seeded as soon as cut off. In the desert places
effort should be made to plant suitable trees with the
view not only to timber but other useful purposes.
For example, there are large areas of treeless land
in Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and Montana, where
walnut, cherry and other valuable varieties of trees
would grow to perfection. The road commissioners
should make it their duty to plant trees along the
roadways and a special fund provided for this purpose.
This is as important as good roads.

Care should be taken by the State and Federal Gov-
ernment to protect the headwaters of streams.. The
source of water depends on the preservation of forests.
In Spain, the reckless cutting of trees at the head-
waters of streams many years ago has converted large
sections of fertile lands into arid deserts, and the same
is true elsewhere. Trees and vegetation hold moisture
and prevent floods and thus create a steady and perma-
nent flow of water to irrigate the parched soil and
induce fertility in place of drouth.

136 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Scientific forestry will create permanent wealth for
the Pacific Northwest. It means much to the entire
commonwealth because it will not only solve the ques-
tion of reproduction, but can make the desert bloom,
thus adding to the welfare of the people and creating
productive land for the new settlers in the semi-arid
sections of our country. In this the burden must be
shared by all. The railroads should plant trees along
their right of way, the lumbermen should replant his
logged-off area, the farmer should set aside a portion
of his holdings for tree culture, the road commis-
sioners should provide for shade and comfort along
the country roads, the State should encourage arbor
days and teach the rising generation the value of
forestry, and the Government should endeavor to
demonstrate in a practical way the necessity for pre-
serving the forests.

_ There is no question so broad and so worthy of the

attention of the people at large as the one of forestry,
and it is indeed a good omen when so distinguished
a man as our worthy President, Theodore Roosevelt,
takes an interest in it. The lumbermen of the Pacific
Northwest are his “kind of people.”

INTEREST OF LUMBERMEN IN CON-
SER VALIVE FORESTRY

BY
PoE. WEYERHAEUSER

Weyerhaeuser Lumber Company

PRACTICAL forestry ought to be of more interest

and importance to lumbermen than to any other
class of men. Unfortunately, they have not always
appreciated this fact. There has been a firmly rooted
idea that forestry was purely theoretical and incapable
of application in a business way; a prejudice which,
in large part through the influence of the Bureau of
Forestry, is now beginning to disappear. At present
lumbermen are ready to consider seriously any propo-
sition which may be made by those who have the
conservative use of the forests at heart.

Lumbermen have been averse also to uniting their
interests with those of the government, because of a
doubt of the business efficiency of some of the Govern-
ment’s work, and this in spite of the fact, which they
recognize, that every possible step should be taken to
protect the national land and timber from depreda-
tions.

The work of first importance in bringing about the
adoption of practical forestry is the work of education.
For this, every possible means of reaching the public
mind must be employed, and above all the object lesson
of practical forestry applied on the ground.

Everywhere throughout our timber regions Nature
is struggling to renew her growth, and mere casual
observation forces upon us the fact that the forests
will reproduce themselves, if given a fair chance. But

138 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

there are three great obstacles which must be reckoned
with in the profitable reproduction of timber, viz.:
time, fire and taxes. Let us consider them briefly.
First, as to time. Few lumbermen have watched
the growth of timber long enough to know what its
increase is. Forestry is a new idea to us, and we
have given little thought to the future. Furthermore,
forest growth varies greatly in different climates, and
in different varieties of trees in the same climate.
Before he can consider forestry the lumberman must
know the rate of annual growth and the cost of pro-
tecting the forests. This information the forester is
able to give him. In other words, to tell how long
it will take to produce a merchantable tree, and the
average per acre. Knowing these facts, it is a com-
paratively simple matter to determine whether a given
forest can be maintained, and yet made to yield satis-
factory returns to the owner. Throughout the South
particularly, conditions are very favorable and promis-
ing. The reports of the Bureau of Forestry lead us to
believe confidently that there will be a profit in raising
short leaf yellow pine timber, provided that the history
of the increase in timber values in the North is repeated
in the South, of which there seems to be no doubt.
On the Pacific Coast also the climate is suited for the
steady and rapid growth of excellent timber. At the
present time values there are too low to insure any
profit in conservative forestry, but a few years will
undoubtedly bring about very different conditions.
The average manufacturer holds too little land to
supply his mills indefinitely at the present annual cut.
To secure a permanent supply from his present hold-
ings, either they must be increased or his mill capacity
must be cut down. Eventually the big mills must
disappear, and in their place we shall have smaller but

AMERICAN ForrEsTt CONGRESS 139

permanent ones. The fact that cut-over lands are
covered with young growth, which before many years
will be of merchantable size, will add greatly to their
value, which will increase more and more as our tim-
ber supply diminishes. Moreover, we understand that
it is the policy of the Bureau of Forestry not to recom-
mend the adoption of working plans where they cannot
be carried out profitably. When business men fully
appreciate this fact, it will go far toward securing their
cooperation.

The next obstacle, more important because harder
to overcome, is fire. JI am frank enough to say that in
this matter lumbermen themselves are largely respon-
sible, sometimes even to the extent of fighting reform.
For example: two years ago a bill was proposed in
Minnesota providing for the burning of slashings.
Because of the opposition of the lumbermen it was
never reported out of the committee. Since then the
Government has required the burning of slashings on
the Leech Lake Indian Reservation. The wise and
moderate regulations suggested by the Bureau of
Forestry were introduced with complete success. It
was a splendid object lesson. A _ wisely-drawn bill
presented to the Legislature to-day would be supported
by the best of lumbermen.

But the lumberman is not only culprit but sufferer
also, and he must be protected against loss from fire
by the rigid enforcement of proper laws. With a suffi-
cient patrol during dry seasons, and reasonable care
on the part of those who start fires, this source of awful
destruction can certainly be checked, though it never
can be entirely eliminated.

The final obstacle is taxes. If anywhere, it is here
that the lumberman practicing forestry under present
conditions will be checked, for the lumberman, more

140 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

than any other manufacturer, is the subject of heavy
taxation. The local assessor feels that the timber
may soon be cut, and that he must “make hay while
the sun shines.” ‘This policy of drastic taxation results
inevitably in the slashing of the timber and the com-
plete destruction of the forest. Here, as before, we
meet with the urgent necessity of missionary work
in the interest of the forest.

It has been suggested that land held for forestry
purposes be taxed with special leniency, or perhaps
that the bulk of the tax be transferred from the
standing timber to the logs when cut. It certainly is
not just that land which can produce but one crop in
forty years should be taxed on the same scale as land
which produces an annual crop. “Death by taxation”
would be the coroner’s verdict on many a magnificent
forest now laid low. Assuming that the land held for
forestry purposes is valuable only for timber, the State
would far better collect a low annual tax over a long
period of years than levy a heavy tax for a short
period; and this is obvious when we consider that an
important industry is thus maintained, and a consider-
able and constant pay-roll secured.

The conclusion we reach with reference to private
effort is, that forestry is practical, and can be applied
profitably, under favorable conditions; but that only
by tremendous effort can the lumberman himself, the
legislator and the voter be made to realize its impor-
tance and its possibilities. Much has already been
done, and we congratulate the Agricultural Depart- .
ment and the Bureau of Forestry on the able and
efficient manner in which information is being dissemi-
nated. It is safe to predict that their efforts will be
followed by actual results.

All arguments in favor of the adoption of conserva-

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS I4I

tive lumbering by the individual are still more forcible
and conclusive when used concerning the adoption of
them by the State or the National Government on
forest reserves. The question of taxes is at once
disposed of, the fire situation is in the hands of those
who have ample authority to enforce laws, and the
net results in profits can be figured on the lowest pos-
sible basis. Furthermore, the State has vital interests
far beyond those of the individual—such as the regu-
lation of the water supply in streams, the benefit of
forest areas from the standpoint of health and recrea-
tion, the perpetual maintenance of a timber supply
with its future effect on the price of forest products
within the State; the making productive of otherwise
useless land, and the maintenance of a valuable indus-
try. For these and for many other reasons far-sighted
lumbermen favor the rapid increase of State and Na-
tional Forest Reserves, provided they are established
only on proper lands.

In conclusion let me say that it was the desire of the
Honorable President of this Congress that Mr. F.
Weyerhaeuser, of St. Paul, should address the conven-
tion. Mr. Weyerhaeuser wishes me to say that he
sincerely regrets his inability to be here, and further
to assure those present that he and his associates in
the lumber business are thoroughly in sympathy with
the work and plans of the Association and the Bureau
of Forestry, and stand ready to do whatever is in their
power to cooperate in them.

IMPORTANCE OF FORESTRY TO WOOD-
WORKING INDUSTRIES

BY
M. C. MOORE

Editor of Packages

| COME, before you as a delegate, representing the

National Slack Cooperage Manufacturers’ Associ-
ation and the Beer Stock Manufacturers’ Association ©
of the United States, both of which organizations
represent vast capital invested and an enormous con-
sumption yearly of the best hardwood timber. I am
also in close connection with the Tight Barrel Stave
Manufacturers’ Association, the National Box and
Box Shook Manufacturers’ Association, the Western
Cigar Box Manufacturers’ Association, the Eastern
Cigar Box Manufacturers’ Association, as well as other
associations having to do with the manufacture of
package material.

Curiously enough, statistics are not in existence
showing the immensity of the manufacture of wood
in the various lines named. ‘This is a source of great
regret to me. Only by these figures could I hope to
convey to those here in attendance any idea of the
great amount of work turned out in all the various
lines of wooden package making and the tremendous
consumption of timber which is entailed in producing
this finished work.

White pine, yellow pine, poplar, basswood, gum,
spruce, hemlock, and many other woods in lesser
quantity, enter into the manufacture of boxes, and this
industry, while not much heard from in a general way,
is one of steadily increasing magnitude and importance.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 143

It has been estimated that the manufacture of
wooden boxes alone consumes toward 40 per cent. of
the entire lumber production of the United States.
When we consider what the aggregate of this lumber
production is, and, if we further consider the fact that
a wooden box is about the most familiar and fre-
quently seen object on the face of the civilized earth,
we can begin to appreciate the figure cut by the wooden
box industry alone, in lumber consumption.

The barrel, as we all know, takes no back seat as
an industrial container, and it is more important com-
mercially, and is made in greater numbers, with every
year that passes, owing to the very rapid multiplication
and growth of those industries which are extensive
and, in many cases, exclusive, barrel users. The term
“barrel,” is a very elastic one, ranging from the cheaply
constructed article made for truck, salt, and the like,
through many stages of increase in value and quality,
up to the expensive and substantial packages used for
beer, whiskey, oil, meat packing, and numerous other
purposes which require the utmost of tightness and
quality in a package.

When we stop to think how much flour, apples,
sugar, meat, fish, truck, salt, cement, lime, whiskey,
beer, oil, molasses, etc., are produced in the United
States, and how largely they are dependent upon the
barrel as a package, we begin to see what the con-
sumption of timber—hardwood mainly—mounts up
for barrel packages alone. The butter tub trade is
also an extensive one, and takes a large amount of a
very high class of hardwood timber. A great annual
production of woodenware in the shape of tubs, pails,
firkins, etc., comes in to swell the aggregate in the
use of timber by the package making trade. It will
thus be seen, without further enumeration of the

144 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

industries concerned, or enlargement upon their vast
timber requirements, that the aggregate necessities of
the wooden package manufacturers as to timber supply
and use are truly enormous.

In thinking of this subject of timber supply for these
great trades two questions have been chiefly prominent
in my mind. They are wholly practical and, in con-
junction with this serious question of forest preserva-
tion and supply, they must be adequately met and
answered.

In the first place, it is evident that the industries to
which I have referred must have timber in large sup-
plies steadily; in even larger supplies than they are
using now. Where are these supplies to come from
in the future? Will the application of scientific prin-
ciples of forestry and of reforestation, enable these
industries to continue operation indefinitely upon the
great scale on which they are operating now, and upon
which timber is now being used by them?

Secondly, how will the application of the principles
of scientific forestry effect the present manufacturers
of lumber of cooperage stock, and, what amounts to
the same thing, the manufacturers of wooden packages
of all sorts? Should some certain system of forest
preservation or reserve be put into obligatory opera-
tion, how would it effect the rights of present lumber
and cooperage stock manufacturers, and what effect,
if any, would it have upon their forest holdings or
those which they may in the future acquire?

These, I think, are the most practical points which
can be brought up at this meeting, and they are points
which must be most carefully considered, from all
points of view, before any substantial progress can be
made along forestry lines.

I am sorry to say, because I believe that it ought

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 145

not to be so, that American manufacturers of lumber
and cooperage stock are, as a rule, looking no farther
ahead than the length of their own lives, or their own
active business careers, as far as the consumption of
timber is concerned. The manufacturer of timber
reasons in a truly American way, “Let me get the
timber off and convert it into cash. That’s my job.
I reckon my descendants will be better off with the
cash than with the timber, and I’m not looking out for
the other fellow’s descendants.”

This is a natural, and, under conditions prevailing
up to the present time in this country, an inevitable
process of reasoning, and the result has been the
astounding depletion of our forests which has taken
place mainly in the last fifty years. How are we going
to induce the manufacturer to look at this thing differ-
ently, as long as his timber holds out? ‘This, as I see
it, is the chief job which we have before us to-day.

There is, I am pleased to say, one extensive coop-
erage stock manufacturing concern which is now
lumbering a forest extending over about 15,000 acres,
on scientific principles, cutting each year only those
trees which may be considered to have attained their
growth, commercially speaking. The concern alluded
to calculates that it will be able to lumber this tract
indefinitely, for an untold number of years to come,
by the steady application of this principle. It is the
fact, however, that few great tracts suitable for the
manufacture of cooperage stock now remain to be
handled in this way, except in the south and on the
Pacific coast. Most manufacturers are working from
comparatively small tracts, from which they feel
obliged to cut all the timber they can use, whether the
same has or has not attained full growth.

There is one fact which seems to me generally en-

146 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

couraging to the principles of forestry as set forth at
this convention. This is that many hardwood tracts
which have been cut over by manufacturers a few
years since, all timber of suitable size having then been
cut away, have now, in the space of five or ten years
in many cases, attained trees of sufficient size so that
mills are again going into these sections, although
they had been deserted, as exhausted, by other mills
comparatively a few years ago.

The industries which I represent must have timber.
They must have a very great amount of it. They
must have it steadily available on a strictly commercial
basis. Now what can the principles of scientific for-
estry do for these industries in a practical, business-
like way which will place no hardship upon the
manufacturers, but which will still preserve the timber
indefinitely for their use? All are greatly interested in
this question and are looking to this Congress to
furnish at least some advance toward a solution of it.
What is the solution?

IS FORESTRY PRACTICABLE IN THE
NORTHEAST ?
BY
JOHN A. DIX

President Moose River Lumber Company, of New York

HE, first Americans were not skilled in the art of
husbandry ; they considered the forest only as the
means of providing food and raiment, and in their
minds the value of the trees was measured by the
protection to wild animals which provided food or
the skins of which entered into the economy and neces-
sities of existence. An occasional and convenient piece
of wood gave warmth or served as a means of prepar-
ing food.’

It is fair to presume that the advent of the Pilgrim
Fathers and by them the immediate removal of the
forests to enable them to till the soil and reap the
results donated by years of timber growth, caused the
natives to look upon the new order of things with
disapproval. The forests readily yielded to the axe
of the pioneer; trees only impeded the progress and
advance of settlements. A small percentage of the
timber was converted into structures for homes and
into stockades for protection, but the greater portion
of the forests yielded to fire and was consumed as
waste. From this beginning the consumption of the
forests has been unremitting without consideration
of a future supply. We hear occasionally that timber
is getting “farther back” and more expensive, but as
soon as the demand is keen the means of penetrating
to the supply do not deter the lumbermen from obtain-
ing the trees.

Only recently the saw mills have deemed it import-

148 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

ant to utilize thin saws instead of converting an un-
warrantable amount of good material into saw-dust.

This tendency to economize in the manufacture of
lumber is the suggestion that the end is in sight.
Thoughtful people who are interested in forest lands,
as well as those who derive an income from the
products of the forests, are giving timely heed to
advice and information now being given by the Bureau
of Forestry as to the importance of reforesting lands
which have contributed to the demands of civilization.

Wise assistance given to the meagre natural condi-
tions of reproduction will yield profitable results, and
the lumbermen are not alone in their anxiety about
future supply. Railroads and telegraph companies are
considering and experimenting with methods of pre-
serving timber which enters into their needs. If an
economical wood preservative will add 50 per cent. to
the efficiency of timber, the demands on the forest will
be correspondingly decreased, and those who use, as
well as those who provide, are much interested in the
progress of this feature in the Bureau of Forestry.
France, Germany and England have practiced this
economy and demonstrated the practicability of treat-
ing wood for railroad ties and telegraph poles, but
their lesson has been one of necessity, not of foresight.
We do not anticipate and practice these economies
because timber has been abundant. We are, however,
passing through a period of transition and the admi-
rable work of the Bureau of Forestry in cooperating
with the different States to achieve results which will
mark a new epoch in forestry will be to the lasting
benefit of future generations.

Along with the accomplishment of reforesting, we
should not be unmindful of the tremendous waste and
permanent destruction of the soil resulting from forest

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 149

fires. Concerted action must be insured for the careful
watching and successful preventing of fires in the
forests. The successful method to accomplish this
important work would be to employ at commensurate
wages a competent and skillful fire warden to preside
over a certain district and to employ under his direction
the students from the several colleges of forestry.
This experience for the students would be for a short
period of time each year during the season of drought
prior to the time when the shrubs and trees are bud-
ding. Military colleges require students to devote a
certain amount of time to become experienced in the
art of drilling. Is it not quite as important that the
colleges of forestry require practical experience?

New York State has been active for a few years in
planting seedlings of spruce, pine and hardwood on
denuded lands. ‘The work has been intelligently pros-
ecuted by Col. William F. Fox, who is an ardent
advocate of the importance and common sense practi-
cability of this method of reproducing timber; of
securing to the soil the properties Nature intended
should exist. If proper encouragement is forthcom-
ing, the systematic annual planting of seedlings will
be carried out in the State parks, especially in the
Adirondacks and the Catskills. There are important
successful nurseries established for this purpose and
the advocates of this method of reforesting believe and
teach that the increased value of these denuded lands
will be far in excess of the actual expense of planting.
The beneficial results which will follow by the reten-
tion of moisture, by the improvement of the soil and
the contribution to the economy of commerce and
navigation, all these are in line with American
progress. It is a well known fact that each tree thus
planted will contribute its share to the humus which

F

150 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

is the natural sponge or source of every mountain
stream. If this source is protected or created we are
at the very foundation of economy, assisting to create
a condition of preventing torrents.

Private owners of timberland should be encouraged
to plant annually as compensation for the removal of
trees, for the reseeding of burned lands, and thus make
a beginning to restore the natural conditions of the
soil. It has required years of education to have this
feature of forestry become attractive to the lumbermen,
yet to-day it is with pride that New York State can
announce to this Congress that denuded tracts are
being planted. One lumber firm has_ successfully
planted pine seed on a tract which had been burned,
and the method employed was to sow the seed in rows
of six feet and six feet apart, thus leaving a space
between the rows which will be planted with seedlings
as soon as they have attained sufficient growth, This
same firm has established a nursery and is giving
special care to the growing of spruce and pine seedlings
for planting on its own preserve.

The system of timber cutting or lumbering is of
tremendous importance bearing upon the future
growth, especially for spruce trees which no doubt are
the most valuable products of the Adirondack forest
to-day. The natural tendency of the spruce tree is
to rest unless the proper amount of light is admitted
to its immediate surroundings. ‘The plan, therefore,
of timber cutting is to remove mature trees, using
judgment to cause as little destruction as possible to
the small trees. The use of defective hardwood trees
for the building of roads and bridges and for the use
as skids will benefit the conditions of growth for the
remaining spruce trees.

The importance of leaving on high ground an occa-

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS E55

sional mature tree for seed purposes cannot be too
strongly urged. This will continue Nature’s method
of reproduction and not destroy all of the possibilities
of future growth. The small trees will take on new
life and reveal a marvellous increase of diameter if
their condition is benefited by the removal of defective
hardwood, and as an evidence of this future growth,
data have been tabulated which reveal the following
careful estimate. Virgin forests of spruce, if cut to
a twelve-inch basis; that is, all of the twelve-inch trees
left standing, an equal product can be harvested from
this same territory in a period of twenty years. Should
the land be cut to a ten-inch basis, it will require forty
years to reproduce, and should the cutting be made to
an eight-inch basis, a century of growth will be re-
quired for a yield equal to the original cutting or
harvest.

As an evidence of the resting qualities of spruce,
a small tree of fifteen feet in height growing under-
neath a cover of large trees, was cut down and exam-
ined as to its annual rings. It revealed a growth of
about one century, yet this tree, had the cover been
removed, would have taken on new life, grown as
rapidly as a vigorous young trees of a dozen years and
been a competitor for an equally good yield of timber.

Our population is not great enough to enable us to
sweep and garnish our forests as practiced in some
countries where the natives are glad to get the waste
or fallen branches for fuel. On the Island of Madeira,
fuel is annually grown from seeding the mountainous
lands with pine seed. As soon as the trees have at-
tained fifteen feet in height, they are carefully removed,
roots and all, bundled and sold in the city of Funchal
as the principal product for fuel. This process has
been in existence for years and evidently is on a paying

152 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

basis. One can see the stages of growth from a few
inches in height to the tree of sufficient size for market.
We may be compelled to take a lesson from our Portu-
guese friends if we continue to demand from the
forests without contributing to future growth.

Lumbermen, as a rule, do not spend time with
theories which are not practical. The winning of
bread by cutting wood is an old-time vocation, and
the one is quite as difficult as the other; the application
of energy or brawn will obtain an equivalent to pur-
chase bread, and no thought is expended on a possible
plan to make two trees grow where there was but one.
Yet our minds are turning to the reproduction of that
opportunity of winning bread, and this Congress is
an evidence of that trend of thought.

Recently the beneficial results of having waste lands
adjacent to cities covered with a growth of fir trees,
have been discussed by professional men who believe
that dusty cities can be improved from a sanitary point
of view by having the outlying districts covered with
pine trees. They realize that the trees will hold the
sandy soil, bring back its fertility and give to the
atmosphere the properties of the woods. Invalids seek
the woods; why not bring the forests to the cities and
benefit those people who cannot go thither?

Bulletins issued by the Bureau of Forestry under
the wise, intelligent, and practical direction of Mr.
Gifford Pinchot, have created a desire to demonstrate
on the part of progressive lumbermen, that the fact of
reforesting lands is important. This Congress will
broaden the sphere of practical forestry. It is the
nucleus of a movement that will take root in the soil
of every State, and, like the proverbial mustard seed,
spring up and wax into a great tree.

OUR PACIFIC COAST FORESTS AND
LOGGING AS DIFFERING FROM
OTHER FORESTS

BY
COLONEL GEORGE H. EMERSON

Vice-President The Northwestern Lumber Company, of Washington

THE summit of the Cascade Mountains is the line

of division between the timber of eastern and
western Washington, also of eastern and western
Oregon. To the east lie open pine forests, similar
to those of the Southern and Eastern States. To the
west is a dense jungle of giant trees.

On the gravelly land of the western slope of the
Cascades the timber is of moderate size and consists
almost entirely of Douglas fir and red cedar, with
moderate underbrush. The fir is from 24 to 40 inches
in diameter, and from 100 to 150 feet tall and the
cedars are of about the same diameter, but less height.

On the lower bench and bottom lands, east of Puget
Sound, and on the clay lands wherever found, fir,
cedar, and hemlock intermingle, and near the coast
spruce is abundant, sometimes growing alone, but more
often with the fir and other woods. On these lands
our large timber grows, fir and spruce from 40 to 80
inches in diameter and from 150 to 250 feet in height.
These dimensions are common, and 10 feet for fir or
spruce, and 20 feet for cedars, are not extreme diam-
eters. The hemlock is of less size; 18 to 24 on the
stump is most common, 40 inches not exceptional.

Beneath these trees often lie the fathers of the
forest, still sound, pinned to the ground by the roots

154 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

of trees themselves a hundred years old, and over and
among all is a growth of salmon-berry, salal-berry,
and other shrubs and tall ferns, making an almost
impenetrable mass, so dense two miles is a good day’s
travel, on courses, for a woodsman.

These tracts, where the timber is large, have few
young trees, and the old giants are over-ripe. It is
doubtful if they produce seed, and doubtful if their
growth equals their decay on many townships. They
cannot be thinned, all must be cut; any left, as are the
hemlock, and until recently the cedar, are broken by
the falling of their neighbors, or blown down when
their neighbors are gone.

The mountain sides have deep canyons and the
foothills are steep, and jointly they are most of the
timber area of western Washington and Oregon.
Methods of forestry adapted to eastern timber areas
are useless here, as are eastern methods of logging.

The first efforts to handle this timber were those
of building “skid-roads” up the gulches, cutting the
timber into eastern lengths, 12 to 24 feet, and then
with six yoke of oxen the logs were hauled, one at a
time, to the water. In those days there was no de-
mand for cedar or hemlock, and both were left in the
woods. Neither offered the per cent. of clear the fir
and spruce offered, therefore why waste time on the
low grades? ‘The supply looked inexhaustible; stand-
ing timber had little value; butt cuts of the hemlock
sometimes sunk ; customers wanted only fir and spruce ;
redwood furnished shingles; why then use low grades
or hemlock?

On these old choppings all hemlock, cedar, low-
grade fir and low-grade spruce trees, all broken cuts,
all butts with center decay, all trees with “conchs’—
indicating rot—all stubs, or dead trees, with loose bark,

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS EES

all tops, from the clear trunk up, 50 to 150 feet in
length, 20 to 60 inches in diameter, all these were left
in the woods.

As if fearful of taking too much of the forest to the
mill the timber fallers vied with each other to place
their chopping boards higher, and many a stump, 16
to 20 feet in height, marks the success of their efforts.

The aggregate of this waste reached over 60 per
cent. of the forest and left the ground covered with
tops, broken timber, and brush, many feet in thickness.
To this, when dry, fire was set. The fire killed all
timber left standing, burned any young trees and the
hemlock seeded the ground. Later, the dead hemlock
fell, and a few years after the first fire, a second, or
even a third, went over the ground and the hemlocks
were no more. Only tops and trunks and a desolate
waste was left. Then the ferns and blackberry vines,
as if to hide the shame, spread over all their mantle of
verdure.

In this way, and by fire in green timber, townships
of lands, valuable only for the timber crop, have be-
come worthless wastes. Where young forests should
be growing to keep good our timber acreas, charred
trunks are piled on trunks, under a tangle of vines.

Times have changed somewhat. Steam skidders
for yarding, and steam road engines for hauling, have
replaced the bull team. The railroad is fast replacing
the river.

Cedar has become the most valuable of our woods,
and hemlock is found to be our most beautiful interior
finish. Standing timber has a greater value and is
cut closer, but enormous tops and most of the hemlock
are still left in the woods. Logs with no clear cannot
be handled at present prices of lumber without loss.
The per cent. of the crop now saved is increased, but

156 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

4o per cent. is still wasted, nor is it the worst. These
choppings, with their continuous piles of tinder, are
ready to flash into flame from the spark of a match, and
when conditions are right they burn with a heat so
intense it reaches to adjoining green trees, and they,
burning like torches, create a whirlwind that, with
the roar of an avalanche, twists the tops from the
trunks.

As before stated, the application of any method of
forest perpetuation adapted to eastern woods is im-
possible, yet most of the country where these forests
grow, is valuable only for a timber crop, and could it
be reseeded with fir and spruce when cut, and fire
kept out, at the end of fifty years there could be har-
vested a second crop of 50,000 to 100,000 feet per
acre. The things necessary to accomplish that end
appear at present almost impossible. They are:

First, that all timber growing on the land be cut.

Second, that all timber be removed.

Third, that all left be burned.

Fourth, that the seed, of the timber wanted, be
sowed in the ashes.

After this is done, the danger of fire is so small it
need not be considered.

Our seasons are sometimes divided, bs strangers,
into two, the wet season and the month of August.
Vegetation, therefore, is of very rapid growth, and
before another August, the ground would be too well
covered to become dry, therefore no fires would run.

To teach the people to utilize the product of our
forest, so as to clear the land of all things of value,
is one of the great duties of those who are anxious to
see our forests perpetuated. The fir tops of our
woods are sound, and sound knotted, and more durable
for mining timber and railway ties than are the hearts

AMERICAN Forest CoNGRESS 157

of our logs, now furnished for these purposes, but they
are worth in railroad ties, at this writing, less than
$6.00 per thousand feet of manufactured lumber,
while the cost of hauling and sawing exceeds that
figure. Then, too, while hauling one of these tops,
a surface clear log could be hauled, worth $6.50 or
$7.00 per thousand feet, against $3.50 per thousand
for the top in question. Again, while sawing this
top into $6.00 lumber the mill could have sawed a
$7.00 log into lumber, of which 4o per cent. would
be clear, 40 per cent. good building grades, and only
20 per cent. $6.00 lumber. Sawing the top the “saw”
bill would be $2.50; on the good log perhaps $5.00
or $6.00 per thousand feet, and the same is true of
the hemlock, yet the hemlock is the best of box ma-
terial, and the small per cent. of clear, different entirely
from eastern woods of the same name, is a beautiful
interior finish.

Were we a little nearer the great markets of the
United States, or were our freight rates less, or were
the demand a little larger, these tops and hemlock
could be handled, and the greatest difficulty in perpet-
uating our forests thus removed.

The bark of this hemlock is superior in tanning
qualities; tanning extract plants would help solve the
problem; pulp mills could use to advantage our hem-
lock and waste spruce; fir tops, stumps, and roots are
well supplied with pitch, and experiments indicate the
values obtained from those sources in turpentine, tar,
pitch, rosin, wood alcohol, creosote, lamp black and
charcoal, and other chemicals, are greater than the
balance of the tree affords in lumber. Short lengths
of our cedar make shingles; short lengths of our
spruce make staves; short lengths of our fir make
porch flooring and car siding; fir bark and limbs

158 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

should have a value; when our timber is utilized as
our cattle and hogs are utilized, and every part saved,
the other things required to perpetuate our western
Washington forest will follow as good investments.

To the perfecting and teaching of these methods,
therefore, we should turn the attention of our Gov-
ernment, our chemists, and those who desire the per-
petuation of our forests. By such methods our lands
would be placed in the best condition for future timber
crops, and those crops could be fir, spruce, cedar, black
walnut, ash, or maple, and any of these would be
ready to harvest before our present timber is exhausted.

Tardy forest reserves make possible wise provisions
for the disposition and perpetuation of the small rem-
nant of our timber still in the hands of the Govern-
ment, but laws for the use and perpetuation of this
timber must vary with location. No rule of selection
can be applied to western Washington or western
Oregon; no rule of clean cutting and reseeding can
be applied to eastern Washington or eastern Oregon.
Western Washington and western Oregon rainwall and
water supply are excessive, and need not be considered ;
eastern Washington and eastern Oregon need first
consideration be given to these questions; a general
law, to apply to the cutting and perpetuating of the
timber on all Government reserves, would prove as
wrong as have our laws in their application to these
areas.

To these pathless jungles, where no man could live
except upon provisions packed upon his back, where
to make a clearing of an acre costs labor worth $200
and destroys timber worth $50 more; where the sun
sends but pencils of light, and the fallen timber, of
centuries back, is as sound as if always submerged;
where the surface is made up of gulches, canyons, and

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 159

mountain sides; where agriculture is impossible, and
the only value is timber, our Government extended its
Homestead and Pre-emption laws, framed for our
prairies. To acquire title one was supposed to settle
on the land, make it his home, make a clearing, plant
a crop, build a house, and maintain a residence.

To acquire title, therefore, he must waste time which
should go to the increasing of our national wealth,
must destroy a portion of the timber, to which he is
striving to obtain title, and thus destroy national
wealth, must deprive his family of his support, must
live in danger of falling trees, of accidents, with no
one near, or he must perjure himself, and little wonder
he did the latter, when by doing so he only chose
between evils, and chose the one of least real harm.
Not quite perjured himself, for he could cut some
brush, set out a few fruit trees in the forest and a
few cabbages, visit the “claim” every six months, pack
in a half window for his “shake shack,” leave an axe
and a fry-pan there, and thus ease his conscience and
those of his witnesses when the day of final proof
arrived.

In this proof he had to swear the land was “chiefly
valuable for agricultural purposes,’ but the decision
of the General Land Office eased his conscience by
declaring all land “not stony or gravelly was argri-
cultural,’ yet during his lifetime he never expected
to see anything grown on this land but timber. Pub-
lic opinion approved such an evasion of a ridiculous
law, and our Government, not the settlers, should be
investigated when complaint has been made, by a less
fortunate, and the clearing has been hard to find and
the house does not look as if ever used for a home.

Our timber act was more just, but framed in the
interest of land grabbers. These stood ready to loan

160 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

money needed to pay for the land, perhaps without
exacting a promise, so the claimant could swear “he
took the land for his own exclusive use and profit”
and “had not promised to mortgage or deed.” Later
he could change his mind.

Still more ridiculous and criminally wrong was the
lieu land law, by which anyone claiming within a
forest reserve, relinquished to the Government, and
selected equal areas outside the reserve.

Floating on Puget Sound upon a summer’s day,
when gentle zephyrs fill the sail of the boat, one’s
languid gaze wanders back over vast areas of dense,
dark green woodlands, on up the slopes of the moun-
tains, until arrested by the towering snow-cap of
Rainier, 14,000 feet above; to the south, not seen,
stand St. Helen, Adams, Hood, and Jefferson, of
nearly equal height, and to the west glisten the Olympic
range with long reaches of snow-capped peaks. Part
of these peaks are in the Rainier, part in the Olympic
and part in the Cascade reserve, and part are also
within railroad grants, and for these glaciers and rocks
our Government has exchanged some of her best tim-
bered townships. Along the lower side of some of
these mountains, loggers have been busy with axe and
fire, and for their denuded, fire-swept lands, our Gov-
ernment has given fresh timbered areas. Many men
who have secured a quarter section, under the
Homestead or Pre-emption or Timber Act, have been
investigated for fraud. These larger selections are
authorized by Act of Congress and have not been
questioned.

In the home of the fir, the spruce, and the cedar, the
song of the axe, the saw, and the hammer begins with
the dawn and rests only with the close of the day.
Go where you will the crop of the centuries is being

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 161

harvested. With each breath a monarch of the forest
falls; engines whistle to engines, as the huge trunks
of these noble trees are dragged to the water or to the
railroad; the locomotive whistles to the mill, as it
comes with long trains of wealth of our forests, and
the mill whistles back to the locomotive, as its saws
sing while they work; steamers for coastwise and trains
for eastern markets whistle back to the mill, as they
hasten with its product; the deep loaded ship spreads
its sail and the winds waft our lumber to the far
corners of the earth; in all ways the harvest goes
merrily on, and the song of the axe, the saw, and the
hammer, are sweet to the ears of our people, for they
sing of industry, prosperity, and happy homes.

But is there no other note in the song? Do these
people ever think of the centuries their crop has been
growing? Does it never occur to them they are the
trustees of an heritage for future generations, to be
guarded, cared for and watched, used from sparingly
as necessity requires, or price justifies, but not to be
wantonly wasted or destroyed, or disposed of without
adequate returns? And how are they fulfilling their
trust ?

They are leaving nearly half of the crop in the
woods to be burned, and burning, destroy more, and
for the half they are marketing they are obtaining no
proper equivalent. They are leaving the ground a
fire-swept, desolate waste, where fire will follow fire,
until all things valuable have been destroyed. They
are taking to themselves the whole of the heritage
entrusted to them, and in return are not even scatter-
ing a few seeds for the benefit of their children. They
are vandals, but no law can reach them. They would
be adjudged insane, except for the necessity which
governs. The sacred right of property is theirs, and
they can do as they will with their own.

162 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

They can only be reached, and these grave errors
corrected, by making other methods to their pecuniary
interest; teach them, therefore, the value of their tim-
ber; show them ways of turning their waste to profit;
send to them pulp mills, chemical works and tanning
extract plants; help them to show the transcontinental
railroads the short-sighted policy they are pursuing;
build for them a double track road and give to them
lower freight rates and from that, now wasted, they
will furnish ties for the North, boxes for the Middle
West, cheaper lumber for your homes, perpetuate their
forests, operate their mills through the centuries, and
the song of the axe, the saw, and the hammer will have
no note of discord and continue in the land of the fir,
the spruce, and the cedar.

THE ADVANCE IN THE VALUE OF
STUMPAGE

BY
JAMES T. BARBER

President Northwestern Lumber Company, Wisconsin

THE selection of the writer to furnish for your con-
sideration information on this subject, necessarily
confines the question to the value of white pine stump-
age in Wisconsin, as his experience and observation
have been confined to this quality of timber and to
this locality. Every one, at all familiar with timber
values, knows that the advance in white pine stumpage
in this State in the past thirty years, has been phe-
nomenal, but few realize its full extent. This advance
has been peculiar when compared to other property,
in that, while the increase in values has not been
regular and continual, the market price of pine stump-
age has never taken a step backward. Every change
in prices, from year to year, has been upward.
Perhaps as good an illustration of the increase in
values of this class of property, covering practically the
entire period of development of extensive lumbering
operations in Wisconsin, is the experience of Cornell
University. In 1862 the Congress of the United States
apportioned over 9,000,000 acres of land to the differ-
ent States, the proceeds of which were to be devoted,
by the several States, to the establishing and mainte-
nance of schools and colleges in which such branches
of learning as are related to agriculture should be
taught. Scrip, called Agricultural College Scrip, was
issued to the several States and by them placed upon

104 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

the market. In 1865 this scrip sold at fifty cents per
acre, and in 1866 Honorable Ezra Cornell, who had
previously founded and endowed Cornell University,
at Ithaca, New York, bought something over 500,000
acres of this scrip from the State of New York, paying
therefore 60 cents an acres for the account of the
University. At this time the college was not in a
financial condition to purchase and locate this large
amount of property, and Mr. Cornell assumed to pay
for the scrip and also the expense of locating it on
pine lands in Wisconsin. ‘This action was taken, and
so well was the work done that the scrip cost of the
pine stumpage was from six to ten cents per thousand
feet.

In 1874, shortly before Mr. Cornell died, he turned
over the property to the University, and at that time
the cost, including all expenses, was over $500,000, or
possibly fifteen cents per thousand feet. Shortly after
the University took charge, a systematic effort was
made to dispose of the timber, and at the close of
1882, the aggregate sales amounted to $3,700,000, this
including the first large sale of 100,000 acres at $4
per acre, or, say, thirty to forty cents per thousand
feet, made in 1873. At this time the cost of the
property, including taxes and all other expenses, had
risen to $2,200,000.

The University has now practically closed out its
timber holdings in Wisconsin, and the net result of the
purchase of the 500,000 acres by Mr. Cornell, in 1866,
at sixty cents per acre, after deducting cost of the
scrip and locating the same, taxes, and all other ex-
penses, was within a very few dollars of $5,500,000.
The University property was wonderfully well handled,
the top of the market being obtained in almost every
sale. It has only been within the last few years that

AMERICAN Forest CoNncrRESS 165

any other value than that of pine stumpage was placed
upon their lands. Some of the more recent sales of
pine have been on the basis of ten and twelve dollars
per thousand and on estimates including much timber
which would not have been considered at all ten years
ago.

Representatives from the South can easily remember
the twenty and thirty cent period, although it soon
recedes into ancient history as they count their present
three and four dollar values, and even our friends from
the Coast, as they watch those beautiful fir trees go
into logs and $1.00 and $1.50 stumpage, can smile as
they recall the purchase at ten and fifteen cents.

Is it too much to ask you to believe that the history
of Wisconsin will repeat itself in the South and West,
and that the timbers owners of those regions may
watch the continual advance of values until at least the
ten dollar and twelve dollar epoch arrives?

IMPORTANCE OF LUMBER STATISTICS

BY
GEORGE K. SMITH

Secretary National Lumber Manufacturers Association

[N the lumber industry, as in all others, the con-

stantly recurring questions to be answered daily,
monthly and annually, are “How much?” and “How
many?’ In order that the manager of a manufactur-
ing plant may have the means of answering these ques-
tions, daily reports from each department are made,
weekly statements are prepared, monthly summaries
are compiled, and annual reports are evolved. Such
collections of figures as these are known by the general
term of “statistics.” The original use of the word
was confined to the enumeration of persons, but cus-
tom has made it apply to any systematic collection of
figures.

In a most valuable and comprehensive paper entitled
“Stumpage,” read by R. A. Long, of Kansas- City,
at the thirteenth annual meeting of the Southern Lum-
ber Manufacturers’ Association, New Orleans, Janu-
ary, 1903, this sentence was used, “Knowledge is an
asset, the result of which is profit.” For the purpose
of this discussion, let us paraphrase this sentence and
say, “Statistics are an asset, the result of which is
profit, and the lack of them a liability, the result of
which is loss.”

In order that we may learn how this asset is acquired,
let us ask the manager of a large plant, how much it.
costs to produce 1,000 feet of lumber, the unit of all

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 167

lumber transaction, and follow him as he refers to
various reports to prepare the answer.

First, the actual or arbitrary price of stumpage ; then
the log cutters, log haulers, the scalers, loading crew,
and log train reports combined, give the figures of the
raw material in the pond; the scale sheets on the log-
deck, or the tally sheet at the tail of the mill, gives the
daily output; then comes yard and dry-kilns, planing
mill and loading dock, and the shipping ticket is ready
for the invoice clerk.

With additions to cover the proper portions for
superintendence, insurance, interest, taxes, and depre-
ciation, the manager has a dozen or fifteen items whose
sum is the desired answer. He has done so well in
promptly supplying the desired information that we
follow with another “how much?” ‘This time it is:
“How much lumber do you make each month?”

The saw-mill reports are consulted, and if steady
time has been made, twenty-five or twenty-six items
are added, and the result announced. Then comes the
total cut and shipments for the year, with total cost,
and gross and net receipts, and the systematic collec-
tion of figures called “statistics” is ready for the annual
meeting, to be discussed and digested by the directors.

These figures are of the utmost importance to the
stockholders for they reflect in concrete form the profit
or loss for the year. Every effort is made to have
them correct, and they are carefully preserved to be
compared with the next series, month by month.

In the operation of a single plant statistics can be
easily obtained, because the manager has power to
control all departments in his own immediate -circle.
In speaking of the “circle” of the single operation, a
diagram is suggested which represents the lumber
producing field in its entirety. This diagram consists

168 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

of three circles; the first containing the single saw
mill; a larger circle including hundreds of small ones—
the mills producing one kind of lumber; and the third,
one which includes both the others, and its area em-
braces all the other lumber mills in the United States.

In studying the annual report, one of the directors
notices that the amount of lumber on hand is much
larger than in former years, and because the profits
are still in lumber and not in cash, he asks the reason
for the increase. To answer this, and if possible
justify the condition, the manager must get figures
outside the circle of his plant, and show how much
other mills have.

Foreseeing such a question, and realizing that it
would be difficult for each mill to gather information
systematically from all the other mills cutting a similar
kind of lumber, the manager has already called his
neighbors together and formed an association to gather
statistics regarding stocks on hand. By consulting the
figures furnished him from the headquarters of this
association, he finds the mills in the “second” circle
have more lumber than a year ago, and a summary
of their stocks on hand shows a total increase of
200,000,000 feet. The sales agent for the company
is present, and is asked what effect this increase of
stock on hand will have on values. He has not only
studied the situation in the second circle, but has looked
beyond into the third circle, and has discovered that
the statistics of competitive woods, so far as he can
learn, show a similar situation existing, and reports
values in general, weak and declining.

When the information resulting from statistics is
revealed to the directors, its importance and value is
recognized, a basis for intelligent action is secured,
and instead of increasing their output, as originally

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 169

planned, they arrange to produce even less than their
average, until their visible supply is reduced to normal
proportions.

After deciding on a course of action for the coming
year, they fall into general conversation for a few
minutes, when a new line of thought is opened by the
questions “How many acres of timber did we cut this
year?” and “How much timber have we standing?”
Here is need of more statistics and the manager con-
sults maps and records, and soon reports the exact
conditions. As the amount is large, some one asks
how much timber is there in the State, and what
per cent. of it do they own? ‘They call for statistics
on this particular feature, but as the manager has not
promoted an association for this purpose, he cannot
answer. One of the directors has anticipated such a
question, and produces Volume IX of the twelfth
census, containing special reports on selected indus-
tries, lumber and timber, covering pages 805 to 897.
In this he finds, on page 840, the estimated total
amount of timber in the State, and the percentage of
their holdings is determined.

Having discussed the operation in the first circle,
and noted the answers given, and the stock conditions
at the mills in the second, we naturally advance into
the third circle and put the question “How much?”
as applied to the entire industry.

Before answering this, let us notice how the elabo-
rate statements of the individual operation, in the first
circle, are condensed for use in the second circle. All
of the figures and reports used in producing the first
exhibit of total cut, total shipments, and stock on hand,
are discarded, and these three items from every plant
in the second circle, form the basis of the answer we
are now seeking.

170 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Large figures are needed to describe the lumber
manufacturing plants, the amount produced annually,
and the amount of standing timber. ‘Thirty-three
thousand and thirty-five establishments were in opera-
tion in 1900, and produced 35,084,160,000 feet, board
measure, in that year.

Ten kinds of timber, counting all hardwoods as one,
show a total of 1I,240,000,000,000 feet available for
lumbering. ‘These figures are interesting and impor-
tant, but nowhere do we find the amount of lumber
consumed annually, and the amount on hand at the
beginning of each year; or, in other words, what
proportion of the thirty-five billions was used during
the calendar year, and what per cent. remained on
hand. :

Attempts are made by the twelve lumber manufac-
turers’ associations composing the “National Lumber
Manufacturers’ Association,” to procure these figures,
but of the thirty-five billions shown to be produced,
less than one-half is accounted for by these twelve
associations. ‘The need for, and the importance of
exact information as to the total amount of lumber
in the hands of the manufacturers at the beginning
of each year will eventually draw all lumber producers
together, and instead of depending almost entirely on
a census report published once in five years, they will
have figures of their own annually, on which to base
their calculations.

Already steps have been taken to secure the names
of 33,000 manufacturers of lumber, and obtain annual
reports from them, covering the three essential points,
viz., the amount produced, the amount sent forward
to the consumer, and the amount of stock on hand
when annual inventories are taken.

The importance and value of such statistics can be

AMERICAN Forest Concress 171

illustrated by relating the experience of manufacturers
of one kind of lumber, who for several years have made
a systematic collection of figures. During a period
of nine months stocks among 200 mills increased
150,000,000 feet.

These figures were obtained in two ways—by a
record of the excess of cut over shipments, showing
a steady increase each month, and a semi-annual in-
ventory compared with the inventory of January rst.
These statistics revealed a serious situation, and were
the cause of an early meeting, at which it was decided
that less lumber should be produced until the visible
supply was reduced to normal amount.

The argument is used by some that such conditions,
as were revealed by the figures just quoted, should be
allowed to correct themselves—let the disease run its
course—but in these. days of growing scarcity of
stumpage, with only one crop in sight, the majority
believe that reliable statistics, showing a heavy accu-
mulation of stock, should serve as a danger flag, and
the speed of production be reduced until the rough
part of the road has been passed.

To continue production up to full capacity, when
undisputed evidence is produced that a large surplus
already exists, is unwise and unprofitable, and an un-
necessary sacrifice of stumpage, which on account of
our steady increase in population and consuming
territory, is becoming more valuable every year.

The importance attached to statistics in other com-
modities is well illustrated by the annual report of the
statistician for the Department of Agriculture, for the
fiscal year 1903-1904, published in the December issue
of the Crop Reporter. ‘The fact that our Government
has made the Census Bureau continuous in its organi-
zation, and reduced the period of census returns from

172 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

one in ten to one in five years, is another evidence of
the importance of up-to-date statistics.

The steady growth of all lumber associations, having
for their object systematic gathering and compiling
of figures in the three circles, is the best proof of the
importance of statistics, and when all manufacturers
realize their bearing on the individual operation, and
on the group of mills, and on the combined whole,
some broad association now organized, or yet to be
born, covering the entire industry, will be able to give
what every producer is waiting for, correct statistics
relative to production, consumption, and visible supply,
which are the three factors governing values.

These facts are of sufficient importance to warrant
united and persistent effort to secure them.

Such gatherings as this Congress, tend to hasten
the day when the mantfacturers of lumber, and owners
of stumpage, will work closer together, and determine
annually how rapidly our forest resources are dimin-
ishing, and thus realize more and more the “Importance
of Statistics in the Lumber Industry.”

OPPORTUNITIES FOR LUMBERING IN
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

BY
CAPTAIN GEORGE P. AHERN

Chief Philippine Bureau of Forestry

[|X 1876 the Spanish officials estimated the forest area
of the Philippines at 51,537,243 acres. In 1890
Fernando Castro estimated it at 48,112,920 acres.

The forests of these islands are unlike those usually
found in temperate climes, in that no one species,
except the genus pinus, is found in pure different
stands. A stand containing forty species or more to
the acre is not uncommon. Such forests are naturally
cut by the so-called “selection” system. The trees
removed in selection cuttings are those from 24 to 40
inches, thus leaving in the forest only young trees too
small to cut, and over-mature trees, which are generally
defective and which should have been the first ones
removed, as the timber of the same becomes less
valuable each year. The seeds of these old trees—
the source of reproduction—generally do not repro-
duce as vigorous seedlings as do seeds from trees in
the prime of life.

Under the native methods of lumbering, after the
felling of the medium-sized trees of desirable classes,
we generally find left on each acre a great number of
trees which have very little present merchantable value.
These present a serious difficulty in that these trees
frequently bear a greater amount of seed, and at an
earlier age than do trees of the better species. In mark-
ing and selecting trees for felling, the forester attempts

174 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

to avoid the above bad defects of cutting by insisting
upon the removal of as much of the poorer grades as
possible, and attempts to aid the reproduction of better
species in every possible way.

No complete survey of standing timber in the islands
has ever been made. No record can be found of any
such work having been attempted during the Spanish
administration. Since the organization of the present
Bureau, this work has been commenced in six prov-
inces, in virgin forests as well as in regions that have
been severely cut. At the same time, vigorous work
is being done towards acquiring a knowledge of the
forests everywhere in the islands. A large herbarium
is being formed through the efforts of between 15 and
20 botanists, collectors, and foresters. We find up-
wards of 400 different tree species within a limited
area; and it is estimated that from 1,200 to 1,500
different tree species will be found in the islands. Be-
tween 500 and 7oo different tree species are brought
into the market each year, of which about 40 are
well known. A detailed study of these 40 species
is being made, both by the botanists and foresters.

An effort is being made to study many of the native
woods that are not well known in the market, but
which occur frequently, and which the foresters report
are not popular with the native lumbermen. To study
these woods, a factory has been started at Manila as
part of the work of the Bureau of Forestry, where
some 40 or more Filipino cabinet-makers and carpen-
ters work under the supervision of three American
expert cabinet-makers. In this way a number of
woods have been worked up in various ways so as to
show their utility and beauty. The work of this fac-
tory is to be transferred to Bilibid prison, where 150
or 200 men will be employed. Foresters and lumber-

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS ¥75

men of each district are asked to send in samples of
native woods which are found in large quantities, and
which are not popular in the market, so that investiga-
tion may bring out some further utility or beauty which
would make them more popular. The articles made
from these woods are sold, thus helping to defray the
expense of this investigation ; at the same time a large
number of Filipinos are being trained in the art of
cabinet making.

Of the 48,000,000 acres of woodland in the islands,
there are at least 20,000,000 acres of virgin public
forest. Valuation surveys by our foresters bring out
the fact that in this virgin forest there is an average
stand of 3,500 cubic feet of merchantable timber on
each acre. It is safe to assume that there is at least
1,500 cubic feet of timber on each acre which could
be marketed at once, and probably much of the re-
mainder, it will be found, can be used, after the
investigation in our workshops is concluded.

We find no merchantable timber, and but very little
woodland, close to the centers of population. Thickly
populated islands, like Cebu and Panay, are almost
completely stripped of their timber; and in many of
the other islands the good timber has been cut away
for about five miles from the coast line. In other
islands we find the virgin forest extending down to the
water’s edge.

During the fiscal year 1904, about 50,000,000 feet
B. M. of native timber were brought to market,
while about 30,000,000 feet of timber were imported
from the United States, Australia, and Borneo. Much
more timber would be used in the islands if the price
were a little lower. The lowest grade of lumber is
now worth $35 to $40 per M.

The forest wealth of the islands, especially in those

176 PROCEEDINGS .OF THE

parts where no operations have been carried on, is
enormous. Large quantities of timber valuable for
house and ship construction, cabinet woods, dyewoods,
rubber, high grade of gutta percha, resins, and oils
are found.

The display of Philippine forest products at the
Louisiana Purchase Exposition, at St. Louis, Mo., was
a revelation to the many visitors. None had realized
the enormous quantities, size, and beauty of the native
timber, and the great variety of other valuable forest
products which the isiands produce.

Up to the present, logging has been carried on in the
same locality for a great many years, no effort being
made to operate a virgin forest even a day’s journey
from the settlements. This has been due largely to
the fact that in former times there was very little
protection to life and property. The Filipinos prefer
to live in settlements and work within a few miles
of them.

Only one company in the islands has made prepara-
tions to log with modern equipment, and is now
operating in nothern Negros. The first 20-year ex-
clusive timber license to operate over a large area was
granted to this company in August, 1904.

The question is often asked, How much of the forests
of the islands are held by private owners? Of the
48,000,000 acres of woodland, much less than 1,000,000
acres are now in private hands. The forest law re-
quires that all owners of private woodlands shall
register their titles in the Bureau of Forestry before
marketing the standing timber. If this timber is cut
without registration of title, it is considered as taken
from public land. Up to date, 132 estates, aggregat-
ing in area 270,000 acres, are registered in the Bureau.
All owners of private woodlands throughout the is-

AMERICAN ForEStT CONGRESS 77,

lands have shown a desire to register their titles with
the Bureau. The officials at our sixty forest stations
throughout the islands keep a sharp supervision over
the logging operations on private estates. The fear
of confiscation of the land on account of non-payment
of taxes, brings to the public notice the holders of all
land in the islands. On account of the high prices
of native timber during the past five years, all persons
who claim any woodland have presented their titles
for registration in the Bureau. But one large tract
(50,000 acres), owned by the religious order known
as the Recoletos, in the Island of Mindoro, has not
been registered. :

The private woodlands throughout the islands have
been pretty thoroughly cut over during the past five
years, and are not nearly so well timbered as the public
forests.

The Bureau of Forestry has an office in Manila,
which controls all operations in the forests, assisted
by officials situated at the sixty forest stations scat-
tered throughout the islands. ‘These stations are so
selected that the officials in charge of the district can
readily supervise the operations of all persons gather-
ing forest products.

The forest laws and regulations of the islands are
based on provisions of the act of Congress of July-x,
1902, entitled “An Act temporarily to provide for the
administration of the affairs of civil government in
the Philippine Islands, and for other purposes.” Sec-
tions 17 and 18 of said act provide as follows:

“Sec. 17. That timber, trees, forests, and forest
products on lands leased or demised by the government
of the Philippine Islands under the provisions of this
act shall not be cut, destroyed, removed, or appro-
priated except by special permission of said govern-
ment and under such regulations as it may prescribe.

178 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

“All moneys obtained from lease or sale of any
portion of the public domain or from licenses to cut
timber by the government of the Philippine Islands
shall be coverted into the insular treasury and be sub-
ject only to appropriation for insular purposes accord-
ing to law.

“Sec. 18. That the forest laws and regulations now
in force in the Philippine Islands, with such modifica-
tions and amendments as may be made by the
government of said islands, are hereby continued in
force, and no timber lands forming part of the public
domain shall be sold, leased, or entered until the
government of said islands, upon the certification of
the forestry bureau that said lands are more valuable
for agriculture than for forest uses, shall declare such
lands so certified to be agricultural in character: Pro-
vided, That the said government shall have the right
and is hereby empowered to issue licenses to cut,
harvest, or collect timber or other forest products on
reserved or unreserved public lands in said islands in
accordance with the forest laws and regulations here-
inbefore mentioned and under the provisions of this
act, and the said government may lease land to any
person or persons holding such licenses, sufficient for
a mill site, not to exceed four hectares in extent, and
may grant rights of way to enable such person or
persons to get access to the lands to which such licenses
apply.”

A forest act was promulgated by the Insular Civil
Commission May 7, 1904; and by means of its wise
provisions, a rational system of forest management
can be inaugurated and the future welfare of the
forests secured. It received careful scrutiny from
legal minds connected with the law-enacting branch
of the Civil Government with a view to protecting and

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 179

conserving the rights of the humblest licensee, while
granting to lumber companies and heavy individual
investors considerable latitude in timber operations.

The visit of Mr. Gifford Pinchot, Chief of the U. S.
Bureau of Forestry, to the Philippines, resulted in
much benefit to the forest service, due to his assistance
in preparing the present forest act.

The forest regulations were amended to carry out
the requirements in a forest act, and a forest manual
containing both the forest act and forest regulations,
indexed and annotated, with extracts from other laws
bearing upon forest revenue or service, and some
additional notes, were compiled and gratuitously dis-
tributed to all forest officials and licensees.

In the forest act, several important changes may be
noted, which it is confidently hoped will give an
impetus to forest development. Not the least of these
is the reduction of tariff on forest products from
about 60 to 35 per cent.; the reclassification of native
woods into four groups; the adoption of the metric
system of weights and measures in conformity with the
revised U. 8. statutes and similar action on the part
of most advanced countries; the division of the prov-
inces into two classes, A and B, and granting of licenses
for a period, within the discretion of the Secretary of
the Interior and the Chief of the Bureau, not to exceed
20 years.

The liberality of these provisions may be seen at a
glance, especially the first and last. In dividing the
provinces, encouragement to licensees has governed
action. The provinces in Class B are those in which
it is desirable that the larger timber operations be
carried on, and provision is also made for exclusive
licenses, where the party at interest will have sole
privilege of gathering a certain forest product on the
area of public forest designated.

180 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

It is cause for congratulation that at every step the
Civil Commission has been in thorough sympathy with
a rational forest policy. ‘This is further shown by the
public land act (926), which provides that public wood-
lands shall not be entered, sold, or leased until a certi-
ficate is received from the Bureau of Forestry that the
land is more valuable for agricultural than for forest
purposes. ‘The removal of valuable timber from leased |
land is also subject to the regulations of this Bureau.

In order to take forest products from public lands,
a person should make application to the nearest forest
station for a license. If the license is for a small
amount, the same may be granted by the local forest
officer; if for a large amount, the application is for-
warded to the Manila office, with remarks by the local
forest officer. These licenses are usually granted in
July of each year, and are usually for a period of one
year. In cases where a company may desire to operate
on a large area, a license agreement may be entered
into for a period not to exceed 20 years, whereby the
company secures an exclusive privilege to operate over
the territory desired for the period stated. Before
entering into this agreement, the officials of the Bureau
make a careful examination of the territory desired,
noting the character of the forest, facilities for logging,
proximity of settlements, and also report just what
logging operations are being conducted in this vicinity
by the local residents. The officials of the Bureau will
cooperate with representatives of any company desir-
ing to secure data concerning the amount and value of
forest products in any particular region where opera-
tions are contemplated. No charge is made by the
Bureau for the examination, nor for the license
granted.

The charges are made on the timber after felling.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 181

The charges vary with the class of the wood and
with the locality. In certain provinces, where the
Government wishes to encourage logging operations,
the stumpage charges vary from 75 cents to $3.75,
gold, per M feet, B. M., and in other provinces the
charges vary from $1.50 to $7.50 per M feet, B. M.
In any locality of the islands, where a forester selects
timber for felling, the lower prices will be charged.

During the fiscal year 1903-4, the following number
of licenses were granted by the Bureau of Forestry:

Timber, 1,327; gratuitous, 905; firewood, 723; by-
products, 355. The timber licenses mentioned in-
cluded 19 licenses granted companies. The total
amount cut by these companies during the year was
640,327 cubic feet, an average of 24,228 cubic feet.
The largest amount cut by one company was 95,016
cubic feet. The small amount cut may be accounted
for when one realizes the primitive logging methods
followed.

Much has been said for and against the Filipino as.
a laborer. When one is well acquainted with the
native it is not difficult to learn the true inwardness
of the difficulties of the labor problem.

In the first place the Filipino is apt, will do good
work when supervised, and as a rule will continue to
work if he is treated with some consideration.

The personal relations between the white supervisor
and the native have much to do with the case. The
native is accustomed to certain things that are simple
and inexpensive but very necessary to him. He likes
to have his family and fighting cock near him—he is
fond of music, of his church, and of his people; in
fact, he is fond of social pleasures and will work hard
if he sees pleasure ahead. In the islands there have
been a number of instances where we have employed

G

182 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

several thousand natives under one management and
where every consideration was shown them, and the
results have been most gratifying. At the rock quar-
ries near Mariveles, the workmen have their families
with them; they are provided with horses, good food,
and are treated justly and given their wages when
due. The Depot Quartermaster of the Army in
Manila employs between one and two thousand natives
and reports very favorably on the work done. The
engineers building the electric tramway in Manila
report that the cost of laying each hundred feet of track
in Manila averages less in cost than elsewhere; that
the work is done well and that the labor is very satis-
factory; and that there is not the slightest difficulty
encountered in keeping the men to their work. The
record made for coaling ships in Manila Bay made by
the native Filipino was better than that of the Chinese
or others employed in a similar capacity in the Bay.

The native Filipino will learn modern logging meth-
ods very quickly and well; he is keen at handling
machinery, but needs some one to look over his work
occasionally. The wage paid is of little consideration
with the native. He may work for one man at 25
cents a day and refuse to work for another at $1 a day.
His employer may owe him several weeks’ wages, but
if the native is treated unjustly and his feelings are
injured, he may disappear and say nothing about the
wages due. If a company contemplates operations
on a large scale, the difficulty of securing a sufficient
number of laborers will be minimized by starting in
well. Give each family a small native house; bamboo
is cheap. ‘They should have their church, assembly
hall, cockpit, and music, all of which can be secured at
small expense.

The market for Philippine timber at present is

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 183

Manila—a few cargoes are shipped to Hong Kong and
Singapore. The war in the islands caused great de-
struction to property—the country people have lost
their money and stock, their homes have been de-
stroyed, the roads and bridges ruined, and now that
an effort is being made to rebuild, there is but little
money to pay for it; the people, the municipal and
provincial governments are poor. Steady progress
towards reconstruction is being made, however, and
native timber is much used.

The Philippine timber is popular in the China mar-
ket. All of lowland China is without timber and much
is imported. Manila is nearer to China than any other
country furnishing timber, and should in time furnish
all of the construction and finer wood needed. A good
market for cabinet wood should be found also in
Australia, Japan, and the United States. The cost at
the mill of native manufactured lumber should average
less than $15 per thousand, board measure.

The lower grade woods should then be sold at a
fair profit and the higher grade woods at a much larger
profit.

The legislation now requested of Congress looking
towards railroad development in the islands, allowing
municipalities to incur a certain amount of bonded
indebtedness and reduction of the tariff will, if enacted,
be followed by an era of railroad construction, munici-
pal and provincial improvements, which means an in-
creased demand for native woods. China is building
railroads and yearly increasing its demand for timber.
The Philippine market should take at least 100 million
feet of timber per year. Hong Kong, Shanghai, and
Singapore should each take at least as much.

The average prices of timber per cubic foot and M.,
B. M., are, in Manila, as follows:

184 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

In the log, Sawed lumber,
Class. per cu. ft. per M. B. M.
Uo S: Cur. U.S, Cam
Ae eels Nore tee ae $0.50 $141.25
MMOlaVvEd acs ct ecke we eee .48 162.50
BG hal see are aiewiek Gis ae 47 128.15
GAO S ss See vee ws we .50 143.75
Magali sen pect tae tek .40 III.15
Scalaptasy < 12.26 te. ae.ae 31 156.50
Dine Oi ho Ss S05. ere ae .40 100.00
PALO err aie Ma ae ee oe .37 85.00
GUOp ch CREE oss. pareat 35 80.00
Pale Marta ses a2 .cse. ue Ache 80.00
APILONE ico. cacateessiee 5 ~31 60.00
BE sg MORE eS Ste .20 48.50
ROLLA ter Mcva itis ucbeics Oe wee .28 81.50
ASAE: Acie iv wah s talleee: 31 81.50
LB i Nigh ONO aR Sere Oe erie .56 94.00
POORAL Gotan teeh Gok .18 62.50
Baths wes telcenes Aces .16 75.00

PricESs QuotTED IN MANILA NEWSPAPERS:

Class. Per M.B.M., U.S. Cur.
Molave Aye. Vase eRe uk ee eaees $160.00
ING Bey OR ek.) cite bes eat ccs eet a ee tess bee 150.00
Natta SAV ile 5 hoc see ie eee or eee oe ee eee 120.00
aCe ait. his steers sicbhe bts iete kis eine eaves Gere ene 125.00
pile tS eee ae ce ak Rinse Reet ates eres 125.00
CUMS Se rae tone Seas ots o-oo Pee ee ek ae ee 70.00
Spd CE ke Boke ots wha acre Be een ne 90.00
EBtiaM yee ote arate ods & ale aie aout: ee ee ae 37.50
AARON Ser ears bee Seo is al atm eons ag mink eite 45.00
Oreron Mine ss feo ee eee eee $40.00 to $51.00
WGUWOG .ewtN Mee Cee ae Ae $47.50 to $71.00
Flemloclec a. chap nate escapee eckaie $40.00 and $41.00

There are 3 good steam saw mills in Manila and one
in northern Negros; a few smaller mills are in the

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 185

provinces. The mills can saw all of the logs brought
to market. The great difficulty is to get the logs. The
system of logging must change, modern methods must
be used, the donkey engine, wire cable, portable rail-
ways, and modern methods of rafting, loading, and
unloading lumber vessels, all must be employed.
Americans familiar with such work must be employed,
and under their instruction a competent force of capa-
ble Filipinos may be trained who will learn quickly and
will do a large part of the work required.

The Philippine Government is provided with just
and efficient courts. A new judicial system has been
inaugurated which gives satisfaction to all. Business
men in the islands have a feeling of confidence in the
courts which must be very gratifying to the Philippine
Government. The Supreme Court is composed of
seven judges, four Americans and three Filipinos, and
all have been carefully selected for fitness and integrity.
In cases involving $25,000 or more, appeal may be
made to the Supreme Court of the United States. All
cases before the courts are tried promptly and the
record of these courts would be a credit to any of our
States. A system of registration of land titles has been
adopted similar to that known as the Torrens system.
The land court upon sufficient proof gives a title which
is guaranteed by the Government. Purchases of land
may now be made with the proviso that the seller
secures a title from the land court.

The gold standard has been adopted for the islands
so that the fluctuations in the currency so common
in the Orient is done away with in the Philippines.
There is and always has been since the American occu-
pation, a surplus in the Philippine treasury.

The income to be derived from the new system of
internal revenue is expected to more than meet any

186 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

change in revenue from customs duties should the
present tariff rate between the islands on the United
States be reduced.

Ever since the American occupation of the islands
attempts have been made by private capital to develop
the lumber industry. Immediate success has not fol-
lowed these efforts. In many cases sufficient capital
was not invested; in other cases men failed through
lack of experience in the business.

There is a vast natural forest wealth awaiting devel-
opment, but its development requires wise management,
money and time. ‘This archipelago is the one undevel-
oped fertile spot in the Orient. The market for our
products is strong and close at hand. Labor is not
very difficult to secure, and ample protection is secured
to life and property. The virgin forests have not been
developed for this very lack of protection. Any com-
pany desiring to investigate the forest resources of the
islands will find the officials of the Bureau of Forestry
ready to codperate in furnishing information, both in
the office and in the field. There are a number of very
inviting fields of forest development in the islands
which should prove attractive to those who believe in
the future of our possessions in the Orient. The fol-
lowing regions offer special attractions:

The Island of Mindoro, the east coast of Luzon,
the Cagayan Valley, the Islands of Negros and Leyte.
The greater the distance from Manila, the base of sup-
plies, the less the chances for success. A company
entering the Philippine field should go prepared to
carry on some agricultural work in addition to logging ;
it should also be equipped with a modern saw mill, a
complete system of water transportation so as to supply
the island and China markets; it should have a lumber
yard in Manila as well as in each China port. A well

AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 187

laid out town should be started for the employees.
This scheme of exploitation can be started with a capi-
tal of half a million dollars. A tract of between 100
and 200 square miles of virgin public forest may be
secured for 20 years, and when secured a selection of
the best sites for agricultural development should be
marked out. Land may be purchased by the company
and also by the employees, or may be taken up by
them as homesteads. Philippine hemp and copra com-
mand a high price all over the world, are easily raised,
and on virgin soil should produce good results within
a few years.

The Philippines are centrally located and close to
markets with a trade of more than 100 million dollars
per month ; a trade that is constantly growing and that
should be of great value to the islands. We have
valuable and vast quantities of hardwoods; we have
hemp, copra, sugar, and tobacco that 450 million people
want. Manila will have next year the best harbor and
docks in the Orient, and the facilities for loading and
unloading large ocean steamers will make this port a
great depot of supply for this part of the world. It
seems strange that so many people should be uncon-
scious of the great future of the trade in the Orient.
China is awakening and will not cease its stride in
commercial development. Japan will in the near fu-
ture be a powerful factor in this development and will
look to the United States for codperation.

The Pacific is indeed an American ocean; we have
the choice islands in the great sea, we have the most
fertile spot at the gates of China. ‘This spot is peopled
by a bright, ambitious, and happy race, a race that is
susceptible of great development. ‘The Philippines
need Americans with a keen sense of right and justice,
with brains and money, the American coming to the

188 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

islands should realize that it is the country of the
Filipinos, he should treat the native with consideration
and the ready response of the native will be more than
gratifying. Business will succeed in the islands if the
native is with you.

THE LUMBER DEALERS’ INTEREST IN
FOREST PRESERVATION

BY
GEORGE W. HOTCHKISS

Lumber Secretary’s Bureau of Information

HE, very interesting papers to which we have
listened this morning may well give me some
excuse, in the lateness of the hour, for cutting my
remarks short, and I request the chairman to call me
down in ten minutes at the outside. Representing the
retail lumbermen of twenty-four States which were
gathered in the early part of December, and about
40,000 retail lumbermen, I come to you to bring their
greetings and to say something about the interests of
the retail lumber trade in connection with the preser-
vation of the forest. In order to arrive at an adequate
realization of the interests of the retail lumberman,
which means the interests of the nation at large, it is
necessary to take a hasty glance at the progress of the
lumber business.

The first saw mill in this country was built in 1643
in the forests of Vermont. In 1763 we began to
import lumber from Canada, and we have custom
house figures to show that 623 feet were brought to
Oswego in that year. The center of the lumber trade
progressed west to the straits of Mackinac, and the
island of Mackinac was for a time the center of the
industry; from that point to the St. Clair River and
to the Saginaw River and to Lake Michigan points in
Michigan and in Wisconsin, with several different
points of production. In the early settlement of Mich-

190 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

igan we begin to find mills on the St. Clair. They
throve in the ’30s, increased and with the settlement
of the country the lumber industry of the State spread
until it covered the entire State. At about the same
time there were a few mills on the shore of Lake
Michigan in Wisconsin and on the Wisconsin River.
In 1830 the city of Chicago received its lumber by ox
team from the Alleghany Mountains. The consump-
tion of lumber in 1883 was 2,225,000,000 feet—a con-
trast with the load brought by the ox team in 1830.
In 1852 I went to Canada, returning from California,
and began the manufacture of lumber on the north
shore of Lake Erie. Here a strip from Port Hope on
the east to Port Stanley on the west represented the
area of lumber operations. In 1862 I went to Saginaw,
remaining there seventeen years. In those year, speak-
of values, I bought lumber which ran 75 per cent.
upper for $14 a thousand feet. Those uppers to-day,
were they still to be had, would be worth $85 to $100
in: / Chicago.) This is {the increase in values ein
1870 in connection with Henry $. Dow I became the
original lumber journalist of the country, and from
that time I have been greatly interested in statistics of
production. I have often found great difficulty in ob-
taining reports of statistics of manufacture, but we
have so perfected the system of statistics as to have
arrived at a fair knowledge of the production of the
country. In 1870 and thereabouts, after many experi-
ments confined wholly to pine—for in those days the
lumberman knew nothing about any lumber except
pine—it was determined that the consumption averaged
500 feet per capita. Some put it at 494 feet, some at-
510, in the several years during which these figures
were compiled. The per capita consumption to-day
is not less than 750 feet, including all varieties of tim-

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS IQI

ber. We are using trees that we used to think worth-
less. We are sawing everything that will make a
board and some that will not, and as Mr. Defebaugh
has said, you will find 4x4s with bark on all four
corners. As was a common expression in the days of
the war, we are “robbing the cradle as well as the
grave.” We are paying no respect to age or value of
timber, but are cutting it down and getting rid of it.
The consumption to-day may fairly be estimated at
from 46,000,000,000 to 50,000,000,000 feet of timber
annually. I remember a young man with grand pros-
pects for lumber manufacture who told me he had
secured an option on 360 acres and wanted to build a
mill on it and asked me for my advice as to how to
make $25,000 profit. I told him that that amount of
timber would be just a good week’s bite for some of
the modern saw mills and that the mill would never
be paid for by the profits. A great many people have
the same inability to understand big figures and the
immensity of the lumber business, but when I tell you
that the consumption of lumber during a single day
is something like 13,000,000 to 15,000,000 feet you will
perhaps get some appreciation of the vastness of the
lumber trade. It is claimed by Government authorities
that the lumber industry is the fourth in extent. I
claim it to be the first. I claim the value of the vast
industry has given us one-fourth to one-third of the
financial value of the country. Our financial interests
are computed at $96,000,000,000. I believe the forests
have given us from $25,000,000,000 to $30,000,000,000
of that amount, and where is one other industry that
exceeds it? So little is understood of the value of the
lumber trade that I must give you one little illustration :
The product of the California gold field I have watched
with interest, having been a forty-niner. Our produc-

192 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

tion of gold in California from 1848 to 1890 was
$1,348,000,000. ‘The lumber trade of the nation for
1890 was $1,135,000,000, lacking but $200,000,000 of
the entire volume of gold produced in California, which
has been the gold mine of the world during all these
fifty years. Let me give another illustration. All the
products of the soil, including oil, gold and iron—
everything of that kind—in 1895 was $540,000,000, with
a wheat crop of $400,000,000. ‘There you have a total
of $940,000,000 for the products of the soil against
$1,135,000,000 for the products of the forests. I claim
that lumber is the productive factor in the wealth of
the nation.

Up to about 1870 the lumber business was transacted
by the manufacturer and the wholesaler at leading deep
water centers, and by but few retail yards. When I
took my first clerkship in New Haven, Conn., in 1874, our
lumber supplies came from Maine and afterwards from
Albany and the Susquehanna at Fort Deposit. Then
a part of the manufacturers drifted west, and in 1852
purchased timber and manufactured it in the southern
part of Canada. Gradually the production has ex-
tended westward. We had originally in Michigan not
fewer than 300,000,000,000 feet of white pine, of which
we had cut 165,000,000,000 feet up to 1897, with less
than two billion feet left in that year by reason of
forest fires and other destructive influences. The total
production in the northwest to 1897, in Michigan
Wisconsin and Minnesota, was 333,000,000,000 feet.
These are figures that are representative of the immen-
sity of the lumber business. This is a billion dollar
country as far as its finances are concerned. It is
much more than a billion foot country to the lumber-
men. ‘This lumber has been utilized by the railroads
and we have built the nation from the forests of the

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 193

North. My time has expired and I have no time to
exploit the forests of Pennsylvania and the West, but
could I do so, I think I could fully demonstrate that
we are a lumber consuming people and strengthen any
impression you may have formed of the importance of
the trade.

COOPERAGE AND ITS RELATION TO
FORESTY

BY
JOHN A. McCANN

Editor National Coopers’ Journal

AS a preliminary measure of enlightenment and to

illustrate the attitude of my cooperage friends as
they relate to the subject of improved forest condi-
tions, I may say without fear of contradiction that the
writer of that beautiful poem, “Woodman, spare that
tree,’ has never been a very popular personage in
cooperage circles. Indeed, I think it will be very
generally conceded, even by manufacturers of coop-
erage stock themselves, that no class of timber work-
ers have been more indefatigable and painstaking in
their efforts to make the work of the American For-
estry Association and the Bureau of Forestry a prime
and pressing necessity than have those amongst whom
it has been my pleasant and, more or less, profitable
privilege to labor for many years.

This being the case, it would seen to require a rare
and rather robust quality of courage for one who has
for twenty years conducted a cooperage paper to come
here for the purpose of offering congratulations on
the fact that in future we are likely to have intelligent
and scientific efforts to prevent the enthusiastic labors
of those who seem bent on leaving nothing of our
American forests but a memory. ‘That I am here for
that very purpose, however, would seem to indicate
that I have that able-bodied quality of courage with
me, but as a plea in extenuation or avoidance, which-

AMERICAN Forest ConcreEss 195

ever is preferred, I will say that I come primed and
fortified with the belief that

“Long as the light holds out to burn,
The vilest sinner may return.”

And in this particular direction we cooperage people
have sinned atrociously.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I shall not follow my
journalistic associate of the American Lumberman,
Mr. Defebaugh, in the erection of any pedestals on
which to place cooperage people. I shall not follow
him in picturing my cooperage friends as natural and
patriotic conservators of our forest areas. I shall
not deny that we have been wasteful, nor shall I seek
to defend that wastefulness, nor shall I discuss the ques-
tion of man’s right to do with his own just what he sees
fit. I come simply to lay our symptoms, as I see them,
before Dr. Wilson, Chief Surgeon Pinchot, and their
assistants, with the hope that they can successfully
prescribe for our ailments. It is only the sick that
require a physician, and on that hypothesis I fail to
see why Editor Defebaugh, as the representative of
those well-behaved and immaculate lumbermen, came
here at all.

We cooperage people make no claims of that kind.
We have been wasteful, and as though in pursuit of
the most lofty ambition, we have for years gone at the
destruction of at least two of the noblest specimens of
the American forest, the white oak and the American
elm, and followed them so relentlessly, that the ends
of both are well in sight, unless the American Forestry
Association or Bureau of Forestry will stay the hand
of the stave man, do something to repair his wasteful-
ness, or satisfy his rapacity with other woods of which
a greater abundance is obtainable.

196 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

It may be news to many of those within the sound
of my voice that grades of white oak, which are wel-
comed by the furniture factories of Grand Rapids and
elsewhere for furniture making, would be rejected
by the maker of the whiskey barrel, and _ that
elm, suitable for the interior finish of a luxurious
home, would not always do for a Minneapolis flour
barrel. We of the cooperage fraternity are both
finicky and fastidious; but it is earnestly to be hoped
that under the operation and influence of this Associa-
tion the Bureau of Forestry, or the legislation which
will follow their joint recommendations, some of this
fastidiousness may be taken out of us.

As far back as I have any knowledge, white oak has
been, and it is to-day, the chief dependence of the
tight barrel cooper. I mean those who manufacture
barrels for whiskey, wine, oil, alcohol, turpentine, and
other liquids. All of these seem to demand and require
white oak of the finest grade, and the part of the tree
which they deem fit for their purpose ts its least part.

The greater part, up to recent years, has been thrown
aside to rot and breed a very destructive species of
worm, or else has been thrown into heaps and burned.
I feel that I am well within the bounds of truth and
reason when I say that if all the white oak which has
been wasted during the past fifty years could have been
saved and sold at its present value, it would have been
enough to pay for the Panama Canal, or possibly pay
off the national debt.

There are other woods used by the tight-barrel
maker for such semi-liquid products as syrup, glucose,
lard, pork, etc., and these woods include cypress, red
oak, and latterly, red gum. Chestnut has never been
made much use of in this country, although it is used
extensively for olive oils in Italy, as well as in the wine

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 197

districts of France and Germany. The American
family of chestnuts is a large one, and if it could be
demonstrated that some of the varieties are available
for tight-barrel work, it would have an excellent effect
in restricting the demand for oak, the supply of which
—in any considerable bodies—is now confined to Ken-
tucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Texas. The avail-
ability of tupelo or red gum for tight-barrel purposes,
is another work which the Bureau of Forestry could
undertake advantageously, as from a recent bulletin
issued by the department, it is learned that in the
district south of the Ohio River and east of the Texas
line, red gum stumpage alone equals that of all other
hardwoods combined.

In seeking to prepare myself to point out for this
Association and the Bureau of Forestry where either
or both can possibly be of use to the industry which
constitutes my field of labor, I have called upon some
of the manufacturers of cooperage stock for their views
on this subject, and one of these, who is a close student
of forest conditions, and particularly well fitted by
nature and education to speak intelligently of cooper-
age needs from the standpoint of forestry, says that the
cooperage people who own timber, and timber owners
generally, should be educated to their necessities in
three ways:

First. The need of an intelligent appreciation of the
value of timber.

Second. The need of caring for the timber from a
physical standpoint.

Third. The manner in which to accomplish these
ends.

To begin with, the first subject means to teach the
public an intelligent appreciation of the value of timber.
It is an old maxim that “Wilful waste makes woeful

198 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

want.” ‘Timber owners should know the value of their
holdings, and in the event that they do not want to
make use of them themselves, and do not want them to
come into the hands of their neighbors, then the obliga-
tion which rests on every good citizen should not be
overlooked, and that is, the sacred duty of caring for
material things which are to pass on down to posterity.
_ Taking the physical view of the matter with refer-
ence to the cooperage business, it has come under my
observation, says my correspondent, that each year
white oak for cooperage stock is becoming scarcer, and
the quality of the oak is deteriorating. Worms in the
timber are becoming more destructive and working in
new localities, and in this connection I would add that
worms do more serious damage to white oak, so far
as cooperage is concerned, than they do to any other
kind of timber.

It seems that the great quantity of waste timber
allowed to lie in the woods and decay accounts, to a
great extent, for the increase of worms in recent years,
as this decaying timber not only feeds the worms, but
breeds them as well.

Another destructive force that I want to speak of,
which has destroyed many million feet of fine forest,
is the annual fires that we have in the different timber
belts. These fires not only kill the small timber out-
right, but the larger trees are blasted, and as soon as
they begin to decay the worms entirely destroy the
tree. The need of protection against both of these
destructive forces can easily be seen; indeed, the way
was well pointed out yesterday by an Ontario delegate ;
and this brings us to the third subject: “How to
Accomplish These Ends.”

In this connection I am greatly interested in the
matter of forest reservations to be purchased and

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 199

owned by the Government. I would like to see our
Government own large boundaries of timber lands in
different sections of our country, and to give these for-
ests such care and attention as would demonstrate that
to give care and attention to standing timber will prove
as great a source of revenue as any other line of en-
deavor of which demonstration can be made. Let the
Association and the Bureau of Forestry acquaint the
public with the fact that each year timber is becoming
more valuable, and should have their attention in the
way of protection against the two destructive forces,
viz., forest fires and worms. Let the Government
make practical tests and demonstrations in their own
forests by piling up the great quantity of waste timber
and by cutting down and burning decaying timber,
thus destroying the germs of the worms as well as the
worms themselves ; and the other object in cleaning the
forest of this waste matter is to put safeguards around
to prevent forest fires.

Another large exporter of cooperage stock and lum-
ber suggests that laws similar to those which now
exist in France and Germany, where replanting would
be practically compulsory, should be put on our statute
books. He believes that it is only a question of time
when it will be rendered necessary, by conditions, for
the United States Government to insist on replanting,
where owners cut over timber, and practically to adopt
the French and German law, or practically the same
forest laws that exist all over Continental Europe and
which are, undoubtedly, well known to the Bureau of
Forestry.

Another believes that it would be a great advantage
to the country at large if forests of elm (elmus Ameri-
cana) and cottonwood (populus monilifera or populus
balsamfero or balm of Gilead) were planted under

"200 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

governmental auspices. ‘These species grow very rap-
idly, provided they are planted in low, wet land; and
there is an abundance of such land that would grow
forests of this class of timber, if properly planted and
protected from fire, thereby utilizing, to the best ad-
vantage, land that is practically worthless for other
purposes. All other classes of deciduous woods (ex-
cepting the white or burr oak species) which are now
used to considerable extent for cooperage, cai be
grown on hillsides and other lands which are not
valuable for agricultural purposes.

Some of my cooperage friends are of the opinion
that the time has passed when this Association, the
Government or its Bureau of Forestry, can ren ler
any practical service in this direction. A very large
operator in Michigan writes as follows: “I know of
nothing that the Government can do, except to encour-
age reforestation as much as possible, as I believe the
Government owns practically no timber lands on which
cooperage material is now growing, and as the timbers
used for cooperage material are now in the hands of
private holders, the question of handling this class of
forest products in a more economical way, with less
waste, is entirely beyond the jurisdiction or dictation,
in any way, of the general Government.

“There is a great deal of wasteful extravagane,
especially in the South at the present time, in the way
of not taking out of the timber tracts all of the timber
that might be used, which wastefulness is, in a large
degree, practiced on account of the low stumpage cost
at which most of these properties were acquired.

“The question of reforestation of the kinds of timber
used for cooperage material is a large one, and it is
going to take a great deal of time. These kinds of
timber grow much less rapidly than pine, and many

AMERICAN ForEstT CONGRESS 201

of the other timbers that are used so largely for gen-
eral building and manufacturing purposes.

“Tt occurs to me that really one of the chief things
in connection with this question is to discourage the
useless waste of the kind of material used for cooper-
age. Any subject of this kind naturally concerns al-
most entirely the private holder of stumpage, and is
therefore beyond anything the general Government
could do, except to make suggetsions. The principal
manufacturers, possibly, would not be interested in
even any such suggestion as this to the general Govern-
ment, from the fact that for some time past it has been
apparent to them that the time was speedily coming
when material suitable for cooperage is going to be-
come quite scarce, consequently more valuable. Hence
they are willing to let those who are so disposed be as
wasteful of such timber as they please. Of course this
is a very selfish view, but selfishness travels hand-in-
hand with the commercialism which seems to have
possession of us at present, to an extent not believed
possible in the days of our forefathers and the blessed
era of ‘The Simple Life.’ ”’

Another correspondent, who is a large manufacturer
of staves in Arkansas and Louisiana, and who is also
a close student of all matters pertaining to his craft,
writes as follows:

“Tn my opinion, little can be done by the Bureau of
Forestry that will benefit the cooperage manufacturers
in business to-day. The subject of reforestation is,
and has always been, an interesting one, and I am glad
to note that it is being taken in hand, and that the peo-
ple have at last awakened to the necessity of taking
some steps toward insuring the supply of timber for
use in future years. Experts claim that it takes an oak
from 80 to 100 years to arrive at its maturity, or its

202 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

prime, rather; and from this age up to 400 and 500
years is about the ages of trees that are usually con-
sumed in cooperage. You will readily see from this
that unless the present timber supply is very much
greater than most of us admit it to be, that the supply
in sight at the present time will be exhausted long
before any new supply could possibly come in. To
advocate trying to curtail the cutting, to my mind,
would be altogether futile, as there is hardly an acre of
virgin oak timber to be found in the county anywhere
to-day. ‘True there are some considerable tracts which
are usually called virgin timber, but the fact of the
matter is that nearly every acre has been cut over to
some extent, and in some cases so long ago that the
signs of the original stumps have disappeared.

“There is no doubt but what the cooperage manu-
facturers have been the worst timber butchers who
have ever visited the hardwood forests of any country.
In some places we find tracks of the destructive methods
that prevailed many years ago, of cutting only the
choicest trees to be found, and making them into very
large staves for export, using nothing but the very
choicest part of the tree, and only the choicest trees in
the forest at that time. This is still being carried on,
to some extent, and I have in hand a letter advising
me that the Louisiana Commission has ordered an
especially low rate on logs and heavy staves for export
(that is pipe and cask staves), overlooking the fact
that by so doing they are just contributing to the
denudition of the better parts of the forests, and
causing them to disappear much quicker than they
would otherwise, leaving a large portion, which the
average stave manufacturer of to-day would class as
first-class material, to decay in the woods. As to what
would be of benefit to the stave manufacturers: we

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 203

think that some restriction or some kind of embargo
thrown around this rough, unfinished product going
abroad would be of some value in the way of presery-
ing the forests as well as assisting the cooperage
manufacturers of to-day in the pursuit of their lawful
business.

“Reforestation will have to be conducted under the
supervision and at the expense of the general govern-
ment, if done to any valuable extent. Any other
scheme will fall short of its mark, and in my opinion
the best way to get at that would be for the Bureau of
Forestry to secure tracts of land known to be suitable
for the growing of oak timber and no other hardwoods.
Buy or secure tracts of reasonable size, go over and
replant a considerable area, under the charge of an
expert forester. This would be somewhat of a kinder-
garten, and would encourage the planting and culture
of timber by individuals, and improving lands that
had already been cut over and otherwise practically
valueless. The remission of taxes by the states and
the bonuses by the Government in view of planting and
cultivating trees in certain countries, would materially
assist in the reforestation of tracts that would otherwise
be long left barren. It is a fact that the best oak lands
are being rapidly put into cultivation for corn, cotton,
and other products of that nature, and the uplands of
hill lands, formerly so productive, have been turned
into valuable farms, and are consequently of more
value to the owner than the timber proposition.

“As a rule, the stave manufacturers of the country
have not been buyers of timber until recent years,
except as stumpage, and consequently they have had
no interest in the preservation of the forests and want
to get only what is suitable for their purpose.

“As there is only a comparatively small territory in

204 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

which oak timber now grows—that is, in the Southern
States and the eastern part of Texas—and seeing that
it has been reduced to so small an area, it is undoubt-
edly very important and necessary to the welfare of
the country in general, and the industry that we are
engaged in particularly, that the scheme of reforesting
this section on comprehensible and intelligent lines be
instituted as early as possible.”

What I have touched upon thus far relates most
closely to the tight-barrel feature of the cooperage
business, which is really the least important branch of
the industry, in volume, if not in dollars. The slack-
barrel department comprises the manufacture of barrels
to contain loose or dry products, such as flour, sugar,
cement, lime, fruit, truck, and other things far too
numerous to mention. It is to this branch of the
cooperage industry that we must charge the annihila-
tion and destruction of our elm forests. Their hand
is stayed in that direction at present, to some extent,
simply because there are now no forests of elm to
conquer, and all of this havoc has been wrought in
about twenty-five years. Up to that time the slack-
barrel people were at work on a contract to destroy all
the red oak in the country, as at that time oak was the
chief timber used in slack packages, especially for flour
and sugar. Owners of elm timber, purchased for a
song, taking advantage of the advancing market for
oak, sought to prove to the barrel men that elm was,
at least, as good as oak for their purpose, but the
innovation was looked upon with little patience.
Finally, however, it was proven conclusively that elm
was a better timber for this purpose than oak, and for
twenty years and upwards it has been practically the
only timber used for slack-barrel staves and hoops.
The supply, however, is about exhausted, and now the

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 205

enterprising owners of gum timber tracts, bought as
cheaply as elm was twenty years ago, are trying to
persuade the cooper to forsake elm and accept gum,
and in this praiseworthy undertaking the Bureau of
Forestry can render efficient aid by demonstrating how
gum may be most effectively utilized, and wastefulness
discouraged ; and now is the time that this work should
be undertaken. One of my contemporaries says that
“it is the traditional policy of consumers of lumber and
timber to ignore the possibility of the exhaustion of the
timber supply, and invariably they fail to realize that
fact until it has actually taken place.” That suggestion
fits my cooperage friends exactly. Twenty-five years
ago elm and oak were as plentiful in the Northern
States as gum and oak are in the Southern States now,
and while that condition exists the campaign looking
to conservation of the supply should be entered upon
vigorously and determinedly, while the campaign for
reforestation of the denuded lands of the North should
also be organized and pressed with earnestness.

With all the pessimistic sentiment surrounding this
question of depleted timber supply, however, there
comes to me one ray of light, and this leads me to the
belief that the situation may not be quite as black as it
is painted. Looking back into the files of my paper
of eighteen and twenty years ago, I note news items
in which it is stated that this manufacturer of staves
and that manufacturer of heading, located in portions
of Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio, “are
seeking new locations, because the timber supply is
exhausted.” The strange part of it is, in looking over
current issues I find that now, twenty years after, the
same manufacturers are pegging away in the same
place. The explanation of this is found in the axiom
that “Necessity knows no law.” These manufacturers

206 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

had cut out the largest and best of their oak, elm, and
basswood, but rather than seek a new location they
concluded that perhaps they could use trees less than
two and three feet in diameter, and so they stayed to
cut them. After these were gone, they noticed that
there were some mighty fine maple and beech trees
left. Well, they cut the largest and best of these, and
now they are at work on the other ones—not so large.

Necessity has compelled us to see that beech, maple,
and birch will take the place of elm and basswood for
slack-cooperage work, and we are also learning that
gum will make the best of barrels, when handled
properly, and I presume that there are other timbers
growing in our forests that only need intelligent hand-
ling to become equally as available. Whatsoever the
American Forestry Association or the Bureau of For-
ectry can do to demonstrate this, to prevent waste and
destruction by fire and parasites, and to renew supplies,
will be work well done, and which will go far to justify
the establishing and support of such a department of
our Government. If I have furnished anything of
suggestion that will aid in that work it will be a source
of gratification, not only at the present, but in the
future, when the beneficent work of the Bureau has
had time to make itself apparent. Indeed, much has
already been accomplished, and while Mr. Defebaugh
has paid a just and proper tribute to the worth and
work of Secretary Wilson and Chief Pinchot, I cannot
allow this opportunity to pass without saying a word
for missionaries like Dr. Hermann Von Schrenk and
others who have carried the war “into Africa,’ and
gone out to preach the gospel of forest preservation
and restoration among the heathen. Their work has
been good and effective work, as the success of this
Congress fully attests.

PART IV.

IMPORTANCE OF THE PUBLIC FOREST
LANDS TO GRAZING

PRAc tiCAL “RESULTS OF THE: REGU-
LATION OF GRAZING ON THE
FOREST RESERVES

BY
A: F. POTTER

Bureau of Forestry -

[|X the administration of the National Forest Re-

serves, one of the first matters of importance which
the Government has been called upon to settle, is the
proper adjustment of grazing privileges. It has often
happened that in the establishment of forest reserves
the customary ranges used in pasturing live stock have
been included and consequently the stockmen have
been directly interested in the rules and regulations
and the policy which was to be adopted in their ad-
ministration.

At first there was considerable doubt as to the
practicability of such regulation of grazing and stock-
men feared that the restrictions imposed would be detri-
mental to their interests. The sheepmen were alarmed
because at first the rules excluded this class of stock en-
tirely from all reserves except those of Oregon and
Washington, and consequently they strongly opposed
the creation of forest reserves elsewhere which included
large areas of grazing land. By investigations which
followed it was found that in many of the reserves
total exclusion of sheep was unnecessary, but that a
limited number of this class of stock could safely be
allowed under such restrictions as would prevent
injury to the forest and insure a proper use of the
range. The regulations were therefore so modified

210 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

as to permit sheep grazing under such circumstances.

The Government realizes the importance of the live
stock industry to the prosperity of the Western com-
monwealth and the fact that a very large proportion
of the people are directly dependent upon it for the
support of their homes.

The great economic value of the forage products
of the forest reserves is also realized, and an effort
has been made to use this resource in the way which
appears to be best for the interests of all concerned.

Care has been taken in the preparation and enforce-
ment of grazing regulations to avoid, as far as
possible, any unnecessary disturbance of business by
sudden changes in the manner of using the grazing
lands. An effort has also been made to fit the regula-
tions to the actual needs of the reserves and to allow
every privilege consistent with their proper care and
management.

In the settlement of questions concerning the use
of products of the reserves all of the different interests
must be recognized and considered. The stockmen
must not expect to be allowed to use the grazing land
in a way which would be seriously detrimental to the
interests of the farmer depending upon the water
supply from the reserve for irrigation, or which would
destroy the forest growth. The lumberman must also
consider these interests and the future welfare of the
country, and be willing to cut and handle the timber
in a way which will insure a continued growth of the
forest. ‘The farmer must not expect the Government
to entirely stop the grazing of live stock or the cutting
of timber, but must be content to have these things
done under a proper system of regulation.

Whenever it has been found that modifications or
changes in the regulations were needed such action

AMERICAN ForEST CONGRESS 211

has been taken as promptly as opportunity has offered
the means of ascertaining the facts in such cases.

Investigation of the ranges has shown that damage
caused by live stock is usually due to overstocking,
grazing too early in the season, or the manner in
which the stock is handled, all of which can be directly
charged to the previous lack of any system of manage-
ment rather than to the sheep or cattle.

Overstocking has undoubtedly been by far the
greatest cause of range destruction and decrease in
its carrying capacity. Under the free range system
of the west there has been very little restriction as to
the number of stock anyone had the privilege of pas-
turing on the public domain. The result has been
that the ranges in many different localities have been
very badly overcrowded and have rapidly declined in
their pasturing value.

Some of the ranges which were included within the
forest reserves have been overcrowded with live stock,
in some sections with sheep and goats, and others with
cattle and horses, until the excessive use of the range
had resulted in injury to the young growing forest,
and great damage to the forage plants and grasses.

On the creation of forest reserves in such localities
in many cases the full number of stock, both sheep
and cattle, which were then ranging there, have been
allowed permits during the first year, and afterwards
as it was found necessary. The number has been
gradually reduced from year to year until a limit was
reached which would allow as full utilization of the
forage as possible without injury to the range. The
result has been that by such management many of the
badly overgrazed ranges have been greatly improved
in condition and grazing value, and are fast being
restored to their former usefulness.

212 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

The damage from sheep grazing was found to be
largely due to the manner in which they were handled,
although there was some sign of browsing young trees
over the entire areas which had been overstocked.
The injury from this cause was not usually serious
except along routes of travel used in moving sheep
from one range to another, or in the close vicinity of
lambing grounds, and old camps.

In places where the sheep had been camped on the
same bed ground for a long time, perhaps a month or
more in the same place, the grass and forage would
be completely eaten out for a mile or so around, and
many of the young seedling trees eaten or nibbled by
the hungry stock. Damage by this system of handling
is usually entirely unnecessary, and is detrimental to
the best use of the range, as well as injurious to the
forest. As the necessity for better management in the
use of the range has become apparent, stockmen have
fast realized the destructiveness of this method of
handling sheep, and have adopted the plan of never
bedding them more than two or three nights in the
same place, and in some cases never driving the sheep
to a bed ground at all, but allowing them to camp
wherever night overtakes them, thus reducing the
damage from this cause to a minimum, and, in fact,
almost entirely removing it in many cases.

The forest reserve regulations on this point require
that sheep must not be bedded more than six nights
in the same place, and the practical result of the appli-
cation of this rule has been to improve the condition
of many portions of the range.

One of the greatest evils in the destruction of forage
on the summer ranges is that of driving the stock in
too early in the season, while the feed it yet immature.
Lack of range control is usually responsible for this
condition.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 213

If the number of stock to be driven to the mountains
for pasture exceeds the number there is sufficient
pasture for, there is often some particular section of
the range which one man desires to secure ahead of
his competitors, and in the struggle to get there first
the stock are driven along as fast as possible and
destroys as much feed by tramping as they consume
in feeding. In some sections this competition for
range continues during the entire season, and, of
course, results in great destruction of forage as well
as damage to the forest and water supply.

Immediately upon a range coming under forest
reserve control, the damage from this cause is checked
and a better use of the forage results. Under this
system of management the dates upon which stock
will be allowed to enter and on which the season will
close are designated, and the ranges are divided in
the manner which appears most practicable, so that
each stockman who is granted a permit, knows just
what portion of the range he will be allowed to use,
and when he can drive his stock in. Furthermore,
he knows that on arriving there he will not find the
range already occupied by someone else, consequently,
there is no need for any haste in driving, and the
stock are grazed along in a way that causes little
damage.

It has been found in some cases that ranges which
apparently were greatly overstocked have shown a
marked improvement in condition by the application
of the grazing regulations without any reduction in
the number of stock, other than the exclusion of tran-
sient herds, showing clearly that the damage was due
largely to the manner in which the stock has been
handled.

In the competition for free range, controversies have

H

214 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

arisen between the cattlemen and sheepmen, or between
large and small owners of stock, which have sometimes
resulted in open warfare with an occasional homicide
and great loss of property. The degree to which this
warfare has been carried has been governed largely
by the demand for the use of the range. In the first
occupancy of the lands by stockmen, the ranges would
usually be divided by mutual agreement in a way which
would give each sufficient pasture for all of his stock,
either sheep or cattle, and if the seasons continued
favorable there would be no occasion for any serious
dispute concerning its use. If, however, a certain
portion of the range was drought-stricken and there
was a consequent scarcity of feed and water, the stock
belonging to the occupants of that portion of the
range would naturally drift over on to the neighbor-
ing ranges where conditions were more favorable.
As long as this did not result in overcrowding to the
extent that all of the stock became thin in flesh, there
might be a little grumbling, but no serious trouble
would arise. Whenever it was plainly apparent, how-
ever, that such intrusion upon the ranges was causing
financial loss, the first step taken was usually to notify
the owners of the stock to remove the same and provide
feed and water for them elsewhere. In case of refusal
on the part of the owner, there being no law for the
settlement of such matters, the next step would be an
attempt to remove the stock by force. Just what re-
sistance would be offered was, of course, always a
very hard matter to foretell; sometimes no trouble
would arise, and at other times it would result se-
riously.

Owing to the fact that sheep are herded and cattle
usually turned loose, the sheepmen have had an advan-
tage in the use of the public grazing lands because of

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 215

the fact that they had their business under a better
system of control. In case of lack of feed or water
in any particular locality the sheepman could imme-
diately move his stock to other and better pasture,
while it was necessary for the cattleman to round up
or gather his stock before any such move could be
made, and this often meant an entire season’s work.
The result has been that where the use of the range
has been unrestricted the number of sheep has in-
creased more rapidly in proportion than the number
of cattle, and in some localities the sheepmen have
taken possession of the range to an extent that it has
become almost impossible for the settlers to find pasture
for their small bands of cattle.

The result of forest reserve regulation has been to
settle these controversies so far as the grazing lands
within the reserves are concerned, and an important
step in the advancement of a better system in the
management of grazing lands has been made. After
an investigation of the claims presented by the stock-
men and a careful consideration of all interests
concerned, the Government has defined the privileges
to be granted to each opposing faction. In some cases
it has been thought advisable to exclude sheep from
portions of certain reserves and allow cattlemen the
exclusive use of such areas. In such cases, however,
whenever it has appeared that it was necessary for
sheep to cross closed areas in being driven from their
customary ranges to points of shipment or between
summer and winter ranges, driveways have been pro-
vided to meet the necessities of the demand and allow
the proper handling of the stock. In other cases the
reserves have been divided into districts in which
sheep and cattle have been pastured jointly, the number
of each class allowed being restricted to what was

216 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

considered a fair division in the use of the range. It
has been found that oftentimes a better utilization of
the forage has been obtained in this way, as there
would be portions of each district which were better
adapted to the pasturing of one class of stock than
the other at certain periods of the season, and that
sheep would eat many little weeds and plants which
were not touched by cattle, and cattle many of the
coarser grasses which the sheep did not feed upon.
As long as the total number of each class of stock is
restricted to the actual capacity of the range and each
stockman knows such to be the fact, there is no trouble
between the different owners, and all soon realize the
benefits and appreciate the value of this system of
control. |

One of the greatest causes of forest destruction
throughout the West has been fire, and the prevention
of fires is one of the most difficult problems in the
management of the reserves. Just how far the stock-
men have been responsible for the destruction of the
forest by fire is a hard matter to determine. Burning
to clear out the brush and undergrowth so that cattle
could have free access to the grass, and burning the
old grass in places where it had not been grazed off,
for the purpose of securing a new growth of green
feed, have been resorted to in past years, but these
customs have been almost entirely abandoned on
account of their general destructiveness.

A large proportion of forest fires start from camp
fires, which are thoughtlessly left by campers, pros-
pectors, hunters, and stockmen. It is of great import-
ance that the unnecessary destruction from this cause
be realized and every precaution taken to reduce the
prevalence of fires started in this way.

The reports of the forest reserve supervisors show

AMERICAN Forest ConcrREsS 217

that the number of fires starting from camp fires left
by stockmen or for which stockmen are in any way
responsible has decreased from year to year, and also
that the stockmen have been the most willing volun-
teers and rendered the most effective service wherever
assistance was needed in fighting forest fires starting
from any cause. On account of their presence on the
ground, so that service could be rendered on short
notice, stockmen have greatly assisted the forest reserve
officers in saving large areas of timber from destruction
by fire. It seems fair to say that one of the practical
results of the regulation of grazing has been the estab-
lishment of a strong and effective volunteer fire
service.

The stockman has learned from experience that
forest reserve protection of the summer ranges means
an improvement in the condition of his stock and an
increase in the profits of his business. During the
past season when stock in many range sections suffered
severely on account of lack of food and water, those
who were fortunate enough to have pasturing privi-
leges in the forest reserves were able to get their stock
fat. While many of the outside stock on overcrowded
ranged remained thin in flesh, the result being that the
stock pastured on the forest reserves were in better
demand and sold for more money than those from the
outside ranges.

As the policy of the Government becomes better
understood and the benefits to be derived from judi-
cious management of the grazing land is shown by
practical demonstration, the opposition of the stockmen
to the creation of forest reserves will be entirely
removed and they will codperate with the Government
in the proper regulation of grazing and the permanent
improvement of the ranges.

THE PROTECTION OF HOME BUILDERS
IN THE REGULATION OF GRAZ-
ING ON FOREST RESERVES

BY
E. S. GOSNEY

President Arizona Woolgrowers’ Association

"THE home was the foundation of the first laws of

civilization, it always has been and must remain
the foundation of every independent government of
the people by the people. The necessity of the fullest
protection of the homes of our country and the builders
of these homes is seldom realized and never over-
estimated.

By “home-builders” we do not mean the dwellers
in palaces of wealth and luxury, nor do we mean the
shiftless nomad. But we refer to that great class of
honest, loyal Americans of limited means who have a
substantial appreciation of home and country. Those
people whose highest ambition is to build a home of
their own for themselves and their families where
they can live in comfort, frugal independence, and
happiness. Such homes have given us our Lincolns,
our Grants and our Garfields. They have given this
country its high place as a nation among nations.
They include all classes and grades of intelligence,
education, and refinement. Honest purpose is the
only requisite to bring them within the class of home-
builders. A man’s capacity, energy and environments
determine the character of the home he will build;
but on the protection of such homes, the development
of their integrity and patriotism, depend the life of

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 219

the nation and the protection of our property and
person.

Such citizens demand careful, patient consideration,
whether encountered in the mines, factories, and farms
of the East or on the mountains and plains of the
West. And this is especially true of the Western
forest reserve management, because it embodies a
radical innovation on their customs, rights, and life.

Many persons dwell in the towns, villages, and the
country throughout these reserves and in the irri-
gated and unirrigated districts below and about the
reserves. They are cattlemen, horsemen, sheepmen,
farmers, or miners, as the case may be, and the con- ,
fidence and cooperation of each of these men, espe-
cially the stockmen, is necessary to a full protection
of the forest reserves and a full realization of the high
purposes of forestry. The administration needs their
confidence and cooperation, and they need the pro-
tection of fair, just, and intelligent regulations and
management in the grazing as in all other regulations
for the protection of their interests in whatever class
they fall.

President Roosevelt, standing in the pine forest on
the rim of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, a few
months ago, said of our Arizona forest reserves, “Use
them for grazing, for farming, for lumber, for what-
ever they are‘best adapted, but so use them that you
will not destroy their usefulness for future genera-
tions.” And in his heart every man in that audience
said, “Amen.” The difference comes only when you
attempt to decide what use is harmful and what use
is protective in its results, honest differences as yet
unsettled, and usually the theorist who rushes over
the reserve on a hurried tour of inspection or rides
through on a train at forty miles an hour is the most
positive as to necessary regulations and results.

220 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

It is unfortunate that in connection with the creation
of forest reserves there have been opportunities
through the “lieu land” laws and the railroad grants
for lands for private speculation running into millions
of acres and multiples of millions of dollars which
have naturally been taken advantage of, and in the
manipulation of these schemes every means, in Wash-
ington and out of it, has been made use of. Men
have made it their business to go among the people
and agitate with extravagant theories and spread false
representations by public and private statements and
subsidized newspapers, to the great injustice and dam-
age of all grazing industries, especially sheep, and of
every interest affected except the scheme that was
covered with this veneering of pretended interest in
forestry. In this way public sentiment was created
favoring extended forest reserves where no forest
existed, more “lieu lands,” and incidentally more spec-
ulation and bitterness and distrust among the people
and toward the cause of forestry.

The field work in connection with forest grazing
regulations is new and necessarily handled in many
cases by inexperienced and overconfident representa-
tives. Many crude and unjust rulings and damaging
regulations have been the result of the over-confidence
of such representatives. Range allotments must not
be arbitrarily changed on the protest of one party
without notice to others interested and due regard to
water rights and the carrying capacity of the ranges.
Stock trails must not be established with regulations
that would damage the interests involved and consti-
tute a fit subject for the attention of humane societies
to prevent cruelty to the animals confined to such trails
without adequate feed or water. Regulations as to
water development must not discourage and retard

AMERICAN ForESstT CONGRESS 221

rather than protect and encourage such work in arid
regions. To assure this the field inspector must be a
man of experience and exceptional ability, and the
office force at Washington must not only be good men,
as they are, but they must be given an opportunity
to learn these conditions and to study in the field the
methods of handling stock, lest in overcoming one
difficulty they create others they know not of. The
people interested must be fully advised and consulted
as to such regulations, then the facts and results will
be understood and mistakes avoided. It must be re-
membered that the mass of the people familiar with the
range conditions can see no excuse for such mistakes,
and believe them to be the result of a reckless disregard
of their interests and rights. There must be closer
relations between the stockmen and home-builders,
and the forest officials. Their representations must be
frank and open; they must know one another. If
there are conflicting interests the parties must be
brought together and no contest settled on an ex-parte
hearing. Before any radical change is made, the in-
terests affected should have a hearing, and candor,
honesty and frankness should be recognized and due
appreciation shown, while selfish misrepresentations
and willful disregard of regulations and the rights
of others should be sufficient cause for ridding the
reserves of this irresponsible class of men. We spend
millions annually educating the children. We should
give some time and attention to the conservative edu-
cation of citizens in and about forest reserves, likewise
to the training of rangers and administrative officers
in the interest of harmony, of intelligent appreciation,
and of the necessities of the requirements and changed
conditions.

The general principles recommended by the Bureau

222 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

of Forestry a few years ago and endorsed by the
Secretary of the Interior, but not yet put to practical
use, were sound as a basis. Some day these principles
and regulations now being worked out for the control
of grazing on forest reserves will be carried out in all
or most of the public grazing lands with such modifica-
tions as may be found necessary in each locality; and
the regulations for each locality must be governed by
local conditions. ‘The chief danger is too great haste,
over-confidence.

There is no real conflict of interest between the
home-builder on the irrigated ranch and the home-
builder in the forest reserve, with his cattle or sheep
grazing on the public lands. Whatever destroys the
productiveness of the soil, whether too many stock,
bad management, fire, or recklessness in any manner,
damages all. The stockman largely consumes the
product of the farm and the farm provides the necessa-
ries of the stockman. The conflicts between cattle
and sheep interests are the clashing of individual in-
terests and not of the two industries. The very food
they eat is different. Cattle eat the grass, sheep the
weeds of the range when left to their choice. If the
individuals can be brought together and calmly talk
their differences over, 90 per cent. of such evils will
disappear.

I shall not attempt to lay down a code of regulations
for grazing on forest reserves or off of them. The
man or men who attempt to fix in advance anything
more than the general principles of such regulations
will fail. Let us remember that it has required more
than half a century to build up the mining laws and
regulations of our country, imperfect as they still
are, and they were all based upon and grew out of
a few general principles and simple rules agreed upon

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 223

by a handful of sturdy prospectors and miners who
gathered about their California campfires sixty years
ago. Their problem was simple compared to the graz-
ing problem. If these men could not then devise a
perfected system applicable to the varied interests that
the subsequent development of the mineral wealth of
our country have presented, how can they devise rules
and regulations for all climates and conditions of
grazing? These must be the growth of experience
in each locality, the slow evolution of the industry
from which the speculator and the theorist must be
eliminated.

For some reason the average expert, examining the
forest or range on any point of policy or use, seems
to feel called upon to keep his business a profound
secret, especially from those settlers whose experience
and observation in the locality, form one of the neces-
sary premises of logical, correct conclusion and report.
These methods tend to create and develop a spirit of
distrust between the settler and the official, instead of
confidence and codperation. This criticism is not
applicable to all, but is quite prevalent and calls for a
radical reform in methods. The pioneer stockman
or settler knows more about his own range than any
expert and he must be reckoned with in any final solu-
tion. The average expert on forestry or grazing
operating unaided in a country new to him is one of
the most fallible men I know, however honest or ex-
tensively drilled in technical schools.

Much depends upon the supervisor of a forest re-
serve, who must be a strong man, with plenty of
common sense. He must not be opinionated or unduly
sensitive. He must be a man of character, a judge of
men, and ever ready to learn from the most humble
and illiterate home-builder, and to patiently advise

224 _ PROCEEDINGS OF THE

and guide such people into the correct lines of thought
and action. I fully realize such men are not plentiful,
but they exist and must be had, and when found, and
by experience educated, should be retained. They in
turn must be guided by a more wise and inspiring
administration at Washington. Give the home-build-
ers in and about these forest reserves an administration
in which they have full confidence, one whose officers
do not get out of humor and write petulant and un-
called for letters and orders before they thoroughly
understand the facts; an administration which always
consults the people as to the people’s needs and fully
advises them as to the supposed needs of the forest
and the objects of any and all restrictions. When this
confidence is established and a few unruly and disturb-
ing elements are judiciously amputated from the body
of stock grazers you will have among stockmen and
home-builders a class of forest protectors worth more
to the service and to forestry than all the rangers the
government can employ, a class of men you cannot
hire.

Perhaps the most dangerous element the people are
facing to-day on the grazing question, whether in the
forest reserves or on the public domain outside, is the
land and stock monopolies. I speak of these with
hesitancy, knowing that my position will be misunder-
stood and misconstrued by many. Among these large
stock and land companies are some of the ablest and
best men of the country ; many of them are my friends;
most of them are employed on tempting salaries to
look after the interests of these large companies; em-
ployed because of their splendid abilities, their char-
acter, and influence; and, like faithful advocates, they
are doing their duty most admirably. The time was
when there was little or no conflict between these

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 225

interests, and the few small stockmen and home-
builders. Then came the “rustler,’ who, tempted by
opportunity, appropriated the cattle and stock of these
companies along with parts of the range, and I am
sorry the “rustler” is not yet extinct. But the public
lands of the West are rapidly filling with real home-
builders, and these large ranges, outside of the Mexi-
can grant lands and private holdings, must be given
up to the use of the settlers. We, whose stock feed in
large pastures and cover large areas of public lands,
must gradually give way to the smaller home-builder ;
and I regard the change as no individual calamity,
but as a part of the evolution of the greatest country
and best government civilization has known.

The powers that control these large companies and
employ our friends, their advocates, will give up with
reluctance and only at the end of a hard struggle. To
this end Congress has been besieged with lobbies and
bills for the leasing of the public domain, and for the
exchange and consolidation of the railroad grant lands
all in the interest of these monopolies, but shrewdly and
ably covered up a veneering of some benefits to the
public, real or imaginary.

These measures are dangerous because of the money
behind them, of the ability and character of their ad-
vocates, and because of the sincerity of some begotten
of the study of one side only, and chiefly because, for
the most part, but one side is represented in the contest.
The home-builders are busy with their home affairs;
individually they have neither the means nor training
necessary to meet the arguments of the interests that
threaten them. They have no organization and, in
fact, few of them know what is being done for or
against their interests; but let some of these deceptive,
unwise, and unjust measures pass Congress, which

226 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

will deprive the honest home-builder of a just propor-
tion of the public range about the home he has built,
or is building, and you have sown in the heart of that
home and of every humble home in that community
the seeds of discontent and distrust and have gone one
step back toward anarchy.

The discussion of this question cannot be limited
to the forest reserves ; and they tell us the land suitable
for the home-builder is all gone; that there is no more
farming land and it is time the Government should
classify what is left, dispose of grazing lands for graz-
ing purposes, and “go out of the land business.” No
statement could be more incorrect or misleading. We
are just beginning to learn the value and use of the
land of the West.

Some years ago the founder of a great land and
stock company was driving with a boy through the
great San Joaquin Valley of California. They saw
a team plowing in the distance and drove on. After
courteous salutations, the conversation ran like this:

“Are you preparing to put in a crop here?”

CViec?’

“What kind of a crop do you think you can raise
in this valley?”

“Wheat.”

“How long have you been in this country ?”’

“About three months.”

“T thought so.”

“Don’t you think I can raise wheat here?”

“T know you cannot.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Thirty years.”

“T thought so.”

This is not a story created for the occasion. It isa >
historical fact. "The boy is one of the honored mem-

AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 227

bers of this Congress. His companion was one of
California’s most able and eminent men, a mental
athlete who failed, after thirty years of experience
and observation, to classify the great San Joaquin
Valley as agricultural. In view of such experiences,
what must we expect of any expert or commission
charged with the classification of the vast areas of arid
lands. What could the expert have told you of the
oil wells of California and Texas thirty years ago?

With the rapid development of irrigation and water
storage with governmental aid, and with the develop-
ment of water from beneath the surface scarcely be-
gun, the future possibilities of the deserts, valleys, and
plains of the Western domain are yet beyond our
comprehension, and the Government should hold fast
these titles for the home-builders of the future which
will come with these developments.

Through each step of this evolution we must re-
member the absent home-builders of little means and
limited opportunities, and zealously protect their op-
portunities for the future against the encroachments
of the strong and aggressive, if we expect them to
raise up patriotic sons and daughters who will perpet-
uate this as a just and free government; the grandest
heritage we can leave to our posterity, to humanity.

ADVANTAGE OF COOPERATION BE-
TWEEN THE GOVERNMENT AND
LIVE STOCK ASSOCIATIONS IN THE
REGULATION AND CONTROL OF
GRAZING ON FOREST RESERVES

BY
FRED P. JOHNSON

Secretary National Live Stock Association

ASSUMING that it is conceded that the forest re-

serves may be used in an economical manner for
the grazing of live stock, the absolute necessity of an
efficient control and regulation of this privilege, for
the protection of the reserves, must be admitted.

To those not familiar with the vast areas the forest
reserves cover, the task of providing an efficient patrol
to guard them and prevent their injury, may seem a
mere matter of detail. Those who are familiar with
these conditions, on the contrary, are inclined to the
belief that the whole United States Army would hardly
furnish enough men to give the adequate protection
needed. While, under the present system of patrol, a
small army of men are in service, the protection af-
forded is only nominal. How then can the stockmen
be allowed to graze in these reserves with the assurance
that they will be rightly used, and not only the grazing,
but the forests as well, be protected from misuse and
vandalism, for there is vandalism in grazing as well as
in the destruction of forests?

From my knowledge of the stockmen in the West,
I can assert that there is no class of men more vitally

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 229

interested in sane and reasonable forest protection than
the stockmen. If given an opportunity, no class of
men could furnish more absolute and reliable protec-
tion for these reserves. But would they do it? Yes,
if properly approached in the matter.

The western stockman is of a peculiar disposition,
due probably to his environment. Restless and impa-
tient under any attempt to bind him to iron-clad rules
and regulations, yet, when approached with a request
for help and assistance, even though he may derive no
benefit, he is quick to respond. It has been the failure
of governmental departments to understand this phase
of his character that has resulted in much opposition
to forest reserves. As the pioneer, who braved the
dangers and hardships of the frontier to open the way
to civilization, he has felt that he had acquired some
moral rights which even the Government should re-
spect, and to have a stranger ride up to him while on
the range and dictate to him things that he may or may
not do, even though spoken in the name of the Govern-
ment, is galling to his pride and that feeling of absolute
freedom which has been bred into his nature. Ap-
proached by the proper officials with an explanation
of the necessity of the forest reserves; the good that
will eventually result to him from their establishment,
and a request for assistance in maintaining them and
carrying out the plans of the Government, would meet
with immediate and hearty response.

All over the West there are organizations of stock-
men who have associated themselves together for the
protection of their interests and for the improvement
of conditions in their industry. These organizations
are composed of the leading and progressive stockmen
in the various districts. These are men who are build-
ing homes in the desert and they are profoundly inter-

230 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

ested in anything that affects the prosperity of their
locality. Here, already organized, is an army of men
greater than any the Government could press into
service for this purpose, ready, willing, effective, and
to be had for the asking. The Government has only
to request that in return for the privilege of grazing
on these reserves, that the organized stock association
assume the task of protecting them, fostering the vege-
tation and preventing fire and vandalism. It is pos-
sible that many of them do not thoroughly understand
the problem the Government has undertaken to solve;
then they should be enlightened, and it would be found
that there would be no more enthusiastic supporters
of the reserves than the stockmen.

It must not be understood that I advocate the com-
plete turning over of these reserves to the stock
interests. The Government control and supervision
must be absolute, but the organized stockmen could be
sworn in as forest officers. They should have at least
an advisory voice in the making of the rules and regu-
lations and in return should be given as much freedom
in the use of the reserves for grazing purposes as
would be consistent and in keeping with the objects to
be attained.

The advantage of such cooperation between the
government and stockmen must be evident. The
advantage to the Government is to enlist the active
assistance of men who live on the ground, as it were,
in the advancement of the forest reserve idea. Under
such an arrangement the reserves would have a better
protection than could possibly be obtained in any other
way and at the minimum cost for administration. In-
stead of the antagonism of a large class of citizens who
really have rights that the public is morally bound to
respect, you will have their enthusiastic support. This,

AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 231

in my mind, is worth much. On the other hand, the
stockmen are made to realize that these reserves are
being maintained for the benefit of the community in
which they live, and they, having secured a personal
interest in the success of the idea, will do their utmost
to build up the reserves along the lines desired. While
they are given the right to use the reserves for grazing
purposes, the privilege will not be abused under such
conditions, for the community, being interested, will
permit no abuse.

The time to inaugurate the proposed plan is at hand,
since the reserves have passed into the control of the
Department of Agriculture, through the recent passage
of a bill by Congress transferring the administration
of the reserves from the Department of the Interior.
The Department of Agriculture is closer to the stock-
man than any other department of the Government,
and now that the transfer is accomplished it will be an
easy matter to secure this codperation.

It is unnecessary in a paper of this kind to go into
the details of a plan to secure this codperation. It is
a perfectly simple matter, and where there at present
does not exist live stock associations to take up this
work, they would be quickly organized when it was
understood that the Government was willing to recog-
nize them and accept their assistance in the building
up of the reserves and in the maintenance of their
safety and integrity. As to the question of the wisdom
of adopting the policy suggested, it seems to me that
there can be no negative argument worth considering,
none at least from those who understand the actual
conditions in the West.

NECESSITY OF USING THE FOREST RE-
SERVES FOR GRAZING PURPOSES
BY
SENATOR FRANCIS E. WARREN

President National Woolgrowers’ Association

FOREST protection in the United States by Govern-

ment interposition is of recent origin, dating from
March 3, 1891, when in the act to repeal the timber
culture laws, a section was placed conferring upon the
President authority to set apart and reserve public
lands, wholly or in part covered with timber or under-
growth, whether of commercial value or not, as public
reservations.

If the law authorizing the creation of forest reserves
had been enacted half a century earlier, the people of
the United States would to-day be richer than they
are by billions of dollars, the value of countless acres
of timber wasted in the ruthless rush for earlier devel-
opment of the country and destroyed by fire for want
of adequate protection, mainly the latter.

The forestry reserve law which took the place of
the timber-culture law (under which nine millions of
acres of public lands passed into the ownership of
individuals), is simple in terms and occupies but brief
space in the statutes. But its effect has been far-reach-
ing, and under it has grown up in the brief period it
has been in existence a new and important branch of
governmental administration.

The forest reserve law has been taken advantages of
during every year since its enactment for the creation
of forest reserves, excepting during the years 1894,

AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 233

1895, and 1896. During the other eleven years the
law has been in operation the several Presidents have
issued proclamations creating fifty-nine forest reserves,
embracing 62,763,494 acres, an area so great that com-
parisons are necessary in order to obtain an adequate
conception of it.

If the various reserves were assembled in one com-
pact tract, the aggregate area would be greater than
that of the great State of Wyoming; greater than the
area of Michigan, of Oregon, of Utah, of Minnesota,
or of Nebraska. It would be greater than the com-
bined area of all the New England States, with New
Jersey and Delaware thrown in for good measure, and
it would be greater than New York and Pennsylvania
combined.

The primary object of the creation of forest reserves
was that the timber supply of the country might be
husbanded and preserved, and that the denudation of
the great timbered areas of the country, which was
progressing with fateful rapidity, might be choked.
But with the creation of the reserves a more important
object was evolved, and that is the preservation of the
water supply. I cannot better describe this object than
by quoting from the message of President Roosevelt
to Congress at the opening of its present session:

“This” (the preservation of the water supply) “is
their most important use. The principal users of the
water thus preserved are irrigation ranchers and set-
tlers, cities and town to whom their municipal water
supplies are of the very first importance, users and
furnishers of water power, and the users of water for
domestic, manufacturing, mining, and other purposes.
All these are directly dependent upon the forest
reserves.”

The beneficial object of the withdrawal from unre-

234 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

stricted public use of the forest lands of the West and
their creation into reservations, has the endorsement
of residents of Western States, even though the public
land area of those States is seriously diminished. The
Western people, patriotic in all things, acquiesced in
the intrenchment upon their States for the general
public good. Although the creation of forest reserves
and forest regulations often work hardships to individ-
uals and to communities, there is no branch of the
Government which has more loyal support from West-
ern citizens than has the forest service.

That there have been earnest complaints concerning
it cannot be denied. That these complaints were just
is evident, for the two great administrative arms of
the Government, the Department of the Interior and
the Department of Agriculture, have taken cognizance
of them, and have provided remedies for many of the
complaints, until now there is a fair degree of harmony
between the people directly concerned by forest reserve
regulation and the forest service.

The complaints which have attended the administra-
tion of the forest reserve law grew out of the mistaken
notion of many minor officials, and of some whose
places were quite high on the official roster, that the
reserves and what they contained were to be withdrawn
from public use. They acted in their dealings with
those living on or near the reserves on the theory that
the timber, the grass, the water, and even the air,
was reserved for the use of the Government and such
of its official servants who might happen to have their
abiding place, temporarily or permanently, on the
reserves.

Happily, this idea of withdrawing the reserves from
all use has, year by year, lost its potency. Investiga-
tion, examination, and experience demonstrated that

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 235

the reserves, by judicious use, could best be preserved,
and the welcome words of President Roosevelt, in his
latest message to Congress, coincide with the views
which have been held by Western citizens since the
creation of the reserves, and they illustrate also how
closely and clearly the President is in touch with West-
ern needs and interests. In his message he said:

“Tt is the cardinal principle of the forest reserve
policy of this administration that the reserves are for
use. Whatever interferes with the use of their re-
sources is to be avoided by every possible means.”

The most serious complaint lodged against the
administrative regulations of the forest reserve was
in reference to the restriction (in the earlier days of
the reservations, amounting to almost prohibition,) of
live stock grazing on the reserves.

While the restrictive regulations were applied to all
classes of live stock, they were particularly and almost
viciously severe in reference to sheep. And, while it
may not be germane to my subject, it might be noted
that the poor sheep and the still poorer sheepman have
been the object of hostility of mankind almost since
the beginning of recorded time. The first attempt to
put a sheepman out of business was when Cain slew
his brother Abel, who “was a keeper of sheep.” Even
the great John Randolph, it is said, declared “that he
would walk a mile out of his way any time to kick
a sheep.”

And this innate antipathy to sheep and sheepmen
found expression in the earlier regulations which the
officers of the forest service saw fit to put into effect
for the care and protection of reserves. With little
or no practical knowledge of the subject, they held
the sheep to be the most destructive animal in existence.
If allowed within the forest reserves, it was charged,

236 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

this ravenous creature would not only eat the grasses
found there, but would feed on the shrubs and shoots,
and if hunger were not fully appeased by this diet,
would climb the trees and devour the tender branches.
If allowed to cross the reserves, it was claimed that
the sharp hoofs of the sheep would cut and pack the
spongy forest soil so that floods and serious soil erosion
would follow and forest reproduction would be en-
dangered. Then, too, it was charged that the herders
would leave camp fires uncared for and that fire and
destruction would follow in the wake of the shepherds
and their flocks.

It took many years for the Western stockmen to
convince the officials in Washington that sheep do not
climb trees and do not eat coniferous plant or tree
growth, which forms the greater part of timber of
Western reserves. It took much effort to convince
them that grazing off the heavy growth of weeds and
wild grass in the many parts of the reserves was the
best protection that could be provided against the
spread of fires. It has taken much demonstration to
convince them that it was more to the interest of the
stockman than any other class to protect the reserves
against fireand that scarcely an authenticated case could
be found where a forest fire originated purposely or
carelessly with a stockman.

There have been exceptions to this class of officials.
Two notable ones occur to me at this time, the present
Commissioner of the General Land Office, and the
Forester of the Department of Agriculture.

Following the advent of these officials into the forest
service have come reforms along practical lines which
have the sanction and approval of the President and
the warm welcome of the woolgrower and stockman.

These reforms have been along the lines of more

AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 237

stringent regulations for policing and patrolling the
reserves, more liberal regulations for permitting set-
tlers to obtain timber for their own use, more liberal
regulations concerning live stock grazing and sheep-
crossing permits, careful investigation of the character
of the lands before including them in forest reserves
and in the investigation of lands previously included
with a view to restoring them to public entry and set-
tlement, if found more valuable for grazing or agri-
culture than for growth of timber.

These reforms followed the earlier onerous regula-
tions and were the result of petitions for relief sent to
the Department of the Interior from individual settlers
and ranchmen, stock associations, stockgrowers, and
irrigation congresses, and of personal requests for a
more liberal attitude towards Western people made
by members of the Senate and House of Representa-
tives from Western States.

During the year just closed sheep were allowed to
enter and graze in twenty-one forest reserves, and
cattle and horses in fifty-five, while in 1901 but eight
reserves were opened to sheep and thirty to cattle and
horses. In 1904 there were issued 843 sheep grazing
permits allowing 1,806,722 sheep to enter and graze
on the reserves as against 391 permits and 1,214,418
sheep in Igot.

During last year 5,874 permits for cattle and horses
were issued and 620,657 head of this class of live stock
allowed to graze as against 1,926 permits and 277,621
head of stock in 1901. During the year ending June
30, 1904, 919,225 additional sheep were allowed to trail
across the reservations in going to grazing grounds or
shipping points outside of the reserves.

To more correctly make known the necessities of
using the forest reserves for grazing purposes a refer-

238 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

ence to forestry in my own State—Wyoming—would
not be out of place, as conditions there are typical of
conditions generally. |

When Wyoming was admitted to statehood in 1890
its area was 62,641,920 acres. Since that time over
ten per cent. of the area of Wyoming has been with-
drawn from public settlement and created into forest
reserves. The State has given up for the general
public good an area larger than the State of Massachu-
setts, larger than New Hampshire, or New Jersey, or
Vermont, or Maryland. There has been no serious
complaint on account of the great area thus withdrawn
and reserved, but there has been complaint as to indis-
criminate early withdrawals of great tracts of land not
forest, but grazing lands. There has been complaint
also that grazing restrictions in the reserves were too
severe and that a much smaller number of live stock
was permitted to enter the reserves during the grazing
seasons than the parks and open spaces in the reserves
would carry without detriment. There has been com-
plaint that the bureaucracy of the forest reserve admin-
istration caused unnecessary delay in the granting of
timber cutting permits and that many matters that
should be settled by local officers had to be referred
to Washington, thus causing much needless delay and
inconvenience to the ranchman and stockman.

Some of their complaints have been given due con-
sideration and reforms inaugurated to remedy them.
The Commissioner of the General Land Office, in
charge of the administration work of the service, and
the Forester of the Department of Agriculture, in
charge of the scientific features of forestry, took cog-
nizance of the complaint that lands were included in
reserves regardless of their character and conjointly
conducted investigations and examinations to remedy
this evil.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 239

An investigation was made of the Yellowstone re-
serve, the largest in the United States, which required
110 days and 1,800 miles of travel by a skilled engineer
and forest expert and their assistants. As a result
of their investigation they recommended the elimina-
tion from the reserve of 559,350 acres of grazing and
agricultural lands and the addition of 130,560 acres
of outside timber lands, making a net reduction in the
reserve of 428,800 acres. This recommendation was
approved by the Commissioner of the General Land
Office and the Forester, and the change in the reserva-
tion area directed by presidential proclamation. A
similar investigation was made of the Big Horn forest
reserve, Wyoming, which was reduced in size by
eliminating 65,000 acres.

I am of the opinion that still more liberality could
be shown in granting grazing privileges without detri-
ment to the objects for which the reserves were created
and with great benefit to those living within the vicinity
of the reserves.

Wyoming has many resources. It is one of the
leading coal producing States of the Union. It has
shipping mines of copper and iron. It produces oil
of superior quality and in great quantity. Its building
stone is used in many outside States, and it has as many
farms in proportion to population as any State in the
Union. But the chief industry of Wyoming is the
raising of live stock, and under the conditions which
have prevailed for nearly half a century, grazing on
the public domain constitutes the principal method of
live stock raising. To arbitrarily withdraw from
general public use an area of over 7,000,000 acres,
which is perhaps twenty per cent. of the public grazing
lands of the State, would seriously endanger this great
live stock industry if needlessly severe regulations were

240 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

kept in force for the control of the reserves. It is,
therefore, a necessity that good judgment be exercised
in granting grazing privileges so that the fullest
measure of capacity of the reserves may be accorded
the live stock interests, at the same time guarding
against forest injury. In my opinion the reserves of
Wyoming, the forests of which are all of coniferous
growth, would bear without injury a decided increase
of live stock during the grazing season.

Complaints have been made justly from time to
time of the refusal to allow stock to be trailed across
the reserves for shipment or to reach grazing grounds
on the public domain. These complaints have, in a
large measure, been remedied, but there is still room
for improvement.

The conditions in Wyoming apply generally to the
entire Western country, and the needs of the sheepmen
and other live stock owners in relation to the forest
reserves are general and may be summarized as fol-
lows:

First: Thorough and complete topographic exami-
nations should be made of all forest reserves with a
view to restoring to the public domain all grazing and
agricultural lands, and all lands covered with timber
of non-commercial value and valueless as a protection
to watersheds or the headwaters of streams, or for the
protection of water supplies for cities and towns.

Second: Adequate public trails should be established
across forest reserves so that sheep and other live
stock might be moved across the reserves to reach graz-
ing grounds, markets or shipping points, with the least
possible inconvenience to owners.

Third: The grazing capacity of each reserve should
be estimated by local officials, who should take into
consideration the actual conditions of grass growth

AMERICAN Forest CoNncrRESS 241

each year, and the reserves should be opened during
the grazing seasons to the full capacity of the reserves,
consistent with their preservation and the prevention of
over grazing.

Fourth: The administration of the reserves should
be placed, as far as possible, in the hands of local
officials, and the rangers, supervisors, and superinten-
dents should be, when practicable to obtain them, local
men familiar with local conditions and requirements.

Fifth: Grazing privileges on the reserves should be
confined to stock owned by taxpayers and ranch owners
in the State in which the reserve, upon which the
grazing is sought, is located.

I am satisfied that the inclination of the present
officers of the Government in charge of the forest ser-
vice is favorable to the granting of these several neces-
sities of the grazing interests, and I believe now that
a law has been enacted by Congress for consoli-
dating the control of the reserves under the De-
partment of Agriculture, the needs and necessities
of stockmen in relation to forest reserves will receive
earnest and impartial consideration.

SHEEP GRAZING IN THE FOREST RE-
SERVES FROM A LAYMAN'S
STANDPOINT

BY
L. H. PAMMEL

Professor of Botany, Iowa College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts

HAVE, been somewhat interested in forest matters
for a good many years, not only from the stand-
point of the subject of this article, but also from the
standpoint of a botanist. I have followed somewhat
closely the range problems for fifteen years, and my
work has brought me in contact with it from Texas to
Montana. I have been deeply interested in this prob-
lem, for the Iowa farmer needs to recuperate his stock
for feeding purposes from the great arid regions of
the West. No stock equals the western range animals
for feeding purposes. It is, therefore, to the interests
of the Mississippi Valley that good conditions shall be
maintained on the Western ranges. I shall not stop
to review the various interests concerned in connection
with the forest reserves of the West.

Four interests must be considered (1) grazing, (2)
timber supplies, (3) irrigation, (4) mining. Each
must be brought together in one harmonious whole.
The breaking of any one of the links in the chain cannot
but affect the others. During the early development
of the West one interest only was the dominating one,
that of mining. It was soon found that some lines
of agricultural pursuits were needed to give stability
to the country. Then came a conflict between the
different lines of agriculture—the irrigator, the sheep

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 243

herder, the cattleman, all seemed to be in irreparable
conflict. Happily, however, through the efforts of
Mr. Gifford Pinchot some of these matters are being
settled in an amicable way.

It has been my good fortune to have spent some
time in the Rocky Mountain region of Colorado, Wy-
oming, Utah, and Montana, partly to investigate some
of these problems and partly as a layman to enjoy the
benefits of the mountain air and to study the flora.

What were some of the conditions in the great pas-
ture fields of the Rocky Mountains and adjacent re-
gions from 1897 to IgoI?

The cattlemen were dissatisfied because their ranges
were more or less injured,-the irrigator complained
of lack of water. The sheepmen alone entered no
general complaints except where the competition was
too strong among themselves. The open ranges which
had offered abundant opportunities at first became
poorer and poorer and the sheep had to seek greener
fields in the mountains during the summer. What
was more natural than that they should make use of
the forest reserves, where in small parks and meadows
grew an abundance of nutritious grasses. When the
permits were first given it was supposed that grazing
would be confined to the parks and meadows. But the
spirit of this regulation was probably never adhered to,
since the competition among sheepmen was so strong
that they had to seek all kinds of feed for fear of their
flocks reaching the point of starvation in some cases.
It was my privilege to examine three of the forest
reserves, the Uintah, Big Horn, and Bitter Root.

The Bitter Root forest reserve, in Montana, is a
ragged range containing a large amount of timber
and several important streams, the water of which is
used to irrigate the fertile fields in Montana and Idaho.

244 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

The timber in this region is somewhat different from
that occurring in the Uintah Mountains. There are
large bodies of murravana and pinus vexilis. Spruces,
balsam and the Douglas fir are found at different alti-
tudes. This region is very different from the Uintah
Mountains topographically. Sheep grazing has never
been permitted here, and there are few parks. It is
essentially a forest region. Let us first, therefore, con-
sider the importance of the mountains in respect to the
water supply for irrigation.

No better natural reservoirs can be found anywhere
in the Rocky Mountains than the many lakes located
at the sources of the larger streams rising in the Uin-
tah Mountains. In addition there are many basins
or ancient glacial lakes that contain vegetation well
adapted to hold the moisture and thus release it in
the form of springs. The flow of water from these
springs is regulated by the amount of water held in
the soil or retained by the humble plants growing in
forest, meadow, and park. Hundreds of these mead-
ows occur in the reserve, their continuity being broken
only by stretches of forest. A study of these mead-
ows shows a large number of plants important in the
conservation of moisture. ‘Through decay these plants
form a rich humus which, owing to the peculiar physi-
cal conditions, undergo decomposition slowly. Hence
this soil is highly retentive of moisture.

The bogs always carry an abundance of moisture
and the meadow, under natural conditions, generally
contains water, but under overgrazing or the effects
of forest fires the meadows are damaged to such an
extent that the water during the summer months is
continually diminishing.

The present diminished water supply is due in part
to injudicious grazing. Is the water supply less than

AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 245

formerly? So gaugings of the streams have shown,
as does the testimony of old settlers. Two factors
have been important in bringing about these changed
conditions. First, an unusually large part of the re-
serve has been burned over. Prior to 1879 small
patches had been burned over by the Indians and
trappers. Large areas were burned by the Indians in
1879. Since then there have been many destructive
fires, burning many thousand acres, During the early
settlement of the country some of these fires were
started with the idea of making better grazing, but
experience has taught owners of sheep and cattle that
the burning of forests does not improve the range.
Fires in this reserve, as elsewhere, are started care-
lessly. Sheep herders have been given the credit for
starting these fires, but I believe they should not be
held responsible. More fires are started by hunting and
fishing parties than by cattle and sheepmen.

Bitter controversy has prevailed for years among
cattle and sheepmen and those who use the water for
irrigation purposes. The latter nearly always agree
with the cattlemen in regard to the destructive work
of the sheep in the reserve. In some cases the criti-
cisms are justifiable. A few illustrations may be cited.
During the winter of 1899-1900 there was an unusually
light fall of snow in the mountains with a light rain-
fall in the summer of 1900. Forage was scarce, so
short that the meadows at high altitudes were stripped
of their plants, and the forests were denuded of
their undergrowth as much as the meadows. Lower
down in the reserves the valleys of all the streams
looked like sheep trails with dust rising in clouds even
in the woods. The sheep had to resort to willows,
potentilla fruticosa, betula glandulosa, quercus, prunus
demissa and aspen for their forage. These were

I

246 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

stripped of their foliage as high as the sheep could
reach. The similar species were entirely denuded.
Sheep are said not to graze on conifers, but in numer-
ous cases the Engelmann spruce, Lodgepole pine,
balsam, and Douglas fir were stripped of their foilage
as high up as sheep could reach. In that year the
grazing privilege was granted to 180,000 sheep, a
number far in excess of what the conditions warranted.
The number actually grazed was probably still larger.
In 1901 and 1902 the conditions were very much im-
proved.

So many sheep in the reserve cannot help being
injurious to the forest. The indiscriminate grazing in
the burnt timber destroys the herbaceous plants and
keeps the small shrubs in an enfeebled condition and
thus prevents the renewal of the forest.

In no case did I observe young pines where fires
have occurred during the last eight or ten years. But
in timber nearing maturity, and even mature timber,
the injury was great. The herbaceous plants are in-
jured to such an extent that reseeding is impossible.
Seven years ago herbaceous plants were in abundance
along all of the brooks. Now, however, they are con-
fined to the headwaters of the streams and plentiful
only just below timber line. Many valuable grasses
were once abundant, but now have become rare be-
cause the plants do not have a chance to reseed the
ground since the roots are destroyed by tramping and
close grazing.

In order that sheep owners may have a longer lease
of the forest reserve the suggestion has been made,
by those who are interested in the sheep grazing ques-
tion, that every sheep owner who receives the privilege
from the Government should be compelled to reseed
the ground with grass seed and let the grazing go on

AMERICAN ForEst CONGRESS 247

as before. This is not necessary. I believe under
existing conditions it is practically impossible for grass
or any other plant to get a good start. But given an
opportunity the pasture and meadows will recover.

After spending three seasons in this reserve, I am
convinced more than ever that the number of sheep
in it should be regulated by wise and judicious rules
laid down by the Department of Agriculture, subject
to change as the Department may from time to time
deem expedient, or entirely prohibited until the forest
is in a better condition. The solution of the problem
is a difficult one under the present conditions. Public
opinion in Utah and Wyoming is decidedly in favor of
unrestricted grazing privileges regardless of conse-
quences. So long as the Government pursues the pres-
ent policy in regard to the semi-arid lands so long will
the question remain unsettled. In my opinion the
leasing of the semi-arid lands for a term of years
will help partly to solve the question for the forest
reserves. The free use of our public domain for
every one destroys the range to such an extent that the
sheepmen are forced to use the forest areas. Free
ranges should be abolished.

In the Bitter Root forest reserve, although larger
quantities of water are used than formerly, the water
supply from the mountains is scarcely diminished so
far as I have been able to learn. The most important
factor in the Bitter Root forest reserve to be observed
is that the young trees are coming up everywhere in
great quantities. Grass and various herbaceous plants
are abundant and thick.

To make the forest reserve more effective, power
should be given to the forest supervisor to open roads
and trails. In the Uintah forest reserve there can be
no doubt that the most important factor in diminishing
the water supply is injudicious grazing.

248 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Much forage of good value occurs in all of these
reserves and from an impartial standpoint I am in-
clined to the opinion this should be used but regulated
in such-a manner that forest trees will not suffer. To
do this will require good officials, who will harmonize
the various conflicting interests. I would respectfully
urge the sentiments expressed by Mr. Pinchot and
Dr. Roth in their several papers.

GRAZING ON PUBLIC LANDS OF CANADA

(Impromptu Address)
BY

R. H. CAMPBELL

Secretary, Canadian Forestry Association

] DO not respond to the call for Western men, but

am very glad that the discussion has been brought
back again to Western conditions, because I am con-
nected with the Department of the Interior of Canada,
which has the management of the Western lands and
deals with the problems which have been specially
brought before the Congress this afternoon, and I
thought a statement of the method that has been
adopted by us in dealing with the Western grazing
interest might perhaps be of some interest to the Con-
gress. The problem has not become an acute one with
us in connection with the forest reservations. The
grazing has not injured them seriously, and we have
not developed the management of the forest reserves
to such an extent that we have given much attention
to that subject. Another reason why the grazing in
the forest reserves has not been a very pressing subject
is the fact that there are no sheep grazed in close
proximity to the reserves or within them, and as the
chief objection has been made to the grazing of sheep
in the reserves on your side of the boundary, I think
it is from that the problem has largely arisen. In the
lands outside of the reserves we have been following
for a number of years a leasing system. We have not
laid down the principle, which apparently has been
laid down in your administration, that the range is
free to any man who wishes to make use of it; in fact,
we lay down the principle, in the first place, that no
person has the right to make use of the public land

250 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

for grazing purposes without special permission from
the Minister of the Interior, and then we go on and
define the rules by which he may be allowed to make
use of that land for.grazing. The regulation that has
been followed for a number of years is that leases for
a period of twenty-one years may be granted for an
area not to exceed 100,000 acres. ‘The rental asked
for this lease is two cents per acre. A number of
leases have been taken up under this system which have
brought in a fair amount of revenue to the Govern-
ment. Recently the large influx into and settlement of
our West has raised the question of the management
of the grazing lands to an important position and made
it a more acute one. When grazing leases were first
adopted a feeling arose between those holding leases
and some of the settlers who wished to go in on these
leaseholds. ‘The Government then decided, in conse-
quence of the agitation that so arose, to cancel these
leaseholds, allowing the holders to purchase one-tenth
of the area and thereafter granted leases only subject
to a homestead entry. That policy was followed for
some time, and then later a number of leases were
granted without the provision that homestead entry
should be granted within them. Considerable objec-
tion was made, and it was finally decided to suspend
further action until the matter could be given full con-
sideration. It has been under consideration for some
time past, and although I am not in a position yet to
say fully what will be finally decided, I think that the
decision will be that we will stick to the leasing sys-
tem. We have found it to work out with a fair degree
of satisfaction, and I think that the fact of giving the
leaseholder a proprietary right to a certain extent will
make him careful to see that the land of which he has
control is not overgrazed and is kept in proper condi-
tion for all the time that it is held under lease by him.

PART V

RAILROADS IN RELATION TO THE
FOREST

WHAT INFORMATION IS MOST URG-
ENTLY NEEDED BY RAILROADS RE-
GARDING TIMBER RESOURCES
BY
GENERAL CHARLES F. MANDERSON

General Solicitor, Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Company

A SHORT time before the year 1860 there crossed

the Missouri River, on the line of latitude of
the most progressive development and most intelligent
progress, to make a home in the then Territory of
Nebraska, a young man, who joined to physical
strength and virile force a keen appreciation of the
needs of the future and a determination of purpose
only equalled by the intelligence which guided that
purpose, and the abounding faith that led to the desired
result. Settling upon broad acres of virgin soil, he
found himself in a treeless region, on the eastern edge
of what the geographers of the day were pleased to
call the Great American Desert. He was one of the
leaders of that hardy band of men by whose aggressive
power that desert land, the range of the wild buffalo
and the hunting ground of the wilder Indian, was to be
developed into an agricultural garden, whose products
in a single year, in less than fifty years of development,
were to very nearly equal in value the annual output
of all the gold and silver producing mines of the world.
For had this pioneer lived to 1904 he would have seen
from the yield of the fields of vast extent of corn and
small grain, from the domestic animals ready for the
world’s market, a product valued at $500,000,000, or
over three times the value of all the gold and silver

254 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

produced that year in the United States.

The youth who thus settled, less than half a century
ago, near the banks of the turbid and oft times turbu-
lent Missouri, looked about him with sorrowful and, I
fear, regretful gaze. On all that broad expanse of un-
dulation no tree to gladden the sight, no shade to offer
its restful protection to contemplative man or reminat-
ing beast. He called to mind the groves of his native
state; he thought of the spreading oaks, the leafy
maples, and the stately pines of Michigan, and probably
from the longing homesickness there came the inspira-
tion that ripened into the motto of his life: “Plant
trees.” From that inspiring thought came a transfor-
mation delightful to contemplate. Standing now on
the eminence where he built his home, on every side
are to be seen the sylvan evidences of his industry and
foresight. Lofty trees, many of them true monarchs
of the forest, wave their graceful tops as the wind
makes music in the branches, singing ever a grateful
requiem to the builder of Arbor Lodge. The example
he set has not been lost. Groves innumerable now dot
the landscape, once so bare. Countless millions of
trees have been planted as a result of his. persistent
inculcation of the benefits of tree-planting, and in every
State and Territory of the United States, except Dela-
ware and the Indian Territory, by legislative enactment
or executive proclamation one day in each year is set
apart as a legal holiday in which the people are
encouraged to plant trees. It is a monument to his
memory more enduring than marble, more lasting than
brass.

Need I give the name of the founder of Arbor Day
to you—lovers of trees that you are? The names of
J. Sterling Morton and James Wilson are indissolubly
linked together in the annals of forest development.
May their tribes increase! |

AMERICAN ForEST CONGRESS 255

The President is quoted as saying that the forest
question is the most vital internal problem in the
United States. It is truly so, and we are here assem-
bled to give increased vitality to the movement to
substitute saving for losing, preservation for assassi-
nation, creation for destruction, birth for death. We
are here to say to the servants of the people that as
compared with the reforming or the deforming of the
tariff and its schedules, the extinction or the encour-
agement of trade combinations, the regulation or the
demoralization of interstate transportation—all ques-
tions of importance, we admit—the problem of how we
shall conserve the timber production of the country is
the paramount issue. By its conservation we are pre-
served ; by its destruction we perish. The suggestions
as to the best methods of preserving what we have and
adding to our store are for you who are experts, and
not for me, a mere tyro, to give.

My duty at the moment is to show briefly the needs
of the railroads as to timber resources. I might spend
time in showing the relation that railroad transporta-
tion bears to every industry, and that under the
methods of modern civilization not one could be suc-
cessfully maintained without it; but this would insult
your intelligence. The needs of railroads can, how-
ever, very profitably be called to your attention. There
are in the United States 206,885.99 miles of main
tracks, 79,376.03 miles of second tracks and sidings,
being a total mileage of 286,262.02. The vast number
of trees needed to be felled to maintain this tremendous
mileage is so enormous as to stagger belief and exhaust
a reasonable amount of figures. The timber goes
mainly into ties, bridges, station houses, road crossings,
rolling stock, platforms, furniture, and also into many
minor uses. Wherever used there comes to it depre-

256 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

ciation and decay, demanding renewal and replacement.

Let us consider the matter of ties alone, for that will
serve as a fair parallel to all other uses for railroad
purposes. The average number of ties to the mile of
tracks is 3,000; so that 858,786,000 ties have gone into
the construction of the tracks. The probable average
life of an oak tie is ten years. Pine ties naturally last
from four to six years, and when burnetized, creosoted
or otherwise treated their average life is probably
extended to ten years. It will, therefore, be seen that
Io per cent of the ties now in track must be renewed
annually, making a yearly demand for replacement of
nearly 90,000,000 and in a decade 900,000,000. The
average price of oak ties is 55 cents, and of pine ties
38 cents each. ‘Treating for prolongation of life adds
To cents to the cost of each tie. The average cost of
all ties now going into the trackage of the railroads
of the United States is 50 cents apiece, making an
annual expenditure of $45,000,000, and $450,000,000
every ten years; and this calculation of cost does not
include the labor of placing the ties in the track or
the expense of local transportation. Nor does it take
into account the gradual but inevitable increase in price
as the supply lessens, the demand incident to the build-
ing of the new lines of road absolutely demanded by
the ever-advancing commerce of the country, both
intra and interstate, and the necessary supply of street
car lines, both horse and electric; elevated railways,
subways, and mine tracks. The demands of these
corporations are enormous, and constantly increasing.
Add to these requirements the many others caused by
the uses heretofore briefly referred to and some con-
ception can be had of how capacious is the maw of
the great transportation lines of the republic, upon
whose successful and steady maintenance all industries

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 257

depend. It may be better that I should state that they
are interdependent, for without these industries rail-
roads could not thrive, and without the railroads the
industries could not survive, and to maintain both
industries and railroads the timber and lumber product
of the forests is the prime factor and absolute neces-
sity.

This much for the needs. What of the supply for
the needs, the satisfaction of these wants? It is not
only the preservation by judicious forestry and intel-
ligent lumbering of the store we have, but the planting
and husbanding, wherever trees can be induced to
grow, of new forests. To this end there must be the
arousing of public sentiment, so that in every state
and in the nation there shall be taught the lesson that
will lead to legislation encouraging timber growth.
The labor must not only be one of love, but one of
duty. We should rejoice in the fact that in this move-
ment, fraught with so much of good to the republic,
sentimentalism joins hands with commercialism.

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,” but
there is profit as well. It is difficult, I know, to deter-
mine to sow where we cannot reap. The man who
plants trees works not for himself but for posterity ;
but we should remember that with almost criminal
recklessness and censurable disregard of the rights of
the future we have destroyed that which a decent
regard for the race should have prompted us to pre-
serve for those who shall come after us, and certainly
from that standpoint we owe much to posterity.

The legislation of Congress from 1817, when the
first timber preservative act was passed to save live oak
and red cedar for naval purposes, to this time has not
been marked by great wisdom. It is to be hoped that
there may speedily come a repeal of the Timber and

258 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Stone Act, as recommended by the American Forestry
Association, and I submit that in view of the evident
necessities of the railroads of the west, building pioneer
lines, that form the vanguard of civilization, that under
the judicious cutting of timber on government lands,
by carrying out the natural rule of the survival of the
fittest, the requirement that the resulting product can-
not be exported from the district or state wherein it is
cut may well be repealed and be used wherever upon
such railroads the necessity for its use is apparent.
The popular demand is that the rates of freight, so
greatly reduced during the past few years, should
receive still further reduction. This can be obtained
only by economy in construction and maintenance, and
every measure that tends to that result should receive
encouragement.

We of the West are watching with concern the inter-
esting experiment of that admirable Chief Forester
Pinchot in the planting of pine cones and young pines
in our sandhill country. If this otherwise useless land
can be made to grow merchantable pine it will have
justified its hitherto useless existence.

The experiments of the Government, of the railroads,
and of private parties in prolonging the life of timber
are of great importance. ‘The saving of the forests, if
the life of a tie can be prolonged, will be very great,
for as yet no substitute has been devised for wood ties
that is either economical or desirable. ‘They maintain
the alignment of the railroad, so essential to safety,
better than any metal substitute and give an elasticity
to the roadbed most important for the preservation and
maintenance of the rolling stock. With metal ties, or
a stone base, the rails would be speedily injured, and
the heavy Mogul engines used to-day, drawing the
heavy trains of large cars needed for the traffic, would

AMERICAN ForrEst CONGRESS 259

pound themselves quickly into decrepitude and useless-
ness. The change in the character of rolling stock is
worthy of consideration. Engines have increased in
weight from twenty-five to one hundred and ten tons;
freight cars of twenty-eight feet length, with twenty
thousand pounds carrying capacity, have increased to
forty feet of length with one hundred thousand pounds
capacity.

But why prolong the wondrous tale of development
and progress? We have reached the point from which
we must yet advance or retrograde. We cannot stand
still. We are considering the main element of that
hoped-for progress. Let us take lessons from the
nations across the great water. From Germany,
Austria, Hungary, and Switzerland let us learn how to
establish schools of forestry, how to eliminate waste
and mismanagement, and to subrogate private rights
to public necessity. From Bohemia let us learn how
to furnish fuel and building material for a dense popu-
lation and yet retain the area of the primeval forests
and add thereto. Let us learn wherever there is a
teacher, for there is no lesson more essential to our
welfare. Let us adopt the motto of the pioneer
Morton and under state and federal guidance and
direction “plant trees.”

WORK OF THE PENNSYLVANIA RAIL-
ROAD IN PLANTING TIMBER
FOR CROSS TIES
BY

JOSEPH T. RICHARDS

Chief Engineer, Maintenance of Way, Pennsylvania Railroad System.

ig has been largely through the instrumentality of the
American Forestry Association that the railroad
companies of the United States have been brought to
realize the gravity of the situation with reference to
a future timber supply, from which is to be furnished
the large quantity consumed by the railroads in the
production of cross ties. The rapid spoliation of our
forests—the sole source of our supply—and the immi-
nence of its entire depletion, are only too strongly
presented to us by those familiar with the subject. It
would take more time than I have at my disposal to
obtain statistics to cover the entire field of timber
consumption in the United States, or to make any
reliable computation of the amount of timber still
standing, and available for future supply; but a few
figures illustrative of the general character may be of
interest as an introduction to what more particularly
concerns the Pennsylvania Railroad System.
During the past year the Pennsylvania Railroad
Company has had the subject considered and a report
made by a committee of our transportation association,
and I will draw from this report some data for my
remarks to-day. The number of cross ties in use on
the railroads of the United States is estimated to be
about 620,000,000; the number used annually for
repairs, and for extensions of track, is estimated to be

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 261

from 90,000,000 to I10,000,000, requiring, we may
say, the entire product of 200,000 acres of woodland
annually.

Each year the timber from which these are manu-
factured is farther from the base of transportation,
and many of the former sources of supply have already
been entirely exhausted. Our Pennsylvania railroads
now look chiefly to inland Virginia, West Virginia,
and Kentucky for their white oak ties ; and the longleaf
yellow pine of the southern states will soon disappear.
Probably another decade may nearly close these
sources of supply.

The annual consumption of ties on the Pennsylvania
Railroad System east of Pittsburg and Erie, for repairs
only, is about 3,000,000, this being about the average
quantity used every year for repairs in the past ten
years. To this should be added, say, one-half million
used annually in new work. It is evident, therefore,
that at the present rate of consumption the available
supply of the present timbers used, especially white
oak and yellow pine, will be exhausted to a serious
degree before many years, and the time is now ripe
for the railroads to consider the question of what
course they are to pursue in the future.

Under these conditions there are obviously two
courses: First, the reduction of the amount consumed,
which can be done by the substitution of other material
for wood, and by the use of preservative methods for
prolonging the life of the ties, and which by increasing
its durability will diminish the annual requirements
for renewals; and, second, by the adoption of forestry
methods having for their purpose the proper care and
management of the forests still remaining, and the
cultivation of new tree plantations.

It is to the latter to which I will chiefly confine my

262 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

remarks in connection with this all-important subject.
The question of forest preservation and perpetuation
is beginning to receive attention in this country
through the several State Bureaus of Forestry which
have been established, and attention is given to forest
preservation by these, as well as by the National
Government. The National Government has estab-
lished a Bureau of Forestry, which is doing valuable
work in the dissemination of useful information
and by creating a popular sentiment in favor of
the subject, and its cooperation with railroad compa-
nies and lumber industries in the introduction of proper
methods for the preservation and perpetuation of the
timber supply of the country.

The necessity or advisability of a railroad taking an
active part in forestry operations, looking especially
towards its future supply of cross ties for its own use,
is comparatively a new idea. As long as twenty-four
or twenty-five years ago, on the Pennsylvania lines
west of Pittsburg, attention was already given to the
subject, and a number of catalpa trees were planted
along the right-of-way of one of its lines; but the
results obtained were unsatisfactory. More recently,
the cultivation of the yellow locust as a tie timber has
been brought to our attention, and the cultivation of
this tree to a limited extent for the purposes named
has been undertaken.

Within the past two years we have begun the plant-
ing of yellow locust trees on an extensive scale on
property owned by the company. ‘The trees thus
planted are seedlings two or three years old, and cost,
including labor of planting, about eight cents each.
Generally speaking, these are planted ten feet apart,
thus averaging about 400 to the acre; although in the
fall of 1904 we planted 54,871 trees six feet apart and
88,127 trees eight feet apart.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 263

The total quantity planted to date is as follows:

Fall of 1902 at Totals.
IWewtott ft tamton ce oe a Safes aks ES O10... 13,610
Fall of 1903 at
UPSET CGF US AS apaiee eo tan Mane Sit te 43,304 43,364
Spring of 1904 at
PEM OS ie ek Lene, 25,096
PME GON eae s cate} Eanes «Six, eda 20,280
Be ChE Oat eI go a ee 16,537
LAD) 2 Sea PO enenene Ogee 2 een Sep ee ees 8,108
70,021
Fall of 1904 at
MTGE RAIS CS ce sbes) ore bad oie here 20,730
LER Sg ROR ES SI et ee a eR 29,505
1 AEST GTS IES RRR ee: oases Paes 50,300
Atglen & Susquehanna Branch,
Blah oe inca beh cg hs 53,000
153,535
SIAR ee cat ert rane eh cin eres ata 280,530

All of the above places are in the State of Pennsyl-
vania. During the coming year we expect to plant
about 800,000 trees additional, likely 200,000 in the
spring and 600,000 in the fall. ‘The land on which we
planted these trees, except a tract of fourteen acres at
Newton Hamilton, which was purchased for this par-
ticular purpose, are lands which the company has
owned for some time and which were acquired in
connection with old or new lines.

There is probably no other timber which combines
so well the qualities of durability and hardness as does
the yellow locust. Evidences of its longevity in use
as tie timber are frequent on our road. ‘The resistance
of locust timber to cutting under the rail is said to
exceed that of white oak, and it has been demonstrated

264 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

upon our main lines that it is not so much the decay of
the timber as it is the cutting in by the rail which wears
out or decreases the life of the tie. The average life
of a white oak tie is about ten years; we expect to get
additional life out of a locust. The main attention
which this class of timber seems to require during
growth is that of pruning the lower branches of the
young trees, ploughing and harrowing the ground in
which they are planted, and keeping the weeds down
as far as possible.

While it is not likely that the Pennsylvania Railroad
Company will at any time undertake to plant a suff-
cient number of trees from which to secure its entire
supply of cross ties, we feel that the experiment made
by it of raising its own tie timber will have a tendency
to stimulate outside parties, who are small owners of
property, to cultivate this class of timber, and in this
way assist the railroad company in the vicinity in
which they are located by furnishing cross ties at some
future time.

In order to supply our entire needs for the year,
namely, 3,000,000 for repairs and half a million for
new work, and adding thereto 10 per cent for the
immediate future increase, making the total annual
requirements 3,850,000 ties, we figure that, three ties
to a tree, would require about 1,300,000 trees each year
to produce the probable number of ties needed. To
produce the necessary number of trees of the proper
size for tie-cutting each year, in order to harvest the
3,850,000 ties (figuring that it will require thirty years
for a yellow locust tree to mature), would require a
continuous growth of 39,000,000 trees, 1,300,000 to be
planted each year, which, if planted ten feet apart, or
about 400 trees to the acre, would entail the continuous
use of 97,500 acres, or 152 square miles of ground, for
the purpose.

IS IT PRACTICABLE FOR RAILROADS
TO HOLD FOREST LANDS FOR
FUTURE SUPPLIES OF TIMBER?

BY
L. E. JOHNSON

President, The Norfolk and Western Railway

| CAN but express my appreciation at being requested

to present a subject for the consideration of this
Forest Congress, and being asked to answer the ques-
tion: “Is It Practicable for Railroads to Hold Forest
Lands for Future Supplies of Timber ?”

We find that it is one that can be discussed from
the standpoint of railroads, and while the question
from this standpoint is an important one, is it not a
question, by reason of its relation to the public at large,
in every industry and occupation, and in the individual
and domestic needs of every citizen, from the stand-
point of the public at large? |

The preservation of forests is not only necessary for
supplying railroads with cross ties, with timber for its
trestles and cars, but is necessary to maintain the supply
of wood for the various manufacturing, building and
domestic purposes of the public. It is equally, if not
more, necessary to maintain and protect the water
supply in streams, the demands on which are increasing
by reason of an increasing population, and by reason
of the rapidly multiplying requirements for power in
its many forms. And it is equally necessary to pre-
serve our forests, to prevent floods, and to prevent
droughts.

All this is well put in the definition of what forestry

266 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

is by one of the gentlemen connected with the Bureau
of Forestry, in his article in a late Encyclopedia. I
refer to the article by Mr. Gifford Pinchot, ‘Forestry
in the United States,” Encyclopedia American, Vol.
VII, where he defines the subject as covering this
broad ground:

“Forestry is the art of using the forests continuously
to meet the needs of men. In the United States for-
estry has to do principally with the supply of wood for
various purposes, with the maintenance of water-flow
in streams, with the prevention of floods and with the
supply of foliage for grazing animals within the forests.
Nowhere else are forest problems of more vital impor-
tance to the welfare of the people than here, and in no
other country of civilization has so little progress been
made in their solution. This condition follows natu-
rally from the vast area of the United States, its
comparatively sparse population per square mile, and
from the nature, location, and extent of the forests
themselves.”

Referring to the same authority, “Some Uses of
Wood:” “The yearly product of wood in the United
States is about 35,000,000,000 feet. In 1900 the
lumber industry employed two hundred and eighty-
three thousand two hundred and sixty (283,260) wage
earners, to whom it paid one hundred and four million
six hundred and forty thousand five hundred and
ninety-one dollars ($104,640,591). The perpetuation
of this industry is of vital concern to all the people.
Its ramifications are as wide as the industrial life of
the nation, and its perpetuation is a most pressing
concern of the forester. The use of wood for the
maintenance of railroad tracks, for example, rises to
about 120,000,000 ties a year, together with the vast
amounts of bridge timber, piling, etc. Since the use

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 267

of metal ties is believed to be impracticable by Ameri-
can railroad engineers, the maintenance of the supply
of wood and ties is of vital importance to the railroads,
and through them to the nation at large. Ina similar
way, the permanence and success of the mining
industry is dependent upon cheap and _ accessible
supplies of timber. In most portions of the West such
supplies can be expected only from the national forest
reserves. In the creation of the reserves, therefore,
the special needs of the mining and other industries
have been kept carefully, and it is also believed suc-
cessfully, in mind.”

Without regard, therefore, for the necessity of
preserving our forests for the other purposes equally
important to the country, as the means of supply of
wood for industrial and domestic purposes, it would
appear that railroads, although they are consumers of
an enormous amount of wood, their uses of wood form
but a fraction—relatively a small fraction—of the
yearly consumption of wood. I will, therefore, under-
take to discuss some of the details from my personal
knowledge of a railroad extending from tidewater
on the east to points in Ohio to the northwest, and
through Virginia to the southwest, embracing lines
into Maryland and North Carolina, in addition to
other lateral lines within reasonable limits of timber
for its entire distance.

Originally the country passed through by the railroad
to which I refer, was well timbered. The first exten-
sive depletion of timber land was on the first hundred
miles adjacent to the seaboard, where the original
timber was cypress and Virginia or loblolly pine. Up
to the year 1888 this road used a great many cypress
ties, but such timber is no longer procurable. The
second growth of Virginia loblolly pine in this same

268 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

district is very knotty, and, further, it is not suitable
for cross ties until it be treated to improve its lasting
qualities. All the balance of the road is in territory
where both white oak and chestnut oak is indigenous,
and up to quite recently all the cross ties that have been
needed have been obtained within moderate hauling
distance from the railroad line.

The class of ties that have been obtained to date
have been of a high grade. After a time of careful
watching extending over a period of twenty years, it
has been found that the life of these white oak and
chestnut oak ties has averaged about nine years.

This railroad is, therefore, a road presenting prob-
lems that are common to many other roads, and the
above question can be, in part, answered by using it
as a typical case.

At the present time the main line is 1,543 miles;
branches, 226; second track, 150; sidings, 652; total
mileage, 2,571. The average requirements in oak ties
per year for renewals are three-hundred and ten (310)
per mile, aggregating in round numbers eight hundred
thousand (800,000) per year. At prevailing prices
eight hundred thousand (800,000) ties cost per annum
about three hundred and fifteen thousand dollars
($315,000), which is shown to be about fifteen per cent.
(15) over the cost of a like number ten years ago.
This total figure is far below what some railroads less
fortunately situated must pay for a like number.

Both chestnut and oak timber is of such slow growth
that we cannot for a moment consider the attempt to
cultivate it for tie timber. While oak will naturally
grow for the whole length of this and other railroads,
largely by self-sowing, if the soil is left idle, we cannot
count on that method to secure timber for many years
to come in view of the great expansion in lumber
industries adjacent to railroads.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 269

According to our information, the only tree that
has a comparatively rapid growth and which will,
according to the best evidence obtainable, furnish a
first-class cross tie of long life, is the catalpa. It is
claimed that this tree will, in twenty years, make ties
that will last fifteen years in track. However, the
timber is soft as compared with oak, and will, of
necessity, require tie-plates.

Assuming the life of a catalpa cross tie as being
fifteen years, the requirements per mile per year for
renewals would be about 200, making the requirements
for the present mileage of the road under consideration,
allowing for emergencies, about six hundred thousand
(600,000) catalpa ties per annum.

Let us now consider the question of cultivating
catalpa trees for cross ties. We find that one acre of
standing catalpa trees will produce, when twenty years
of age, eight hundred and fifty (850) cross ties. There-
fore, in order to secure six hundred thousand (600,000)
cross ties per annum, about seven hundred (700) acres
of land bearing catalpa trees twenty years old will be
required each year; hence, there should be planted
every year, for the requirements of the railroad, having
a mileage of two-thousand five hundred and seventy-
one mile (2,571), seven hundred (700) acres of trees,
and this planting must be continued for a period of
twenty years before any cross ties can be secured. As
we are to plant seven hundred (700) acres each year
during the twenty years, we must plant a total of
fourteen thousand (14,000) acres, or, allowing for
some waste land, about fifteen thousand (15,000) acres
must be secured. Such a large body of land as this
cannot be obtained unless it be in districts where there
are at present comparatively large bodies of waste or
cheap land. There is no point on this railroad where

270 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

such a tract of land can possibly be secured unless it
be near tidewater.

We, therefore, estimate the cost of establishing such
a timber reservation on the line of this road would be
as follows:

15,000 acres of land at Srovl ope... $150,000

Interest on this for 19 years up to
cutting time at 5 per cent..... 142,500
‘Total cost tor lands). $292,500

Annual expenditure for nineteen years before any
growth is obtained suitable for ties:

SPE Tecate Se tne a ord cea eR $1,500
Clearing, draining, &c., 700 acres

Pel idl sages pea te PS aca IR Ee ae de ah 10,500

470 trees delivered at $10 per M... 4,700

Planting 700 acres at $5 per acre.. 3,500

Superintendence, &c., ............ 1,800

Total-annuatl ‘cost! ess 3 $22,000

This annual charge of $22,000 for

nineteen years aggregates .... $418,000
Interest on this amount for an aver-

age term of 9% years at 5 per

CSTE cs fo teee reg eae niet teed 198,550
Cost“of Jand ‘as above’... 3 0602's 150,000
Interest on cost of land, 19 years,

as aD0VE; at'S per Cent ase sic. 142,500

Totalinvestment upto 20th year $909,050

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 271

Annual expenditure after the twentieth year and
each year thereafter :

Interest on investment, $909,050, at

EPL CRMC tele she a winstonca so oe $45,452
Mee ise cae cheers G 1,500
Reclearing, &c., 700 acres at $5 .... 3,500
470,000 trees delivered, at $10 per M. 4,700
Planting 700 trees at $5 per acre... 3,500
PHPCLINGENGENCE, WC... ss age ess 1,800

PMNGALCOSE ss oes ety. OAS

Cutting and delivering 600,000

cataipa> tiesto; bi icars: at

BIS eC PE AN arabe its ASAD HK $120,000.00
istervincil cost of ties after 20 years. 180,452.50

It should be noted that twenty years hence, at the
present rate of increase in the cost of oak ties, the
cross ties necessary for the railroad in question will
cost an aggregate of four hundred thousand dollars
($400,000) in the twentieth year. The saving through
this transaction would, therefore, be, per annum, after
the twentieth year, four hundred thousand dollars
($400,000) less one hundred and eighty thousand four
hundred and fifty-two dollars and fifty cents ($180,-
452.50), equal to two hundred and nineteen thousand
five hundred and forty-seven dollars and fifty cents
($219,547.50).

The above great difference in figures would indicate
an enormous saving possible by railroad companies
undertaking to hold large areas of land, either directly
or indirectly, to cultivate tie timber alone. And while
it was possible a number of years ago for railroad
companies to hold large tracts of land, laws do not

272 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

give them the right to condemn lands for cultivating
timber. Therefore, unless railroad companies have a
right to condemn land for such purposes, such large
tracts as are required cannot be obtained at prices such
as warrant the above estimate. It is evident that some
modification of the existing laws would be necessary
in order to render it practicable for railroads to hold
large tracts of land for future supplies of timber.

Further, the investment of one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars ($150,00) in land, and an added
investment each year for a period of nineteen years,
until a total of nine hundred thousand dollars
($900,000) is reached, will require a special arrange-
ment on the part of railroad companies in order to
look forward to the holding of various lands for such
a long period of time. It might be claimed that land
could be bought only seven hundred (700) acres at
a time. If this plan should be followed, the prices
would be advanced by the very improvements under-
taken by the railroad company. The only practicable
plan of procedure would be to purchase at the begin-
ning of the undertaking all the land required by a
railroad company.

Right here let me repeat that the above calculations
are based upon estimates made for a certain railroad;
however, they may form a basis for like calculations
on any railroad in any section of our country, taking
into consideration the environments and conditions.
In the above figures no account has been taken of the
danger and loss from fires, but the item of superin-
tendence is included; and further, an item of profit in
the way of securing posts and other timber has not
been credited simply with a view of making an estimate
that would be safe to cover ordinary emergencies.

I have in these estimates only considered one thing,

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 273

namely: ties, for the reason that the use of timber for
other purposes in railroad work is rapidly being substi-
tuted by steel, brick, stone, and concrete. The above
presentation apparently shows a saving to the railroad
company to be great and advantageous. On the other
hand, the time required to secure the growth, changes
in railroad methods, increase in length of railroad
through construction, or decrease through sales, and
the possible future improvement in the form of con-
struction of standard track, throws at once grave
doubts upon the advisability of any such plan. These
doubts lead me to the conclusion that it is not practi-
cable for railroads to hold forest lands for a future
supply of timber, but that it is a question of ‘such
magnitude that it can best be handled by the investment
of private capital, or under the Bureau of Forestry of
the United States Government, in connection with
appropriate legislation by the State Governments.
While railroads can and should cooperate heartily
in every way to preserve our forests from waste and
destruction, I am forced to the conclusion that no
practical results can be obtained without legislation
putting the entire subject with Government control.
The subject is one of such magnitude, affecting
directly and indirectly the needs of every citizen and
every community of our country, that any scheme that
may be adopted must be comprehensive enough to con-
serve all interests and accomplish definite results.
Legislation is required to enable forests lands to be
acquired or reserved at the headwaters of streams and
in other suitable locations.
Laws must be enacted to require the citizens to plant
and maintain timber under appropriate circumstances.
Laws must be enacted and enforced to prevent fires
and the unnecessary destruction of trees.

274 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Legislation, too, should be provided to restrict the
use of timber as much as possible for the use of our
own citizens.

The waste of timber should be prevented to the
extent practicable by proper laws.

And all such laws should, in order to be effective,
be administered by officials invested with the authority
of law.

It would further appear that the large commercial
demands consequent upon the great growth of our
country, together with the immense quantities of the
very best grades of timber which are exported, consti-
tute a greater menace to our forests than the consump-
tion by railway companies.

In this connection, I would like to mention a large
quantity of chestnut oak which is felled every spring
to procure bark for tanning purposes, much of which
is allowed to lie in the woods and rot, although rail-
road companies, and I presume others, would be glad
to get the material, sawed into merchantable lumber,
or have it made into ties. This constitutes a great
and wanton waste. We think that we are fully able
to verify this statement from the frequency with which
we have to decline ties made from timber which has
been felled in years other than the current year.

In considering this timber question in any of its
aspects, we recognize that the study of it, together
with a great many other questions of like import,
marks a new era in the affairs of this country.

Heretofore the American people have been wasteful,
and extravagant to an alarming degree, of every
product and everything which have been generally used
for the necessities and comfort of the people. Nature
has been-prodigal in distributing natural resources
through our land, and for years we have been simply

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 275

drawing upon these accumulated resources without
stint and without regard for the future. Our popula-
tion now is becoming so congested and the demands
upon the resources of the country are so great that it
is necessary for intelligent and conservative people to
study the forestry question and other like propositions,
to the end that the natural wealth of the country shall
not be wasted to such an extent that the conditions of
living by our people shall become more difficult. I
know of no single question that is entitled to more
consideration, by persons influencing large corpora-
tions, than the timber and forestry question.

Such meetings as the one now being held in Wash-
ington will necessarily result in great good in that
they will bring to the attention of large numbers of
people, and especially people of character and influence,
conditions which otherwise might be overlooked or be
passed unnoticed.

RESULTS IN THE PRESERVATIVE
TREATMENT OF RAILROAD TIM-
BERS TO PROLONG DURABILITY
BY
DR. HERMANN VON SCHRENK

Bureau of Plant Industry

N a discussion of the railroads in their relation to
the forest there is no topic which is at this day of

such importance as timber preservation. We have
heard that there is probably no one interest in this
country to-day which can compare with the railroad as
a timber consumer, and certainly there is none which
has a more direct and vital interest in seeing that a
definite and constant supply of all kinds of timber is
assured in the future. It is my privilege to point out
in a few words what bearing the chemical preservation
of wood, with its attendant features, has upon the
general problem of future supply, and to what extent
the results obtained therefrom may lead to a more
economical utilization of forest supplies in general.

In dealing with this subject I propose to consider
briefly the following points:

1. Why railroads in their capacity as consumers of
timber are interested in preservation.

2. Why railroads are interested in preservation from
a traffic standpoint.

3. Why railroads are interested in timber preserva-
tion from the standpoint of economy.

4. What preservation means.

5. What results have been obtained.

6. Some general conclusions.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 277

Up to within recent times most of the tie and con-
struction timbers used by the railroads were timbers
like the white oak and longleaf yellow pine. These
were used because they combined great durability with
strength and good wearing qualities. They were
abundant along the lines of the roads and were obtain-
able in large quantities and at a comparatively low cost.
A purchasing agent had no difficulty, not more than
ten years ago, in getting any number of first-class white
oak ties in the middle or central states at from 35 to 60
cents. While the prices for such timbers are not yet
excessive Owing to local supplies, it is, nevertheless,
becoming increasingly difficult to obtain large regular
supplies of such timbers, and with an ever-increasing
demand, the question has been asked for several years,
and with increasing anxiety, where the tie supply is to
come from in the future. It may not be without inter-
est to state here that, according to a recent estimate
made, about 118,000,000 ties were used for renewal
purposes during 1904.

As a result of the uncertainty in getting a sufficient
number of ties which could be used in the natural
condition, many roads turned toward the so-called
inferior woods, like red and water oaks, beech, gum,
the softer pines, hemlock, etc. None of these woods
can be used without preservation, because they decay
with great rapidity when in contact with the ground.
It is not yet fully realized that when thoroughly treated
that a red oak or beech tie becomes the equal, if not the
superior, of an untreated white oak tie, as far as resist-
ance to decay is concerned. ‘The use of such woods as
red oak, beech, loblolly pine, etc., if generally adopted,
would bring into the market a large body of timber
which would insure a constant supply for many years
to come. It is a fortunate circumstance that these

J

278 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

so-called inferior woods, because of their greater
porosity, can be treated with chemicals so as to preserve
them very effectively.

The use of these woods, which is made possible by
preservation, will not only open up a supply now
standing in the forests, but it will also make possible
the investment in lands producing such timbers. Many
of these grow with great rapidity, at least sufficiently
so as to make the possibilities of second and third crops
a realizable possibility. Some day we may duplicate
the conditions now prevailing in eastern France, where
the preserved beech ties last until another crop of beech
ties furnishes a new supply.

Preservation will therefore be an almost indispens-
able factor in any consideration of future supply, and
when one considers the good results obtained, its
importance will be fully realized.

The use of shortlived woods for tie and construction
purposes when chemically preserved will have a whole-
some effect on the utilization of the higher grade
longlived timbers. The writer has repeatedly pointed
out that the full value of a piece of white oak is not
realized in these times when it is used in the form of a
tie. White oak is coming to be more and more valuable
in the form of lumber and for construction purposes,
for car building, in the cooperage trade, etc. A rail-
road using white oak for ties at a valuation less than
one-half of what it would be as car sills or cooperage
stock, is cutting off industries which it should foster
along its lines. This is especially true when the road
could be using less valuable woods for what must be
considered as inferior service, such as ties or piling.
These’ woods when treated are just as serviceable and
oftentimes better than the more valuable wood. This
is a point worthy of serious study from the traffic
standpoint.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 279

Another point which may be alluded to here is the
influence which the use of less valuable woods, always
after preservation, has on local business and feeling.
The less valuable woods are generally distributed along
most of the railway lines, and should they come to be
generally used, every owner of woodlands would find
a local market for one class of his farm product which
he now has but little use for. This isnot only true for
ties, but for other classes of material. Take fence
posts as an example. Many roads now use cedar,
shipped long distances from off their lines. If birch,
sycamore, maple, red oak, and saplings of other trees,
which grow on every farm, were generally used, it
would stimulate local interest, encourage home indus-
tries, as it were, and at the same time serve to give a
large and comparatively cheap supply. That such
saplings can be easily and cheaply treated (at a cost of
5 to 6 cents per post) has recently been successfully
demonstrated.

While the foregoing points are doubtless worthy of
consideration, it is, nevertheless, true that the foremost
and immediate interest in timber preservation is one
which deals with the more economical handling of the
timber problem. Timber preservation would not mean
anything if it could not be shown that in the long run
it is cheaper to use shortlived woods when preserved
than unpreserved longlived woods.

Without going into details at this point, it may be
stated that there is probably no one to-day who does
not believe that timber preservation in one form or
another pays. The extent to which preservation will
pay will depend upon several factors, such as the first
cost of the wood, the cost of renewal, the cost of the
treatment. In a recent discussion- of this subject it
was pointed out that the following table of annual

280 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

charges might be taken for various kinds of untreated
and treated timbers.

TABLE SHOWING ANNUAL CHARGES.

Timber and Length of Original Costof Annual
Treatment. Service. Cost. Treatm’t. Charge.
White oak, untreated...... Ioyrs. $0.85 sae $0.121
Red oak or loblolly pine,
UNtEEATER Ses. eee ees 5 yrs. .40 2 eee 124

Red oak or loblolly pine,

with zinc chloride treat-

CET oc, ie SESE AEE esa 10 yrs. .40 $0.16 085
Red oak or loblolly pine,

with zinc creosote treat-

MIGUEL Ca ce pees oe Looe 16 yrs. .40 25 005
Red oak or loblolly pine,
with creosote treatment... 20 yrs. .40 45 .069

The conclusion to be drawn from such a table is that
the treated timber in every case is cheaper in the long
run than the untreated timber; furthermore, that the
better treatments, although more expensive at first, are
very much cheaper in the long run. One ought to add
that the treatments given above were selected from a
long list, as representing extremes and averages of
cost.

Having reached the conclusion that timber preser-
vation is worth considering; in other words, that it
makes possible the utilization of timbers not generally
used, and that it pays, one may consider somewhat
more in detail some of the problems connected with
preservation. One cannot dwell too frequently upon
the sentence that timber preservation is not merely an
injection of salts or chemicals into wood. I have stated
elsewhere that it involves not only the successful injec-
tion of chemicals, with all that that implies, but also

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 281

keeping them in the wood, and after the wood has been
rendered more or less decay or fire-proof, the protection
against wear must be considered.

Successful preservation—that is, preservation which
will pay—will depend upon:

1. The timber used.

2. The preserving method used.

3. How the preserving is done.

4. The man who supervises the preserving.

The selection of timber used should be governed by
the available supply. The kind of wood used is after
all probably the least important factor, because, when
preserved, the indivuality of the wood becomes more or
less insignificant. The longest-lived preserved timber,
speaking with reference to decay alone, will be the one
which will allow of the most perfect and even penetra-
tion of a preservative, and which at the same time will
hold such a preservative. But we not only want long
length of life, but also a timber which, with any given
treatment, will bring an increased length of life which
shall represent the greatest possible financial return on
the original investment, made up of the first cost of the
timber and the cost of the preservative process. It so
happens that the open-grained porous woods which,
when untreated, last but a comparatively short time,
give high penetration and comparatively long increase
in length of life; while the denser woods, which ordi-
narily are called longlived, give a poor penetration and
a comparatively short increased length of life as a
result of preservation. Recent tests with timber like
beech and elm have shown an amazingly high absorp-
tion for zinc chloride, amounting to as much as .65
pounds of dry zinc chloride per cubic foot, using a 2%
per cent solution of zinc chloride.

It is, as has been stated, a fortunate fact that most

282 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

of the shortlived woods conform to the requirements
for long increase in length of life, just referred to, and
that it will pay to use them.

Having decided upon the timber available which
can be treated, the next problem is, how shall the
timber be treated? In other words, what method shall
be used? ‘There are a host of processes, beginning
with the metallic salts, like copper, zinc, mercury, etc.,
and ending with creosote or tar oil, either alone or
in combination, for all of which certain merits are
claimed, omitting, for the present, processes employing
chemicals of unknown preservative value. I will not
have the time to discuss this important question at any
length and will restrict my remarks to a few general
considerations which it seems to me should govern in
the choice of a preserving process.

I regard the choice of a process entirely as one
involving a certain risk in investment. One must
start, of course, with the assumption that any one of
half a dozen processes under consideration will actually
preserve the wood for a shorter or longer time. This
assumption is not unfair, when one is dealing with
preservatives of such known value as zinc chloride,
copper sulphate, mercuric chloride, creosote or tar oil,
and possibly one or two others. Assuming, then, that
these preserve wood, one naturally comes to the
question of cost. This one may regard from two
standpoints; the first one, which is the usual one in
Europe, considers the annual charge; in other words,
the saving which can be made in the long run when
comparing an untreated with a treated piece of wood.
A glance at the table which I presented a few moments
ago will show that in the long run the creosoting
process in some form is the cheapest, even if it costs
more at the beginning; in other words, the annual

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 283

charge on an untreated loblolly pine tie which has to
be replaced every five years is $0.12, while for the
creosoted tie it is only $0.06.

Looking at the problem from the second standpoint,
one considers the original investment, and not the
annual charge. Taking the same case of loblolly pine,
an untreated tie costs $0.40. If this is treated with
creosote one must add $0.45 to this cost; in other
words, a new tie and 5 cents more; while if one treats
such a tie with zinc chloride one adds on only $0.16,
or about one-third the cost of a new tie.

For the European investor who deals with timbers
of a high initial cost a comparison such as the one just
mentioned does not occur. The French beech tie cost-
ing $1 or more and lasting four years when untreated,
will last 25 to 30 years when treated with creosote, at
a cost of 75 cents or thereabouts. It is obviously the
correct thing for these conditions to use the most
expensive treatment. The number of ties treated is
comparatively small, the economic conditions are more
or less settled, and the investment of 75 cents per tie
for treatment is not felt as a hardship.

When we turn to our condition in this country we
have a different problem to face. While the spending
of 45 cents for treatment of a 40-cent tie may give
good results, it would be a poor investment, for the
risk would be too great. After five or six years the
tie sizes may be changed, and by that time only a small
portion of the investment made in the treatment would
be realized. An investment of 45 cents additional on
a 40-cent tie lasting four years would furthermore
mean the immediate expenditure of a very large sum
of money, which would show no return until more than
eight years had elapsed. This sort of investment is
not profitable, although it doubtless will come at some
future period.

284 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

No treatment can be seriously considered which costs
more than 25 to 30 cents. Wood is still cheap, and
until the original cost of a tie goes to $1 or thereabouts
cheaper treatments must prevail. Of those advocated
I would advise using the best; in other words, consid-
ering the investment from the first standpoint, that of
annual charges. This would mean either a cheap —
creosote treatment, one using small amounts of oil with
as good penetration as can be obtained, or a zinc creo-
sote combination, both of which would cost 20 cents
or thereabouts. The risk taken would be a small one
because the preservatives have a known value and the
original amount would not be a disproportionate one
when compared with the cost of a new tie.

From this brief outline of the kind of preservative
to be used, we may pass to some of the results which
have been obtained from preservative treatment. While
timber preservation has been practiced more or less in
this country for many years, it has been carried on in
such a way as to give few reliable data. The records
which were kept during the early days are very unsat-
isfactory, and only very general conclusions can be
drawn. In getting together the figures for the coming
International Railway Congress, as to results obtained,
we went carefully over all records kept by American
railroads.

As a result of our study, we were able to report an
average length of life obtained for hemlock ties laid
in Iowa, treated with the Wellhouse process (zinc
chloride, glue, and tannin), of 10.6 years; hemlock
untreated lasts about four years. About the same
length of service was obtained in the southwestern
states with mountain pine treated with zinc chloride,
glue, and tannin. ‘These results are on the whole very
satisfactory, for the length of life of these shortlived

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 285

woods was more than doubled at a cost not quite
one-half the original cost of a new tie.

Timbers treated with creosote show results in the
United States similar to those obtained in European
countries. Piling of longleaf yellow pine has been in
service in bridges since 1869 and 1870 in several south-
ern states, and a recent examination shows that the
wood is still sound. There is no longer any necessity
for doubting the value of creosote (or, as it should be
more properly called, tar oil) as a wood preservative.
Where a good quality is used, and with a sufficient
quantity injected, an almost indefinite length of life
can be obtained. The chief objection against its uni-
versal use has been the high cost of the oil and the
small quantities available. There seems to be no good
reason why more tar oil should not be produced in this
country and at lower cost. It is encouraging to note
the introduction of by-product coke ovens in which the
available tar oils are being saved. More of those
by-product ovens should be constructed, and if uni-
versally used in coke-burning regions there would no
longer be any dearth of oil.

There are several new processes using creosote
which are so conducted as to use small quantities of
creosote, thereby reducing the cost of treatment and
bringing the creosoting process within the range of
consideration. In speaking of creosote, I cannot omit
a word of caution as to the manner in which wood is
frequently treated with tar oil. Creosoted wood has
a bad reputation in many quarters, for it is said that
the treatment with tar oil makes the wood weak, brittle,
and brash. That such is frequently the case no one
who has had occasion to examine any amount of creo-
soted timber can doubt. During the past summer we
have been conducting an extensive series of tests at

286 ‘PROCEEDINGS OF THE

St. Louis to determine what influence treatment had
on the strength of wood fibre. The effect of the usual
preliminary steaming was investigated, and also the
effect of injecting creosote in varying quantities with-
out preliminary steaming. While it is as yet too early
for final conclusions, I am glad to be able to state that
we have determined very definitely that the injection
of creosote into wood has about the same effect as
injecting a similar amount of water; in other words,
the creosote in and of itself in no way renders wood
brittle and weak. We found that the brittleness or
weakness was brought about by the steaming operation
before the injection of the oil. Steaming at 20 pounds
for about four hours did not affect the fibre materially,
but when continued for a longer period the wood was
weakened. After ten hours of steaming at 20 pounds
pressure the wood decreased as much as 26 per cent
in strength. The same was true when steamed at
higher pressures.

These results clearly indicate that where the best
results are to be obtained as little steaming as possible
should be practiced in treating wood with creosote.
This will probably hold for other preservatives as well.

A word should be said here concerning some of the
problems dealing with abrasion of treated timbers.
No process of preserving will pay if the preserved
timber is rendered unfit by being worn out prematurely.
The question of tie plates and rail fastenings should
receive serious consideration in all discussions on pres-
ervation. It so happens that many of the shortlived
woods are soft and easily worn. Preservation will
protect them against decay, but not necessarily against
wear. Recent trials with wooden tie plates have
proven very encouraging. Some of these, made of
cypress, have been in a main line track for eight months

AMBRICAN Forest CONGRESS 287

with very satisfactory results. This goes to show that
there may be many ways and means for protecting the
soft woods against wear.

The success of any preservative process will depend
largely upon the care with which it is carried out.
One must come more and more to the realization that
preservation is a dendro-chemical industry, involving
a technical knowledge of timber and of chemical
processes, all stages of which should be carefully con-
trolled. In dealing with timber one deals with one of
the most variable classes of material, no two pieces of
which are alike at any time, and knowledge and judg-
ment are required to obtain the best results under these
varying conditions. There are numerous preserving
plants now in operation, but of these there is only one,
so far as I am aware, where a trained chemist with a
good laboratory watches every stage of the process.
The wood-preserving industry, although it has been
practiced in this country for many years, is still com-
paratively a new industry, which is beginning to assume
larger proportions. Wherever preserving is carried
on it should be with all the care of a chemical factory.
The nature of the wood should be known, its stage of
seasoning, its absorptive capacities, the absorption
obtained in various runs, the temperatures reached
during treatment—all these points and many others
should be watched and recorded for future reference.

This naturally leads one to speak of the person who
is to have charge of work of this character. I have
repeatedly urged that the preserving problem, in its
relation to the railroad and other industries using
treated woods is a problem worthy of the undivided
attention of a trained technical man.

A railroad should have a man who can deal with
timber in its broadest sense. I do not mean a pur-

288 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

chasing agent, but a technical man, who should have a
position equivalent to the consulting engineer, reporting
to the vice-president or general manager. He should
be able to deal with forest lands in their relation to
railroad supplies, with timber inspection, handling,
treatment, and its final disposition. He should have
authority to make investigations with competent assist-
-ants, so as to keep himself posted as to changes in
methods, as to timber values, maintenance problems,
etc., and his opinion should be that of an expert. So
far as I know, only one railroad has so far created a
position of manager of a tie and timber department in
the sense indicated. It is particularly striking that
this should be the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé
Railroad, a road with the largest experience in timber
treating of any in this country. The example which
they have set should be followed by others.

In discussing preserving problems I have spoken
largely of ties and railroad timbers because these forms
of timber have so far been most frequently treated.
Most of the preserving plants are either directly or
indirectly connected with railroad operations. The
chemical preservation of wood, whether it be against
decay, fire, warping, stains, etc., will probably play an
increasingly important part in the development of an
economical utilization of forest products. Not only
will it affect railway and telegraph interests, but also
in a smaller way each owner of forest lands and the
smaller user of timber. Farmers have been using
longlived timbers for fence posts. These are getting
expensive in many parts and have to be shipped long
distances. By treating the saplings growing on his
own farm, each farmer will be able to make his own
posts at slight expense.

The lumber interests will be influenced by the more

AMERICAN Forest ConcrEss 289

general introduction of preserving processes. Woods
which have had little value will find a market, and
those woods which, in their untreated condition, are
low-priced, will appreciate in price when once it can be
shown how they can be treated to give them increased
lasting power, or make them higher grade.

There is as yet no general appreciation of the fact
that most kinds of timber can be successfully treated.
Treatment is an exception and rarely considered either
by the producer or consumer. We have been spoiled by
the wealth of timber of superior qualities which we have
had for many years, and it may take some time to effect
a change. That this change is coming I feel sure of,
and can prove it by the following extract from a letter
written by a farmer in one of the northern states, who
asks: “Please tell me how I can preserve maple fence
posts to prevent rot at the ground. If you can’t tell
me how to make them last thirty years or more you
needn’t take the trouble to reply to this letter.”

LETTER FROM JAMES J. HILL

Hon. JAMES WILSON,
Secretary of Agriculture,
Washington, D. C.
Dear Mr. Wilson:

I wired you to-day my inability to be present at the
Forest Congress, which I very much regret.

The subject is of importance far beyond the general
understanding of the public. The growth of popula-
tion in the United States has practically covered all the
land which can be cultivated with a profit without
artificial moisture. Irrigation and forestry are the
two subjects which are to have a greater effect on the
future prosperity of the United States than any other
public questions, either within or without Congress.

Yours truly,
(Signed) Jas. J. Hrz1.

PART VI.

IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC FOREST LANDS
TO MINING

fre DEVELOPMENT: OF WATER
POWER AS RELATED TO FOREST
RESERVES

BY
A. L. FELLOWS

District Engineer, United States Reclamation Service

IGHT and heat, air and water, all earth’s elements
combine in the formation of a habitation fitted

for her children. Nature has apparently employed
all her many agencies and utilized all her generative
forces in heaping up her bounteous and varied stores
for the enjoyment of her creatures. Through untold
ages she was engaged in preparing a home for her
humbler children, and throughout the countless cen-
turies that have passed since the earth was first fitted
for the sustenance of life, she has continuously been
perfecting conditions suitable for higher and yet higher
species of living, sentient creatures, until, at the present
time, man, that species which we in our self-esteem
count highest of them all, holds the center of the stage.
Amongst the many secondary agencies which the
great all-Mother has utilized in making this earth a
habitation and a home for all her creatures, the forest
stands almost preeminent. It has clothed the earth
as with a garment, protecting it from storms and
erosion. It has been the home of almost all varieties
of land life from the lowest to the highest. It has
saved its denizens from the rigors of the winter’s cold
and from the summer’s scorching heat. Not contented
with the bestowal of mere temporary benefits, it has
stored up in the coal measures the heat and sunshine
of summers long past for the use and enjoyment of

204 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

the creatures of to-day. It is to-day, as it has always
been, a most active agent in the preservation and up-
building of the human race and a most important
factor in providing in all ways for man’s comfort. It
furnishes him with both the necessities and the luxuries
of life, nourishing his body and gratifying his soul’s
desires. From and through it have come the materials
by which man has subdued both the land and the sea
and, to-day, it is, as it has ever been, the benefactor
of all, of “man and bird and beast.”

Others have touched upon its importance as the
source of our timber supply, the conservation of water
for our irrigation projects, the chief dependence of
our range industries, our railroads, our wood-working
and publishing interests, and the general welfare of
the public. I desire now to invite your attention for
a few moment to its importance as a factor in the
development of the waste power which lies dormant
in all our running streams and upon which the future
welfare of the entire country will so greatly depend.

The people of the United States are but just awak-
ening to the great possibilities existing in embryo in
our creeks and rivers. Electricity, that giant dynamic
of the present generation and of countless generations
yet unborn, is hardly more than in its infancy. Every
stream, small or large, has potential power, which can
be carried practically unlimited distances, at least sev-
eral hundreds of miles, and can be used in any amount
desired or in any desired combination with that derived
from similar streams, though they may be many miles
apart. One of the greatest needs that this country
has to-day is a cheaper form of power, so that indus-
tries as yet undeveloped on account of the excessive
cost of operation under existing conditions, may in
their turn add to the national wealth. This is true

AMERICAN ForEST CONGRESS 295

along nearly all industrial lines, but the need is perhaps
more pronounced in mining regions than it is else-
where. By far the greater number of our ore deposits
are of such low grade or are located so unfavorably
with reference to the utilization of coal or the other
more usual methods of power development that their
economical operation is out of the question. In many of
our mining camps coal costs from $10 to $15 per ton,
and at many of the mines its delivery, even at such
high rates, is impossible.

The only practicable power in such cases is that
obtained from electrical energy, and it is to this force
that mine operators are turning.

There is no doubt but that many times the amount
of power used in mining operations at present could
be utilized to advantage at prices that would well pay
capital to furnish it, provided the means for creating
the power could be depended upon.

Electrical power may be generated in many ways,
but in none more practically or more beautifully than
by the use of water. Here a great dynamic is utilized
which would otherwise waste itself. We here avail
ourselves of one of Nature’s resources without in any
way exhausting her reserve supplies as is done in the
present wasteful use of coal. Conditions may easily
be conceived—in fact, many such cases exist—where
a given water supply may be utilized several times
over in the development of power without diminution
in quantity or deterioration in quality, and be used
again finally for city water supply and in irrigation,
and the day is not far distant when all of the mountain
streams, with well sustained flow, will be utilized to
an extent now hardly dreamed of. |

The development of electrical energy on a commer-
cial basis upon a given stream and with a given fall

296 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

will depend upon a variety of conditions, and in nearly
every one of these conditions the forestation or lack of
such upon the headwaters of the stream plays an im-
portant part. First of all is the total amount of water
available which must, however, be considered in con-
nection with the nature of its discharge—whether
perennial or spasmodic.

The ideal condition for a maximum development of
power would be that prevailing under a reservoir so
large as to be able to impound all the run-off resulting
from precipitation in the given drainage basis and its
complete regulation. To insure permanence in reser-
voir capacity, the water supply must be clear, free from
the presence of silt resulting from erosion, and removed
as completely as possible from evaporative influences.
The maximum development demands that the entire
quantity shall be under such perfect control that a
little more or less as desired may be utilized at any given
time; and that it be well sustained throughout the
year or other long periods, approaching as nearly as
possible a perfectly even flow, with but little, if any,
more in May and June than in September, January,
or any other month; since the power developed, to
be of commercial value, must permit of dependence
being placed upon it throughout long periods of time.
Otherwise it will not pay to install and operate the
necessary plants.

Such conditions as have been described are not often
even approached in nature, but in many localities far-
seeing men are trying to approach them as nearly as
practicable through the construction of great storage
reservoirs and by forestation, and, where the head-
waters have been denuded of the timber, by reforestation.

Here is, to a great extent, the keynote of the situa-
tion. ‘Those regions that approach most closely to the

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 207

ideal conditions are those which are densely forested
and can, therefore, act as conservators of the water
supply with the least artificial aid.

Forests aid in controlling the run-off. Compare
two tracts similar in all other respects, but the one
densely covered with a forest canopy, while the other
has been denuded of such protection. In the first
case the forest cover, with its attendant conditions of a
more granular and porous soil, its humus and leaf
mould, holds back precipitation instead of letting it
run off as rapidly as it would otherwise do. The
snows of winter cover the ground with comparative
evenness, so that it is protected from rapid melting
when the sudden warm periods come. The moisture,
moreover, instead of disappearing rapidly as surface
run-off, goes very largely into the ground to appear
in the form of springs, perhaps months later, as seepage
run-off. The same is true of the summer rains, In-
stead of the precipitation resulting from this cause
converging rapidly into a great torrent sweeping
everything from before it, the moisture goes into the
ground to return again as run-off when it is more
particularly needed, the otherwise torrential stream
becoming well sustained and perennial.

From deforested tracts the run-off is much more
likely to be beyond human control. . Great floods made
up from the converging streams carrying logs and
debris of all kinds before them, sweep irresistibly
down the river valleys, taking with them diversion
dams, gates, power plants, and destroying what they
cannot carry away.

Then again, in a well forested tract, if over-grazing,
with its attendant ills, has not been tolerated, there is
usually a dense undergrowth, which retards the run-
off during rapid melting or after violent storms. Its

298 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

tendency in these particulars is to cut off the crest of
the destructive floods, depriving them of their power
to do harm.

The presence or absence of forests undoubtedly has
a marked bearing, too, upon the quantity of the run-
off. This effect varies with a number of different
conditions, chief amongst which are the permeability
and porosity of the soil, the different habits in different
species of plant life in the matter of transpiration and
the differences in evaporation influences. The soil con-
ditions have already been touched upon. Retention ofa
large part of the precipitation by the soil instead of its
being permitted to flow off rapidly may, and probably
must in many localities—as, for example, in the arid re-
gions—result in a decreased total run-off owing to
the probably greater increased “fly-off,” as the sum
of the evaporation and the transpiration is sometimes
termed. This diminution in the total quantity is,
however, considerably more than offset by the advan-
tages incident to a regulation of the run-off and conse-
quent increase in the low water discharge. As our
old friend “Mike” once said: “It’s better to have
a little liquid refreshment when you need it, than to |
have a high old time twice in a year.”

It has been demonstrated that evaporation, greatest
of all from a water surface in the open, is nearly as
great from a wet earth surface similarly situated, and
that the evaporation from a tract surrounded by forests
is far less than it is from otherwise similar, but un-
protected areas, this being due principally to the char-
acteristics of the forest as a modifier of temperature
and as a wind-break and shield.

This matter has been discussed at length by Mr. G.
W. Rafter in a number of valuable papers, in which
he shows beyond doubt that in humid regions at any

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 299

rate the fly-off is materially less in forested than in
unforested tracts.

In the matter of transpiration, also, it has been shown
that the amount transpired from the forest growth is
considerably less than it is from cultivated crops.
These matters have been carefully gone into in Mr.
Rafter’s papers, already mentioned, in Dr. Fernow’s
book, “The Economics of Forestry,’ and in Prof.
Toumey’s discussion of “The Relation of Forests to
Stream Flow,” as well as in many other important
papers.

The conclusions reached are, in effect, that as be-
tween forested and unforested tracts, the quantity of
run-off is materially augmented in the former case in
humid regions where rains occur with more or less-
frequency, but that in arid regions, where precipitation
occurs but rarely, that the retention of the moisture
by the forests results in some loss in total run-off,
which, however, is more than compensated by the
greatly increased flow during the periods of minimum
discharge.

Another important result of forestation must also
be considered in this connection. It has been stated
that the ideal conditions prevail when the total run-
off can be controlled at will, the water being stored in
great reservoirs. Ina great many instances those who
are interested in the development of power are endeav-
oring to attain these ideal conditions as nearly as possi-
ble, through the utilization of natural reservoir sites.
Here, too, the forests serve a most useful purpose by
preventing erosion. A tract of land that has been
denuded of its supply of timber, especially when the
denudation is due to fires so fierce as to destroy the
humus and leaf mould with the vegetation, imme-
diately becomes subject to the action of storms and
the torrential run-off resulting in the rapid erosion

300 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

of the soil, and thus filling the reservoir with silt and
debris, shortens their periods of usefulness, and de-
stroys their efficiency. That deforestation does
result in an increase in the amount of sediment con-
veyed by the running water has been amply demon-
strated by investigations carried on both in this country
and in others. All measurements of silt, so far as is
known, indicate that the run-off from unprotected
areas is much more heavily laden with gravel, sand,
earth, and organic matter than is the discharge from
areas well protected by forests.

Where storage is not practiced, forestation still
remains an important factor in power development,
since a requisite of the utilization of the water supply
for this purpose depends to some extent upon the
freedom of the water from impurities. The presence
of a greater or less quantity of silt or sand in the water
supply has an important bearing upon the longevity of
the machinery, especially the cups and bearings of the
impulse wheels. The more rapid deterioration in the
machinery may represent a very greatly increased cost
in the development of power and a consequent limita-
tion to its sphere of usefulness.

Practically all that has been said concerning the
development of electrical energy is applicable also to
the development of power directly and through the
compression of air through the agency of water falling
through a shaft, a process which it is predicted will
become much better known and utilized in the future
than it has been in the past.

Having established the fact that there is a close rela-
tion existing between forests and the development of
power through the medium of our streams it is an easy
task to demonstrate the necessity for forest reserves
and for their proper control and management.

It is clear that forest lands still remaining in the

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 301

Government possession should neither be allowed to
pass into private ownership nor should they remain
part of the unregulated public domain, especially under
the conditions that prevail at the present time. In the
former case, where such lands are permitted to pass
into private ownership, human nature remaining as
it now is, the controlling impulse will be to get the
most money possible out of the land in the shortest
possible time. This will usually result in the clearing
off of the timber by the wasteful methods now prac-
ticed, without thought for the future. Reforestation
will not be carried on, and the certain result will be
the rapid denudation of all our forested areas.

Again, it will not do for the methods and regulations
now in vogue with reference to the use of timber upon
the public domain to be continued, since it inevitably
results in the breaking out of forest fires and the wan-
ton destruction of great bodies of timber, in addition
to the great amounts of timber of which the Govern-
ment is annually robbed. In investigations which
have been made under my direction it has been clearly
shown that many fires that had broken out in thickly
forested districts of the public domain had been fol-
lowed within a year or two by requests for Government
permits for the use of the fire-killed timber left stand-
ing, which often makes the very best mine and tunnel
timbers.

The forested areas must be watered and the cutting
down upon them must be regulated. The grazing
must be restricted so that the grass and other vegeta-
tion shall not be destroyed. Deforested tracts must
be reforested and only by the establishment of forest
reserves and through their proper control by trained
foresters, can we approach to the most ideal condition
possible for the conservation of our water supply—a
forest growth covering their headwaters.

WILL THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE
FOREST RESERVES ON A CONSER-
VATIVE BASIS RETARD THE DE-
VELOPMENT OF MINING?

BY
SETH BULLOCK

Supervisor, Black Hills Forest Reserve

i § HE, request of your honored President for a paper

from me to be presented before this distinguished
gathering was a genuine surprise, as I am not an
adept in that line of forest reserve work. My first
impulse was to decline the honor, but after considering
the proposition in all its phases, I concluded that in
view of the recent favorable legislation by the Congress
of the United States, looking towards the placing of.
the forest reserves and the forest reserve officials in
the department so ably administered by Secretary
Wilson, that it would be wise for me to endeavor to
comply with the request of President Wilson, and if
the paper prepared should merit any punishment I
could enter that time-honored and usually successful
plea of self-defense in mitigation of my sentence. The
question upon which I am requested to enlighten this
ageregation of diversified wisdom is, “Will the admin-
istration of the forest reserves on a conservative basis
retard the development of mining?” To properly ar-
rive at an understanding and solution of this question
(and I assure you that it is a large one), it will first
be necessary to determine to what extent the mine is
dependent on the forest, and I wish it to be understood

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 303

that my remarks will refer chiefly to the conditions
existing in the Black Hills Forest Reserve, the only
one of the larger timber reservations with which I am
thoroughly familiar.

Nearly all the developed mines of the Black Hills
are large deposits of comparatively low grade gold ore,
either free-milling or cyaniding in its character; fre-
quently both processes are combined in the extraction
of the values from the ore. In the successful prose-
cution of the work required to make a mine productive
and remunerative to the owners, the use of timber is
an absolute necessity. Its uses are varied. It is re-
quired to timber the shafts through which the ore is
drawn to the surface. Heavy timbers are also required
to take the place of the ore mined, to hold up the roof
of the workings and sustain the sides of the stopes
and drifts. The place of every supporting atom taken
from the interior of a mine, like the Homestake,
for instance, must be filled by some other material
which can carry the burden with safety to the lives
of the miners employed. This requires timber from
the forest. No other material can be substitued for it.
The use of iron or steel posts and beams is prohibited
by their cost, to say nothing about their inadaptability
to the work of underground mining.

To form some idea of the large amount of timber
used by a mine of the magnitude of the Homestake,
it is only necessary to state that over one and one-
quarter million tons of ore are annually extracted from
this property, practically all of which is taken out at
a greater depth than 500 feet from the surface of the
ground. Its deepest workings are, I am informed,
over 1,250 feet.

It can be truly said that a veritable forest has been
used under ground in the mines of the Black Hills

304 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

during the few years they have been in operation; that
no more of the forest has been used in their develop-
ment than has been absolutely necessary, is doubtless
true. The grade of the ore, the high wages paid, and
the satisfactory returns received in most cases on the
investment, prove that the mines have been most eco-
nomically managed, the timbering being one of the
heaviest items of expense in their operation.

In addition to the timber used under ground in pre-
cious metal mining, large quantities are required on
the surface in the erection of ore reduction works and
buildings required to house the machinery necessary
in conducting the business of the mine.

The question of wood for fuel is in some districts
an important one, which happily has been in a measure
solved in the Black Hills in recent years by the advent
of railroads, connecting the mining districts with the
coal fields of Wyoming, enabling the mines to secure
a better and more economical fuel than that afforded
by the forest wood.

Another important factor in the business of mining
as conducted in the Black Hills, fully as essential as
timber, is an ample supply of water; for if this is in-
sufficient, the separation of the values from the mined
ore would be impossible and the labor and expense
of mining lost. As it is necessary, owing to these low
grade ores that the stamp mills or reduction works be
placed as near the mine as possible, large sums of
money have been expended in supplying these plants
with water which is derived from mountain streams,
the continuous flow of which is dependent upon the
preservation and maintenance of the forest conditions
at their source; the fact being now unquestioned that
the denudation of the timber and forest cover, and the
removal of vegetation at the supply points of our

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 305

mountain streams, seriously check their flow and will
in time cause their disappearance.

“Before these fields were shorn and tilled,
Full to the brim our rivers flowed.
The melody of waters filled
The fresh and boundless wood.
And torrents dash’d and rivulets played,
And fountains spouted in the shade.”

The dearly bought lessons of the East should be
heeded by the West.

The benefits derived by the stream from the forest
are amply repaid by the increase of life-giving moisture
in the air and soil. The stream is also a friend in need
to the forest when attacked by its arch enemy, fire.

It follows, then, that the forest and stream are de-
pendent each upon the other and successful mining
upon both. The dependency of the mine upon the
forest having been established, the question arises,
What is the best plan for securing a permanent supply
of the necessary timber? My reply is: intelligent and
practical forestry which can best be obtained under
forest reservation administered with business-like
methods. That the cutting of timber upon the public
domain should be permitted only under wise legisla-
tion is a self-evident fact, approved of by every one
acquainted with the subject. When no restrictions
were placed upon it, these cuttings have nearly all
resulted in the total disappearance of the forest. To
prevent future destruction, forest reserves have been
established and to them should be given the same man-
agement that a prudent merchant accords to his busi-
ness. No wise merchant would hold his goods until
shopworn and old, neither would he dispose of all of
them without taking the necessary steps to replenish

306 PROCEEDINGS OF THE one

his stock. Our system of forest reservation, as at
present conducted, has been established but a short
time, the first public timber sale under it having been
made in November, 1900. Since then giant strides
have been made in protecting the forest from waste,
depredation and fire, and the pronounced benefits
arising are apparent to the most casual observer. At
first, the plan met with considerable opposition, prin-
cipally because it was not understood, but as the policy
developed, the people began to realize that forest reser-
vation meant a saving of the wicked waste so marked
in all former logging enterprises, a just price for the
timber sold, a protection of the forest from fire and
thieves, a conserving of the streams, a preservation
of the young growth, the utilization of the dead tim-
ber; in fact, that it meant more timber for their use
and benefit. Now practically all opposition to forest
reservation has disappeared and to-day it has the hearty
good will and support of every honest man in and
about the reserve.

The present system could be improved upon by
replanting and reforesting. In successful forestry
there should be a seed time as well as a harvest. De-
nuded areas in and adjoining the reserves suitable to
the growing of timber should be planted with trees
adapted to climate and soil. This, with a practical
administration of the forest reserves, an administra-
tion beneficial alike to the forest and the mine, one
that takes into consideration not only the preservation
and propagation of the timber, but the necessities of
the mine as well, and that gives to the latter the most
liberal treatment compatible with the permanency of
the forest, will not, in my opinion, retard the develop-
ment of mining, but, on the contrary, materially assist
it. :

IMPORTANCE OF THE PUBLIC FOREST
LANDS TO MINING

BY
T. J. GRIER

Superintendent, Homestake Mining Company

THINK our President made a mistake when he
asked me to address the array of talent I see
before me here today upon a subject of such far-reach-
ing and vital importance as is indicated in the title to
this paper, and I am sorry, therefore, that he did not go
farther and secure for your entertainment someone
better able to give the subject the careful and exhaus-
tive review it deserves.

Responsive to the query suggested by the title, per-
mit me to suggest that “Forests help mining” in much
the same general way that they help all other industries
which require forest products. The forest furnishes
the supply; the industries make the demand. The
main and chief products of the forest being wood and
water, I fear that the progress of very many of our
great industries would not be rapid if they were
deprived of those articles. The importance to the
nation’s great industries of the forest therefore is not
questioned, but a very great deal of interest and impor-
tance is centered in such conservation of it as will
enable it to meet the great and growing demand of
those industries.

The question of tree supply and demand presents
itself for that solution which will bring about an ample
and increasing supply to meet an ever-increasing
demand that is being made upon it. I trust that the

308 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

deliberations of this Congress may point the way to
that solution.

Prodigal in the use of our woods, and forgetful of
the resulting damage to our mountain streams and
springs, perhaps we have too long neglected the care
of our forests; or does our rapid progress in the devel-
opment of the manifold resources of this country,
which calls for generous quantities of forest products,
merely lead us to imagine that such is the case? I
incline to the former belief, and I think that a visit to
the denuded areas within regions once forested, and
to the dry places where springs of clear water once
flowed, will bear me out. If this is true, we must
meet the demands of such rapid progress, or a halt
must be called.

I do not believe that the American people are built
upon lines that would make palatable the calling of a
halt in their onward march, but that, the necessity
being made apparent to them, they will rise to the
occasion as one man, and with all of the energy with
which they are by nature endowed quickly set about
correcting the sins of omission of which they have
heretofore been guilty.

Fresh from the southwestern corner of South
Dakota, the former home of the Sioux Indians, who
once thought, and perhaps yet think, that in defending
their forest home death in tribal warfare was an honor
rather than a calamity, and where I have resided for
over a quarter of a century, I have noted with much
concern the slow but sure dwindling of the forest.
Although the extensive operations in that region of
the great mining industry with which I have been
connected have during that period been conducted, and
are still being pursued, with the view of conserving
the forest, the dwindling of the forest area still goes

AMERICAN Forest CoNncRESS 309

on. Inthe pursuit of this policy of forest conservation
it is only right to say that the forest has been the
gainer, while the mining company has been the loser.
The company I have the honor to represent, in using
wood as fuel instead of coal, does so at a material loss,
because the only wood used for fuel in the Black Hills
is the dead, down and insect-infested trees which the
departmental regulations very properly insist shall be
removed from the forest. Such very inferior material
costs the mining industry and all other industries using
it approximately 100 per cent more than coal for either
heating or steam-making purposes. If a suggestion in
this connection is pertinent, I desire to say that the
Government should give such material for the taking,
so that the consumers of forest products who can and
are willing to conserve the best interests of the forests
by taking the inferior stuff should not be compelled,
through having to pay for it, to bear an excessive share
of the burden of cost of forest conservation. The
Government enjoys excessive gain in having such
refuse removed through promoting, in a material
degree, the health and thrift of its green trees that
remain. I think that should satisfy it. Its gain, how-
ever, does not stop there, because the removal of this
débris practically eliminates all danger of loss or dam-
age to the green trees from forest fires. Trees breathe,
digest their food, live, thrive, sigh, and die much as
we of the higher order of animals do; therefore, if the
fittest are to survive and thrive, the conditions around
them must be favorable and the elements of danger
must be removed. I think the forest supervisors and
rangers, and the scientists from the Entomological
Division and the Forest Bureau who have made so
careful a study of this subject and these conditions
will second this suggestion.
K

310 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Forests are important to mining, and benefits accrue
to mining from forests; but it is not sufficient to say
so and there stop. ‘The forests are an absolute neces-
sity to the mines. Nor is it true to say that the timber
produced by the forests is the only benefit accruing
from them. Conservation of water by a thrifty growth
of trees is to the credit of the forest, while alike impor-
tant and necessary to the mineral industry, and when
that water is thus conserved it becomes invaluable as
it flows upon such agricultural areas as may be adja-
cent to the mineral lands. I say adjacent, but I do not
mean within the exterior boundaries of the mineral
zone, because I do not believe that the narrow strips
of soil oftentimes found alongside of mountain streams
which have cut through ledges of metal-bearing rocks
and which consist largely of the erosion of those rocks
constitute agricultural areas entitled to consideration
or rights equal in any degree with the rights of the
mines. And I think any legislation looking to the
giving of grants to such so-called agricultural areas a
hindrance and stumbling block in the way of progres-
sive and successful mineral development.

Not many, perhaps, fully appreciate the enormous
quantity of timber needed in and about a great mine in
order to carry on its operations and protect the lives
of its operatives. The hoisting works, metallurgical,
and other buildings on the surface which are always
in sight perhaps render the casual observer unmindful
of the fact that further supplies of the forest product
are required with every foot of progress made in pene-
trating underground. As the miner’s work of taking
out the ore advances, he surrounds himself with a
framework of timber which is intended to hold in place
the sides and roof of his excavation. Wherever it is
possible to hold in place these sides and roofs with

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 311

waste rock instead of timber it is done; so that there
need be no division of opinion as to the willingness of
the miner to adopt such practice whenever it can be
done. The better protection of his property from
disastrous caves suggests it; the protection of his
operatives makes it imperative; it is cheaper.

It is true that a substitution of metal for wood in
certain permanent improvements about the works of
some of our great mines has been made, and it is
probable that wood will continue to give way to iron,
steel, and possibly other non-combustible materials in
limited extent. At the every-day task of mining ore
and developing underground, however, I do not antici-
pate any such substitution, nor do I think that the
importance of the public forest lands to mining will
be lessened by the change in practice in making such
permanent improvements, because of the small ratio
the consumption by such improvements bears to the
whole.

I am not familiar with all of the conditions that now
surround the several areas in the United States which
constitute its forest reserves, or that surrounded those
areas when the reserves were created, but I have inti-
mate knowledge of the conditions which prevailed and
surrounded the home of the Sioux Indian up to the
spring of 1877. Inasmuch as Article II of the By-laws
of this Association suggests, as one of the objects of
its being, the advancement of such legislative measures
as the Association thinks may tend to promote the
general welfare of forests, I am persuaded to call the
attention of this Congress to the importance of consid-
ering well such local conditions as may be found at
each and every reserve before advancing general legis-
lation, the operation of which would affect all of the
reserves alike. I further desire to submit to the

213 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

attention of the Association the fact that there are
certain conditions in and about the Black Hills Reserve
which should not be forgotten when suggesting laws,
rules, and regulations for its government. In the first
place, it will be remembered that the Black Hills
Reserve was the home of the Sioux Indian until 1877,
and that the Government, having satisfied itself that
there was within the exterior boundaries of that home
a valuable mineral kingdom, arranged for the red man
to vacate the premises. Announcement of the new
find was then made to the world, the area was platted
on the Government maps as a mineral zone, and the
miner was invited to enter, explore, and develop the
zone. ‘The miner came upon this invitation, has been
diligent ever since, and has invested millions of dollars
in exploration, development, and improvements, rely-
ing in the prosecution of his work upon having the full
benefit of all of the natural resources of the country,
and without which his work cannot continue success-
fully. I therefore submit to this Congress that it will
be manifestly unfair to advance any legislation having
for its effect the depriving of the Black Hills miner
of those natural resources in any degree.

Touching another subject, suggested in Article IT
of its By-laws as justification for the being of this
Association—the advancement of educational measures
tending to promote forest welfare—I think that we
may confidently rely upon that department of the
Association which will have in hand the dissemination
of knowledge relating to forest welfare to do its duty.

Fully realizing that the benefit of the forest to
mining is of such importance that it can only be
appraised by giving it the value that attaches to an
absolute necessity, and that much value also attaches
to the forest in its relation to the other great industries

AMERICAN ForEsT CONGRESS ama

of the country which, combined with the mineral indus-
try, go far towards making the nation the great,
glorious, and prosperous whole that it is, I cannot
refrain from suggesting at this time that the custodian
of the public domain and its natural resources should
not be unmindful of the immense value to it from the
operation of those combined industries.

While the receipts and expenditures of all industries
except mining can be so fixed as to return interest on
the investment, and that such industries have practi-
cally life in perpetuity, it is not so in the mineral
industry. With it the day comes when, after having
given to the country their treasures, the mines, one by
one, become exhausted, and their costly improvements
are allowed to decay. Is it asking too much, then,
that the mineral industry be most considerately treated
by this Government? If not, most liberal should the
consideration be that is given to the precious metal
mines which furnish the foundation of the nation’s
credit, and which saved that credit from annihilation
after the civil war.

I become more and more impressed with the neces-
sity of tree planting to insure forest perpetuation and
enlargement, and to insure the maintenance of stream-
flow, and I am amazed at the indifference upon the
subject so long displayed by a people otherwise so
mindful. Dwelling upon the subject for a moment, I
next wonder how the tree planting can be most success-
fully and economically accomplished, when something
says to me it can be done by the forest rangers. I
submit the thought for your consideration.

Will you bear with me a moment longer, Mr. Presi-
dent, and gentlemen of the Congress, while I call
attention to a condition obtaining in and about all of
the forest reserves of the United States, and which

314 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

looks to me to be very unfair to a few of the great
industries operating about and within those reserves.
Under the presidential proclamations creating the
reserves, and under the laws as they now exist, it is
not possible for any industry—railroads and irrigating
companies excepted—to be made secure in the posses-
sion of a right of way extending through a forest
reserve. Is that fair? Is there any reason why a
great mine, after spending a large sum of money in
constructing a waterway through a reserve for the
purpose of bringing a supply of water to its works
and to the people manning those works, should not be
able to get as good title or right of way for such
conduit as is given to the irrigating company or to the
railroad company that builds a line through the same
reserve in order to haul other kinds of supplies to the
same works and to the same people operating the
works?

Under the laws and proclamations creating the Black
Hills forest reserve the miner is protected in the pos-
session of such mining locations as he possessed at the
time of the creation of the reserve. Further than that,
he is permitted to make new and additional locations.
Both these provisions are just. ‘They are, however,
inadequate. ‘They stop short of giving that protection
to which the mining industry in the Hills is justly
entitled. The absolute necessity of water for the devel-
opment of the mining claim is universally conceded.
The United States Government recognized this neces-
sity. It has thus far failed, however, to make adequate
provision to enable the miner to secure himself in the
possession of this necessity. Since 1866, the Govern-
ment of the United States has granted to the miner the
right to construct upon its public lands ditches and
flumes to conduct the waters-of the streams required

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS ars

in legitimate mining operations. It has in effect
granted rights of way across such public lands for
such ditches. It has provided that all patents issued
shall be subject to such ditches and rights of way.
This eminently just and wise policy seems to have
been suddenly abandoned in regard to those lands
comprised within forest reserves. Since the creation
of these reserves there has been, so far as I am advised,
no provision made by which the miner can secure the
grant of a right of way for his ditches and flumes,
without which his property may be utterly valueless.

It is true that the act of February 15, 1901, entitled
“An Act Relating to Rights of Way Through Certain
Parks, Reservations, and Other Public Lands,” does
provide that the Honorable Secretary of the Interior
may permit the use of rights of way through the forest
reservations for ditches and flumes used in connection
with mining and other operations. But the authority
conferred upon the Honorable Secretary is so emascu-
lated by the concluding provision of this act as to leave
him in effect no authority to grant any substantial
right, but unlimited power to revoke the favors already
conferred. That proviso reads as follows: “And
provided further that any permission given by the
Secretary of the Interior under the provisions of this
Act may be revoked by him or his successor in his
discretion, and shall not be held to confer any right
or easement or interest in, to, or over any public land,
reservation or park.”

I particularly call your attention to Regulations No.
2 and No. 11 promulgated by the Honorable Secretary
under this act. (Circular July 8, 1901).

No. 2 reads as follows: “It is to be specially noted
that this act does not make a grant in the nature of
an easement, but authorizes a mere permission in the
nature of a license, revocable at any time.”

316 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

No. 11 reads as follows: “Upon receipt of applica-
tions for right of way by the General Land Office, the
same will be examined and then submitted to the
Secretary of the Interior with recommendation as to
their approval. Permission to use rights of way
through a reservation or any park designated in the
act will only be granted upon approval of the chief
officer of the department under whose supervision
such park or reservation falls and upon finding by
him that the same is not incompatible with the public
interest. If the application and the showing made in
support thereof is satisfactory, the Secretary of the
Interior will give the required permission in such form
as may be deemed proper, according to the features
of each case; and it is to be expressly understood, in
accordance with the final proviso of the act, that any
permission given thereunder may be modified or
revoked by the Secretary or his successor, in his discre-
tion, at any time, and shall not be held to confer any
right, easement, or interest in, to or over any public
land, reservation or park. The final disposal by the
United States of any tract traversed by the permitted
right of way is of itself without further act on the part
of the department a revocation of the permission so
far as it affects that tract, and any permission granted
hereunder is also subject to such further and future
regulations as may be adopted by the Department.”

In short, gentlemen, the miner who, at a cost of
thousands, nay hundreds of thousands of dollars, has
constructed his ditches across the public lands of the
reservation in order to make profitable a mining prop-
erty otherwise idle and worthless, holds his investment
of dollars and brains subject not only to the changing
policy, to say naught of the whims and caprices, of an
administrative officer of the Government, but, what is

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 317

a far more serious danger, subject to the blackmailing
schemes of the mine adventurer who, by obtaining a
patent for one mining claim across which the ditch is
constructed, has the absolute power of obstructing the
operation of the ditch and thus of the mine.

Certainly, such results could not have been foreseen
by our law-makers. But they are not only probable;
they are inevitable. There is a remedy—simple,
speedy, just—and that is a law promptly giving to the
miner the same rights given to railroad corporations
and irrigating ditches; at least, a law by which the
miner in a reserve is protected to the same extent that
he is protected upon public lands not within a reserve.
The law, as it stands, puts a premium upon the dis-
honesty of the nomadic mining adventurer. It offers
no protection whatever to the bona fide miner. It
should be promptly amended.

For the respectful attention given to a few thoughts
of a brand-new member of your Association, hurriedly
incorporated into a so-called paper, I thank you,
gentlemen, most heartily.

MINING IN THE FOREST RESERVES.
BY
MAJOR F. A. FENN

Supervisor of Forest Reserves in Idaho and Montana

[|X many of the Western States where forest reserves
have been established, mining holds the foremost
place among our industries. With coal mining we
have little to do; hence, in the remarks that I shall
make, the term mining will be confined to metalliferous
mining. No other industry is more directly and inti- —
mately connected with the administration of forest
reserves than mining. The preservation of timber and
the conservation of the water supply—the two great
purposes of the forester—are exactly suited to meet
the demands of the two chief branches of the mining
industry, lode mining and placer mining. The lode
miner must have timber for his underground workings ;
and without water, the placer miner is helpless. The
Government has ever guarded the miner’s interests
most carefully. Every inducement has been given
the prospector, and the development of the mineral
resources of the country has been encouraged and
stimulated. Consistently with its steadfast policy,
Congress took pains to see that the law authorizing
and setting apart portions of the public domain as
forest reserves should contain nothing of detriment
to the mining industry. The act of June 4, 1897 (com-
monly called the Forest Reserve Law), among other
things provides as follows:
“Tt is not the purpose or intent of these provisions,
or of the act providing for such reservations, to author-

AMERICAN ForEST CONGRESS 319

ize the inclusion therein of lands more -valuable for
the minerals therein, than for forest purposes.”

And further: “Nor shall anything herein prohibit
any person from entering upon such forest reservation
for all proper and lawful purposes, including that of
prospecting, locating, and developing the mineral re-
sources thereof: Provided, That such persons comply
with the rules and regulations covering such forest
reservations.”

And further still: “And any mineral lands in any
forest reservation which have been or which may be
shown to be such, and subject to entry under the exist-
ing mining laws of the United States and the rules and
regulations applying thereto, shall continue to be sub-
ject to such location and entry, notwithstanding any
provisions herein contained.”

While the act contains the above-quoted provisions,
it also outlines a plan for the preservation of the forests
within the reserves and gives to the Secretary of the
Interior power to elaborate the system and make it
effective, by authorizing him to “make such rules and
regulations and establish service as will insure the
objects of such reservations, namely, to regulate their
occupancy and use and to preserve the forests thereon
from destruction.”’

Realizing the vital importance of the mining industry
to the national prosperity, and at the same time appre-
ciating the necessity of protecting the forests for the
benefit of the people, the law-makers devised a scheme
of forest protection that enables forest reserves to be
maintained and the mining industry to be carried on
simultaneously in the same territory, not only without
conflict or friction, but in such manner that scientific
forest methods may be applied in fullest measure, while
the best interests of the bona fide miner are subserved
and promoted.

320 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Under the same law, the authority given the Secre-
tary of the Interior to prescribe rules and regulations
to effectuate the system outlined in the law, provided
the means whereby the details of the reserve policy
might be worked out and adapted to the conditions of
the mining industry as they should be encountered in
the different localities where mining interests and forest
methods might come in contact. The scheme devised
enables every miner to secure from forest reserves in
the State in which his mines are situated whatever tim-
ber is necessary to the prosecution of his enterprise.

Prior to the enactment of this law, a different condi-
tion prevailed. Before the act of June 4, 1897, was
passed, almost the only way for the miner to obtain
timber from the public lands legitimately was under
the act of 1878, which allowed the cutting and removal
of timber from public mineral lands for mining and
other specified uses. This act placed miners in an
embarrassing position. Under the general laws, and
according to the policy of the Department of the Inte-
rior, the public lands are presumed to be non-mineral,
and held to be such until the contrary is shown; hence,
to justify the cutting and removal of timber from a
given tract, under the provisions of the act of 1878 it is
incumbent upon miners to be in position to show that
the land involved is mineral in character. ‘This neces-
sitates the discovery of mineral; for ordinarily the fact
that some mines are known to exist in a certain region
does not establish the mineral character of the whole
territory included. To demonstrate by prospecting
or otherwise that a particular tract from which it is
proposed to cut timber is mineral lands, is to invite the
location of it by others as mining ground, and thereby
defeat the very purpose of the person needing the tim-
ber; for, under the mining laws, the locator has the

AMERICAN ForEST CONGRESS 331

right of possession, and is entitled to the exclusive
enjoyment of the surface of the ground located. The
consequence has been that no effort to determine the
real character of the land was made, the needy miner
preferring to take the timber on land separated from
his claim and run the risk of being brought before the
court for cutting and removing timber from public
lands illegitimately, rather than to place the timber
beyond his own reach through proving the tract to be
mineral in character, and assure its subsequent location
by interested parties, who would surely take advantage
of the showing made, to their benefit and to his injury.

It may be suggested that the person desiring the
timber might himself locate and secure control of both
timber and land; but the reply is that the law as con-
strued requires that the timber cut from a given claim
must be used on that claim, or on a group of which that
claim forms a part, and cannot be removed for use on
a different claim. This most annoying complication
has been fully appreciated by the Government and by
courts, and the result has been that really very little
regard has been paid to the character of the land from
which timber was cut for mining purposes. The con-
dition precedent to justify the cutting was practically
neglected,.and it was deemed sufficient that the timber
taken was devoted to a use contemplated in the law.
The necessities of the miners, and the peculiar provis-
ions referred to, combined to make the majority of the
miners of the Northwest law-breakers. In fact, few
miners knew the exact requirements of the law. It
was commonly understood that whatever forest pro-
ducts might be needed could be taken anywhere any
at any time. This erroneous view often resulted in
prosecutions, which usually terminated in acquittals
that have brought discredit upon the administration

322 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

of justice in the far West. Now, happily, this deplor-
able condition of affairs is obviated through the passage
of the Forest Reserve Law, and the bona fide miner
is given opportunity to secure timber in a legitimate
manner from the public lands.

This one point alone, gained through the develop-
ment of American forestry, should commend the sys-
tem to every person truly interested in the continued
prosperity of the mining industry. Still, the difficulties
mentioned might have been overcome by direct legisla-
tion, and the vital matter of forest preservation left
untouched.

Every successful lode mine is a consumer of enor-
mous quantities of forest products. Such properties
as the Homestake mine in South Dakota, the great
copper mines of Butte and Anaconda in Montana, or
the lead-silver producers of the Coeur d’Alenes in
Idaho, require almost incredible amounts of timber
for their operation. While commonly there is natu-
rally a fair supply of timber in the mountainous regions
where such mines are found, it is far from inexhausti-
ble. The first impulse of the miner in the hurry and
scurry of the newly discovered mining region is to
cut and slash indiscriminately. He takes a tree here,
another there, as his immediate needs may suggest.
He gives no thought to the refuse from his cutting.
He is heedless of the damage that may be done to the
remaining timber, and he is utterly extravagant in the
use of that which costs him nothing, and which there
is no one to claim or protect.

What might be expected, ensues. Fires start in the
cut-over tracts, spreads through the accumulated debris
to the adjacent forests; and the country for miles
around is devastated. Recurring fires continue the
destruction, and in a relatively few years the mining

AMERICAN ForEsST CONGRESS 323

camp is surrounded by denuded hills, and the miners
are face to face with the timber famine, the penalty
of their own thoughtless extravagance and careless-
ness.

Another cause of destruction is the wanton burning
of forest cover where brush and other material impede
the hasty work of the prospector. oo often it occurs
that the prospector, his imagination fired by finding a
rich piece of float, without thought of the injury he
may do to others or even to himself, deliberately sets
fire to the forest to clear the ground and facilitate his
operations. Not only is immeasurable damage done
to the mining industry at large by such criminal prac-
tices, but the fire-bug is likely to render the mine, if
he discover one, wholly valueless, because of the de-
struction of timber on which successful operation of
the property may depend.

It is useless to cite examples to illustrate what has
been said concerning the destruction of timber in the
vicinity of mining camps by prospectors. The expe-
rience of any practical miner is sufficient to prove the
correctness of what is stated.

The preservation of the forests in a State of highest
continued production involves the economic use of
timber, encouragement and stimulation of reproduc-
tion, and protection from fire and spoliation.

It frequently happens that mining properties are
found at altitudes where the better grades of timber
cannot grow. Such species as are adapted to these
high elevations rarely attain dimensions suitable for
ordinary commercial purposes; and again, too, the
stand is limited, so that he who appreciates the situa-
tion must realize the vital necessity of husbanding the
available supply. In spite of these conditions, how-
ever, miners, particularly in the boom days of any

324 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

mining camp, are, as before stated, prone to extrava-
gance in the use of timber and to be careless in their
methods. After a few years of such work, the in-
creasing cost of forest products and the rapid diminu-
tion of the supply arouse consumers to their early
folly, and stir them to an appreciation of conservative
forest methods and to the importance of enforcing
them.

But at this stage, proper protection of the young
growth is most difficult. The needs of the consumers
prompt the cutting of immature trees for.all purposes
where such timber can be utilized ; and to withhold such
material is, under the circumstances, looked upon as
a hardship. Large areas are now in process of refor-
estation around many mining camps, where repeated
fires, following in the wake of choppers, have cleared
off the remnants of the original forest and also de-
stroyed one or more second crops that have sprung up.
The present growth is frequently sparse in conse-
quence ; but it is usually largely composed of lodgepole
pine, a variety of timber fortunately well suited to
many of the miner’s purposes when it is mature, but
not calculated for any other use than lagging when in
the sapling stage. This timber, too, is largely a pre-
paratory crop, which nature provides to fit ares
that have been devastated by fires for the growth of
other and more valuable varieties of timber. ‘This is
a critical time in the process of reforestation, and it
occurs just when the miner is experiencing the first
pinch of timber famine, and he looks with longing upon
the growing trees that might be employed as a make-
shift to tide over present difficulties; hence, the
apparent hardship. A comprehensive view of the
situation will convince him that the ultimate good of
the industry he represents will be advanced by prac-

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 325

ticing the most rigid economy in the use of this
immature timber and by husbanding it and stimulating
its growth to insure a later abundant supply.

Right here I would call attention to the possible
shortage of timber in certain reserves where the de-
mands of miners may be most urgent. I have in mind
the Black Hills Forest Reserve, in South Dakota.
Vast mining interests are at stake there; at present
there is an apparently sufficient supply of timber in
the reserve to satisfy the needs of the mines, but the
appearances are deceptive. The forests are badly in-
fested, the pine beetle is doing his deadly work; and
unless the ravages of the insect be stopped, the present
forests of that reserve within a relatively short time
will have been destroyed. Investigations made by
competent forestry officials have proven that a remedy
for the evil exists. The infested timber must be
promptly cut down and the breeding places of the
beetle sought out and the insects exposed to the ele-
ments and killed. This heroic treatment fills the minds
of Black Hills miners with apprehension. They
therefore object to it; they fear that if this now in-
fected timber be all cut and removed they will be left
without any available timber. Such a result would
indeed be disastrous; but by opposing the cutting and
removal of the timber beyond the present needs of the
consumers, the evil will not be eradicated; further de-
struction is a certainty so long as the insects are
allowed to harbor and propagate there. By thus pro-
crastinating, the suffering miners but increase their
difficulties; and if things be allowed to drift along as
they are now going, not only will all the timber, young
as well as old, be destroyed, but the possibility of a
future crop will disappear. Now it would appear that
if there is any chance for a supply of timber for present

326 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

needs from the public lands to be assured for usé in
the mines in the Black Hills, the wisest course would
be for every tree in the affected district to be cut and
the threatened disaster averted, while at the same time
the present young growth could be given an oppor-
tunity to develop and become valuable, free from the
blighting influence of the now tireless pest. Such a
cutting would result in throwing a vast amount of
timber on the market at once, an amount far beyond
the demands of the day in that immediate vicinity.
To attempt to retain it until the local market could
dispose of it, would be to allow a large part to rot on
the hands of the Government. Wastefulness of that
character would be criminal. The only reasonable
course would be to ship the stuff to other points, to
‘other States probably for consumption. The law,
however, prevents such shipments; timber cut from
public lands may not be transported outside the State
in which it is cut. Here is a dilemma. If the timber
be not cut, the forests will be irretrievably ruined; if
it be cut, it must be either burned or allowed to rot on
the ground instead of being utilized to satisfy the wants
of people in other States which nature has not blessed
with timber growth. |

If the timber could be cut from public lands in one
State and shipped to other States, the solution of the
difficulty would be easy. ‘The insect-infested timber
could be cut and the surplus exported to other locali-
ties; and then,- whenever the needs of the miners
of the Black Hills should require it, the forests of
Oregon, Washington, and northern Idaho, where there
is no local demand at all, could be drawn upon for an
indefinite time and until the young growth in the South
Dakota hills should be again adequate to the necessities
of the people there.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 327

The present law on this point should be changed.
Instead of remaining inflexible, as it now is, positively
prohibiting the exportation of timber cut from public
lands from one State to another, the law should be
so modified as to allow the department in charge of
the forest reserves in its discretion to authorize such
exportation when the interests of the people would be
subserved and the forest reserves benefited or at least
not injured thereby.

It should not be understood that the present legal
difficulty is applicable only to the case cited above. In
many of the great forest reserves of the Northwest,
where there are hundreds of millions of feet of mature
timber which is deteriorating in value every day, there
is no local demand; the lumber manufactured in Ore-
gon, Washington, and northern Idaho is practically all
shipped to markets outside those States. Because of
the inhibiting law now on the statute books, the reserve
timber cannot be utilized. It must remain neither
useful nor ornamental, and finally die and rot where
it grew; while the people of the prairie States of the
Middle West appeal in vain for that which they so
much need, that which they might have but for this
absurd provision of a law enacted long ago to meet
conditions that no longer exist. The incongruity of
things is manifest.

This Congress is deliberating here for the purpose
of encouraging and making practicable an American
forestry system, a system national in its scope; while
the law referred to renders impossible the application
of some of the most fundamental principles of true
forestry by circumscribing vast areas of available ma-
ture timber by the impassable barrier of a State
boundary line.

The economical use cannot subserve the miner’s

328 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

needs unless it be supplemented by adequate protection
against fire; and here is where an intelligent forest
patrol is a necessary auxiliary to the mining industry.
Protection from fire makes requisite certain precau-
tions. Where trees are felled and removed, a minimum
of the débris should be left on the ground to serve as
a conductor of the flames, and all of it should be so
disposed of that when the season of least danger
arrives, the refuse may be burned without damage.
These outlines indicate the importance of enforcing
adequate supervision if the greatest benefit is to be
derived from our forests; but, aside from any theo-
retical view of the subject of forest preservation, there
is a feature of the forest reserve policy which often
escapes attention, but which every bona fide miner
must recognize and appreciate.

I refer to the prevention of illegitimate location of
timber lands as mining claims. How many mining
enterprises of great promise have been balked by such
practices? Every experienced lode miner knows in-
stances where “‘stake locators” have claimed every acre
of timber land within miles of a promising discovery,
for no other purpose than to compel the owner of the
legitimate mining claim to purchase a fraudulent one
in order to secure the timber essential to the operation
of his property. Many of these nefarious schemes
have been defeated through the efforts of forest offi-
cers, and a more effective method of dealing with such
blackmailers is being carefully worked out. Illustra-
tions are not wanting to show that where opposition to
the inclusion of certain tracts within forest reserves
has resulted in the elimination of such tracts, and the
land shark relieved from the vigilance that has pre-
vented the carrying out of his plan, he at once makes
application for patent to alleged mineral land and

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 329

promptly secures absolute control of it. These specu-
lative entries place the legitimate miner at the mercy
of the unscrupulous holder of the title. One or two
alternatives the miner must adopt: either to sell out
and practically abandon his property, or else to pay an
exorbitant price for the timber his tormentor controls.
Usually it is the object of the speculator to force the
former; sometimes the latter is sufficient to satisfy
his greed. In either case rascality triumphs, and the
man whom the Government would assist and encourage
is victimized and his meritorious enterprise embar-
rassed or defeated. Further than this, in certain cases
where formerly there was an abundant supply of timber
available from the forest reserve, since eliminations
have been made, residents find themselves unable to
secure timber for domestic and other purposes without
infringing the law; and it has been demonstrated that
ordinarily where a tract of timber land in a mining
region, once included in a forest reserve, has later
been excluded from it, the honest miner and prospector
not only had little to do with securing the elimination,
but is now anxious to be again within the reserve;
while the purely speculative individual, whose schemes
were formerly circumvented by forest officers, and
through whose efforts the eliminations were made,
instead of being thwarted, may do whatever his sinister
motives may permit.

It is commonly supposed that the conservation of
the water supply and the maintenance of an equable
flow in the streams of the country are of interest chiefly
to the irrigationists ; the placer miner in this connection
is forgotten. But he is an important factor in the
nation’s prosperity. Without an adequate water sup-
ply, he cannot conduct his operations successfully, no
matter whether his work be done with the primitive

330 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

rock and the sluice box, or carried on with the most
advanced dredging or hydraulic elevator machinery.
Moreover, as shown by the history of placer mining
in California, Montana, and other great gold-producing
States, there is a diminishing supply of water in every
mining locality. ‘The barren hills, once clothed with
timber, tell the tale of repeated fires and testify to the
reduced water-storing capacity of the drainage basin
involved. ‘The methods of practical forestry as carried
out in the administration of forest reserves make it
easy for miners of all descriptions to secure adequate
supplies of timber to satisfy their needs, and wherever
a reserve has been established a sufficient length of
time, the honest miner is ever the friend of the reserve
system.

Like any other innovation, the introduction of
forestry methods in a mining camp commonly arouses
apprehension and antagonism ; but experience cures the
troubles. ‘The conservative business administration of
the forest reserve quickly results in the appreciation
of the beneficent purposes of the reserve system, and
converts enemies into friends. The honest prospector
and the bona fide miner have nothing to fear from the
forest reserve. As the forest policy shall be elaborated
and adapted to the varying local conditions, the ad-
ministration of the reserve will be improved, and the
interests of the mining industry more enhanced. Ex-
amined from the viewpoint of experience, the relation
of forest reserves to the mining industry appears so
intimate, the success of one so directly interwoven with
and dependent upon the continued prosperity of the
other, that the possibility of real antagonism between
them cannot be entertained. The forest reserve system
has come as a benefactor of the mining industry, and
when properly understood, it gives every incentive

AMERICAN ForEsT CONGRESS 331

to miners to yield it their loyal support. American
forestry and American mining should work hand in
hand. Forest officers, laboring for the common good
of all, reciprocally miners, as active and efficient
friends, may codperate in the achievement of noble
objects alike beneficial to themselves and conducive to
the public weal.

THE VALUE OF FORESTRY TO COM-
MERCIAL INTERESTS

BY
GEORGE H. MAXWELL

Executive Chairman, The National Irrigation Association

S OME ten days age a telegram reached me from the

Governor of California asking if I could attend
this Congress as a delegate from California. I replied
that I could, and in due time received his appointment.
I mention that merely in order that I may impress upon
your minds that in the few words I have to say to you
at this gathering, I speak as a delegate from and a
citizen of California and a resident of that State, from
the time of my birth until the last few years, which
warrants me in speaking of forestry from the stand-
point of a Western man.

I think it is only proper that I should further say to
you that I also represent on this occasion the National
Irrigation Association, an organization of between two
and three thousand of the largest commercial and
manufacturing firms in the United States, located
chiefly in the Eastern States, and that I speak also
from the standpoint of the Eastern commercial and
manufacturing interests.

I think the mistake which those of us who are from
the west make to-day, and always have made, is in
looking upon this question of forestry in any sense as
a sectional question. It is necessarily as much a
national question as the maintenance of an army or
the construction of a navy.

I wish I had the power by some telepathic process

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 333

of impressing upon the mind of every man present the
picture that is in my own mind as I stand here.

I crossed the Mississippi river on my way to the
west a little over two years ago on a ferry boat on
which was loaded a train of overland passenger cars,
and as we crossed that great river opposite the city of
New Orleans, during one of the greatest floods in
years, the flood was almost up to the tops of the levees
on both sides of the river. It was a serious question
whether the city of New Orleans was not in danger;
and as we landed on the west side of the river we
looked down over the bank and saw the plantations
way down below the level of the water, and exposed to
overflow and destruction any moment that artificial
barrier gave way. Before we had gone twentyfour
hours further west the levee did break and one of those
great crevasses was formed, and practically destroyed
the crop for that season over a large area; though
other localities and the city of New Orleans were saved
by the diminished pressure of the flood on the adjacent
levees.

As I stood on the boat and looked out over that great
river, then at its highest flood stage, I realized the fact
that from over more than one-third of the entire area
of this nation, the water that falls upon it must escape
to the ocean through that one gateway; and that as
the years go by, year after year, we are destroying the
grass and plowing up the prairies and stripping the
trees and the brush and forests from the mountains so
that the engineers can see that every flood plane gets
a little bit higher than the last.

I could not help thinking to myself whether it might
not be possible some day or other to awaken the people
of the Mississippi valley to a realization of the fact
that forestry is a problem extending from New Orleans

334 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

to the Continental divide of the Rocky Mountains on
the west, to Canada on the north, and to the crest of
the Alleghenies on the east, where the Ohio river has
its source. And if it is expected in the years to come
to control that great flood by building the levees higher
and higher, I have only to say to the people of the
lower Mississippi valley, the sugar bowl of the conti-
~ nent, that the time will come when they cannot build
them higher and the country will go back to a swamp
and be as desolate as it is to-day where the St. Francis
basin is covered with water through which you may
look down and see the tops of the trees that once grew
on dry land. How are you going to prevent that?

I say to you as a commercial proposition, if you look
at it solely from that standpoint, as a proposition of
cold, hard figures, that it is the duty of the national
government to conserve that flood of water so that
every drop of it can be used in the State where it falls
before it finds its way into that great river and goes
down to destroy the plantations. And that year by
year the use of that water, if it were all used for power,
for irrigation, for the navigation of the streams in the
summer season (because the water would be in the
streams then in the summer season), that it would
more than double, more than treble, more than quad-
ruple the productive power of more than one-third
of the United States.

Isn’t it worth doing?

Let us carry the picture in our minds a little farther
up the river and look at Kansas City and that great
flood that came so near destroying its business section
that same winter. Look at the Ohio River flood in
the Pittsburg vicinity that same winter. Look at the
Allegheny Mountain region a year later. I came
down from Harrisburg to Washington last spring

AMERICAN ForEst CONGRESS 335

when Congress was in session. The railroad track
had been submerged and torn to pieces in many places
by the flood, and the ice was banked up as high as the
second story windows of the farmhouses to the left
as we came down the river. .

It is only within the last two weeks that I read an
article in the New York papers to the effect that the
cities of that Allegheny region were without water,
the railroads were hauling water and the mines were
shut down because the rivers were dry.

I ask, why is that? And I will answer the question
for you. It is because we have gone over those hills
and mountains with axe and fire and stripped the
hillside and the mountain tops of the whole Allegheny
region, and instead of having a natural forest cover,
which is the greatest reservoir known to nature or to
man, we have a surface which sheds water as fast as
the floor of this hall would shed it if you stood it at
an angle of 45 degrees.

There is no other question of as much interest to the
commercial, manufacturing and transportation inter-
ests of the country, to say nothing of agriculture, as
that one question, forestry.

It is not a western problem or an eastern problem—
it is a national problem.

When I appeal to you for this broad consideration
of it, all that I ask is that you will project your minds
across the ocean to the shores of the Mediterranean,
to Palestine, to Persia, to the plains of Mesopotamia,
and answer me this question:

Where is there a nation that has been desolated by
war that has not been restored to fertility when it
lived upon a land that was productive?

Where has there been a nation destroyed by the
desert that has been restored or ever will be?

336 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Instead of talking about national protection by
“army and navy,” we should talk about national pro-
tection by “forest, army, and navy.”

I am in favor of an army commensurate with our
needs. I am in favor of this nation having not the
second best, but the greatest navy of any nation, but
if we can afford to do that, we can afford to spend as
much upon the preservation of our forests and the
protection of our country from destruction by the
desert as we can afford to spend for the protection
of our frontiers from a foreign foe, or to carry our
flag upon foreign seas.

This great problem of forestry is not alone a matter
of sentiment. It is just as much a cold-blooded ques-
tion of business. ‘The speakers who preceded me have
spoken upon the importance of forestry to mining. I
have listened with much interest to their masterly dis-
cussions on the relation of forestry to mining, and it
brought more forcibly than ever to my mind the con-
viction that the whole country and those engaged in
all its industries are fast coming to recognize the
importance of forestry. I regret that we cannot in-
clude the lower house of Congress. They do not seem
to have yet waked up to it. I have read that the
Japanese have been throwing 800 shells a day into
Port Arthur, which have cost $1,000 apiece. I think
we could, well afford to go to that expense with shells
that were physically harmless to see whether we could
not wake Congress up, by exploding that many such
shells over the heads of the members of the House of
Representatives.

I am not going to take up your time with any further
dissertations upon the importance of forestry. But I
want to offer some practical suggestions as to what we
should do to get what we want done. I listened with

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 337

the greatest interest and pleasure to the President’s
address yesterday, and one of his sentences struck me
very forcibly. He said: “We want to change the hope
of accomplishment to the knowledge of things done.”
If we are going to do that we must have a clear-cut
idea of what we are going to do and of what we want
Congress to do—so plain and clear that there is no
possibility of any man being so stupid that he cannot
understand it.

We have listened to these gentlemen here to-day
telling of the necessities of the mining industries and
of the injustice brought about by insufficient laws.
There is a most simple way to get all the things done
that they have recommended, and more, too. The
first is to bring about a perfect understanding with a
business bureau of the Government, if we can create
such a bureau, and the way to do that is to pass the
bill consolidating the forest reserves under the control
of Mr. Gifford Pinchot.

And after you have done that and he has consulted
with the lumberman and the miner and the farmer
and understands what they want, then back him up
and make-your Congressman help to get it done.

There has been a good deal said here about tree
planting, and I want to speak of the importance of
tree planting to California. The water that comes
from the Sierra Madre and San Bernardino Mountains
produces annually $20,000,000 worth of fruit and other
products of the irrigated farms to exchange with the
manufacturers of the east for the products of their
factories. The forests of those mountains have been
neglected, thousands of acres have been burnt over
and destroyed. One citizen of that State has interested
himself prominently in tree planting. I refer to Mr.
Lukens. He deserves to be mentioned by name. He

338 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

has given generously of his own time and his own
money and the Government has helped in a niggardly
way. There is now a nursery of trees ready to be
planted upon the hillsides of those burnt wastes and
we cannot get a few thousand dollars’ appropriation
to plant the trees.

Now why is it that such a condition as that can
exist? Why is it? I will tell you the reason. It is
because we have “Watch Dogs of the Treasury” in
Congress who object to large appropriations for for-
estry. They can see the vast importance of huge
contracts for armor plate and for building fortifications,
but they care nothing about protecting our country.
from destruction by the desert.

Let us look at the business end of that proposition.
There are other things besides bees that have business
ends. For a number of years the President of the
United States, the Secretary of the Interior and the
Commissioner of the General Land Office have been
trying to impress upon Congress, without success, the
necessity of repealing the Timber and Stone act. I
want to give the exact facts. The President, in De-
cember, 1902, more than two years ago, called the
attention of Congress in the strongest possible lan-
guage to the necessity of doing something to stop the
frauds and depredations upon the public domain under
the Timber and Stone Act. The Secretary of the
Interior reiterated his demand, and specifically urged
Congress to repeal that law.

The secretary said in his annual report more than
two years ago:

“The Timber and Stone Act will, if not repealed or
radically amended, result ultimately in the complete
destruction of the timber on the unappropriated and
unreserved public lands.”

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 339

I find these words in the report of the Senate Com-
mittee on the Public Lands, and the date is February
19, 1903: :

“Tt can be plainly seen that all the valuable timbe
lands of the United States will be owned by speculators
within three years if the opportunity to acquire them
at $2.50 an acre is continued.”

That was February 19, 1903.

It is now pretty close to February 19, 1905, and one
year from that date the three years will be exhausted,
all the timber land will be gone, according to this
official statement.

Has the bill been repealed? No! Has the House
of Representatives done anything to stop this shameful
waste of the public property under the Timber and
Stone Act? No!

They have done nothing whatever to stop the abuses
and frauds constantly being committed under that act.

Again, the following year the President in his mes-
sage to Congress made substantially the same recom-
mendation. They were reiterated by the Secretary
of the Interior. The Senate Committee on Public
Lands recommended a bill to repeal the Timber and
Stone Act and the Senate passed the bill in the last
session of Congress.

It went to the Public Lands Committee of the House
of Representatives.

Mr. T. B. Walker appeared before that committee
and waved his magic wand and they gave two votes
for the repeal of the bill out of eighteen members of
the committee. Two votes! And the bill is lying
there in that committee yet.

In this session of Congress, without waiting for
anything, or for anybody to do anything, they passed
a resolution in the Public Lands Committee of the

340 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

House continuing this whole subject over until the
next session of Congress.

The next session of Congress will convene at a time
within two months of the expiration of the three years
within which the Senate committee told Congress that
all the timber land would be gone unless they got
action.

T. B. Walker is one of those astute business men
who has taken full advantage of the idiocy and incom-
petency of the men who have framed our timber laws
in the past to amass a fortune for himself in timber-
lands. He is reputed to be the largest individual owner
of timberland in the United States. I do not charge
Mr. Walker with having committed any fraud himself,
and the fact that he has acquired a fortune running
into mitlions by the utilization of laws which enabled
him to absorb the public forests into his private owner-
ship is one of the severest criticisms that can be made
of the law I am talking about.

Now it is a question of money. From the standpoint
of Congress this great nation has not enough money
to plant those few trees we have in the nursery, to
protect the forests of Southern California and the
water supply of its farms and of the cities of Los
Angeles and Pasadena.

In the two years that have expired since the Presi-
dent has called the attention of Congress to that timber
and stone law there has been located under the Timber
and Stone Act over 3,000,000 acres of timberland,
the greater part of it the magnificent timber of the
Northwest, which, according to the report of the Sec-
retary of the Interior and the Commissioner of the
General Land Office, is worth anywhere from $20 to
$100 an acre, for the mere value of the stumpage, to
say nothing of the young timber or the land itself.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 34i

In other words, as a result of the deliberate delay
of the Public Lands Committee of the House, instead
of having the value of the stumpage from that 3,000,-
ooo acres of timber in the national treasury, we have
parted with the timber and the land and the young
growth and everything for $2.50 an acre.

Taking the value of that timber at what the stumpage
actually sold for upon some of the Government land
in Minnesota, $15.06 an acre, the Government has lost
$40,000,000 by that proceeding. But the stumpage on
the 3,000,000 acres located during the last two years
was much more valuable than that. And if the Gov-
ernment had managed its timberland business as any
business man or any man of sense would have managed
it, we might just as well as not have realized $70,000,-
ooo from that stumpage, and have had our young
forest trees planted in southern California and the
surplus left over.

We are told that there is going to be a deficit this
year in the revenues of the United States of $22,000,-
ooo. If we had not thrown away that $70,000,000
we could have covered that deficit at least twice over
and still have had money left in the treasury. In other
words, the Public Lands Committee of the House has
thrown away over $70,000,000 of the people’s money
in the last two years. If we should put this total loss
_at only $50,000,000 for the two years it has amounted
to over $2,000,000 a month, or about $70,000 a day.

Now suppose some enterprising and ingenious per-
son had succeeded in tunnelling under the United
States treasury and cut a hole into the vaults and was
carrying off $70,000 a day. Don’t you suppose we
could get the people of the United States to wake up
the Public Lands Committee if it required some action
by them to stop the stealing? That is exactly what is

L

342 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

going on; for if the House Public Lands Committee
does nothing in this session of Congress (and they have
already voted to do nothing), the loss to this country
of $70,000 a day—$2,000,000 a month—$25,000,000
a year, and it is much more than that—will go right
along and continue until all the timberland of our
Government has been stolen. That will be a little
over a year, according to the report of the Senate
Public Lands Committee. And after the land is all
gone—aiter the horse has been stolen, the House Public
Lands Committee will awaken from their Rip Van
Winkle slumbers and close the stable door with a bang.

Now who has got this vast sum of money that has
been lost to the people and the Government? Some
very enterprising gentlemen of the West have made
it, who are taking advantage of this law to their own
personal profit and we are very seriously told that the
West does not want the repeal of the Timber and Stone
Act. Mr. Lacey, of Iowa, the chairman of the commit-
tee, says that “the boys on the committee do not want
the law repealed.” Let me illustrate this condition in
the West. Suppose we hadalaw by which $70,000 a day
or $2,000,000 a month was being paid to Tammany
Hall from the national treasury, to be divided among
the members of that organization and expended by
them as each of them in his judgment should deem
most meet and proper for the promotion of good gov-
ernment in New York City.

Don’t you suppose that Tammany Hall would be
opposed to the repeal of that law?

You might apply the same idea with reference to
this question of the West. But it is a more serious
matter than that. ‘There are men in Congress who will
deliberately stand up and say that this law should not
and shall not be repealed.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 343

There was one thing the President said yesterday
that I asa Western man cannot fully endorse. He said,
in substance, that if the forests of the West are to be
saved, the people of the West must save them. I say
to you that if the forests of Oregon and Idaho and
Washington and Montana and Colorado are not to be
saved unless the people of those States save them,
they will never be saved. If they are to be saved at
all, it will be by Theodore Roosevelt and the people
of the East.

I want right here to express the obligations we owe
to President Roosevelt for going into the West and
making forest reserves which have saved thousands
upon thousands of acres of forests of the West that
never would have been saved had it not been for
Theodore Roosevelt.

It is also a matter of history that the forest policy
which now exists was forced upon the West against
its will by Grover Cleveland by executive order.

You find such Congressmen as Mr. French, from
Idaho, arguing against the repeal of the Timber and
Stone Act and making such arguments as I have
heard him make, that it was a good thing for the Gov-
ernment to sell a man for $400 a quarter section of
land, which he could turn around and sell for $4,000—
that it induced people to go to Idaho and gave them
capital to start in business. Don’t you suppose that
if you offered a bonus of $3,600 in cash out of the
national treasury to every many who would come to
Washington to live that you could get more people to
reside here and raise the value of real estate in the
city? That is the proposition from the Idaho stand-
point as applied to the city of Washington.

Before I close I wish to specify some definite and
specific things which should be done:

344 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

First. Repeal the Timber and Stone Act.

Second. Pass the consolidation bill putting the Gov-
ernment forests under the management of the Bureau
of Forestry.

Third. Provide by national legislation that every
acre of agricultural land that can be reclaimed under
the national irrigation system must be saved for the
homemaker who will go there and make a home upon
it.

In that way you can break up the timber combina-
tion, and in that way only; because the land thieves
of North Dakota, under the Commutation Clause—the
land thieves of Montana under the Desert Land Act—
the land thieves, under the Timber and Stone Act—
well, perhaps I might be permitted to mention Oregon
in this connection—are working together. You will
have to explode some of those Japanese shells among
them to break up the combination.

The situation in Oregon reminds me of a saying of
Mayor Henry, of the city of Oakland, out in California,
twenty or more years ago. There had been a good
deal of rottenness in the municipal affairs. The newly-
elected mayor was something of a rival of Mrs. Part-
ington. His knowledge of Greek names were a little
mixed, and in his inaugural address he declared with
great energy, “Gentlemen, I am going to clean out
the Oregon stables!”

I really think we are going to get the Oregon stables
cleaned out.

To show you why we cannot depend upon Congress-
men from the timber State of the West to correct this
enormous evil, a year ago both Oregon Senators and
both Representatives from Oregon were bitterly op-
posed to any change in the land laws. Representatives
Hermann and Williamson both went before the com-

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 345

mittee and protested against any change. Mr. Her-
mann was before the committee. At that exact moment
the Oregon grand jury was in session in the city of
Portland, composed of men drawn by lot from all
over the State, and that grand jury urged the repeal
of all those laws—the Timber and Stone Act, the
Desert Land Act, and the Commutation Clause, and
sent a memorial to the Public Lands Commission to
that effect. Now the grand jury has had some busi-
ness with Mr. Hermann since that time.

I understand that Mr. Williamson is not here, and
I do not know where he is. I did see an article in an
Oregon paper charging that he put up the money
himself for some fellow to buy a lot of worthless school
land, and then they tried to get it into a forest reserve
and failed and Williamson lost his money.

I am lifting the sheet off the corpse a little, but I
don’t think it will do any harm. If you don’t have these
cold, hard facts impressed upon you by somebody you
are not going to accomplish anything.

If you want to do something, go ahead and talk to
your member of Congress and get him to help to get
the House of Representatives to carry the public lands
legislation right straight over the heads of the com-
mittee.

They passed one land bill at the last session of
Congress, a bill throwing away thousands and hun-
dreds of thousands of acres of lands, in tracts of 640
acres, in western Nebraska, which should have been
retained and trees planted on it to be used in the
mines of South Dakota, and of the whole Rocky
Mountain region. Nebraska sold its birthright for
a mess of pottage when it allowed the Kinkaid bill
to become a law. The whole scheme for 640-acre
homesteads is a rank deception and offers a premium
for fraud.

346 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

There are a number of other things that I have in
my mind to suggest that ought to be done:

One is to pass the Appalachian Forest Reserve bill,
which is ready to be passed.

Another is to stop now and for all time all exchanges
of lands in forest reserves for other lands. If the
Government needs any such lands let it buy them and
pay for them their fair value and no more. All lieu
land scrip should be called in and cancelled and no
more ever issued under any circumstances. The
forest lieu land exchange law should be repealed.

And if this session of Congress adjourns without
the bill being passed by the House, which has passed
the Senate, repealing the Timber and Stone Act, every
member of the Public Lands Committee, who voted
for delay, ought to be held up to popular obloquy and
whipped at the cart’s tail with a lash that would make
them feel the full weight of an outraged national public
sentiment.

They are not liable to punishment criminally, but
they are morally responsible for every fraud committed
under the Timber and Stone Act since they shelved the
bill passed by the Senate in the last session of Congress
to repeal it.

But it is not enough merely to repeal the Timber
and Stone Act. Every acre of public forest lands or
brush or woodlands which conserve a water supply
should be at once embraced in permanent forest
reserves, the title to be always retained by the national
government, and the stumpage only of matured timber
to be sold.

The whole great plains region should be studied and
developed as a vast area which can be transformed
from a semi-arid region to one of great fertility and
more humid climate by the planting of immense areas,

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 347

hundreds of thousands of acres, of new forests by the
national government on the wide level prairies and
bare, rolling foot-hills which are now supposed to be
among the waste places of the land and only fit for
grazing ground for a few stray cattle and sheep.

It is the vast possibilities of forest planting and tim-
ber production in this region that makes it almost a
crime against future generations to part with the land
in its present condition to stockmen under such a
scheme as the Kinkaid bill for the creation of large
grazing estates in private ownership.

~The mining and transportation interests, more im-
mediately than any other, ought to oppose this 640-acre
homestead idea anywhere in the great plains or Rocky
Mountain States, and help to inaugurate a great
national policy of planting new forests, not only to
furnish wood and timber for the mines, and railroad
ties and timber for railroad construction and repair,
but to conserve and increase the rainfall, regulate the
flow of the rivers, stop floods and furnish water for
irrigation. |

In all those Western States, the State has the power
to form districts for local public improvements, such
as irrigation districts, sanitary districts, drainage dis-
tricts, or levee districts, and I, for one, do not believe
that it is the right policy that the national government
should assume the burden of protecting from fire
forests now owned by men who have gotten them
from the Government for one-tenth of their value.
The State and nation should codperate to form forestry
districts and have assessments levied on all private
lands in the district, and every acre, whether in public
or private ownership, should contribute its proportion
to the cost of preserving it from fire.

There is one more thing I am going to urge as a

348 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

mere matter of personal opinion. In making the sug-
gestion I do not speak for California or for the Na-
tional Irrigation Association, but for myself alone. I
have been all my life a republican, and in my earlier :
years advocated the republican doctrine of a tariff for
protection in many political campaigns in my native
State of California from the Oregon line to Mexico;
but because I believe in preserving our industries and
not in destroying them, I believe that in order to
preserve the forest industries of this nation, we should
repeal every tariff law imposing a tariff upon the
products of the forests whether timber or wood or
wood pulp, at any rate for a limited number of years,
and until we have planted forests enough to annually
harvest from our own forests all the wood and timber
we use in any one year.

STATISTICAL RELATION BETWEEN
FORESTRY AND MINING

(Impromptu Address)
BY
Dr. DAVID T. DAY

United States Geological Survey

HE relations of the mining industry to timber
supplies and the consequently necessary forest
culture, have been stated many times and many ways
so that the views on this subject are not novel, neither
are they clear. They are not clear because of
fragmentary statements made largely from very differ-
ent viewpoints by miners and by foresters. Further,
during the few years in which this subject has been
discussed the relations have been changing.

The mining company is recognized as a good cus-
tomer by the lumberman and by the preserver of
forests he is recognized as a wanton destroyer and a
deadly foe.

The miner has established his reputation as a good
customer to the lumberman and he is daily becoming
a better customer. This is because mine timber seldom
costs more than Io per cent. of the cost of the ore, and
the large consumers want the best and can easily afford
to pay good prices for it. He can afford to send
farther for his supply than most other customers. He
is much in the same category as the railroad, except
that frequently poor timber will last longer than it
needs to last in a mine, and this is never the case with
ties. The miner outran the railroads as a timber con-
sumer, for it was stated here yesterday that a forest
reserve of half a million acres would (properly man-
aged) furnish the United States with ties. I doubt

350 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

if 10,000,000 acres would suffice to keep the miners
going.

We have no accurate knowledge of the amount of
timber used in a year in the mines. But we do know
that it requires about a cubic foot for each ton of
anthracite, say 70,000,000 cubic feet per year, some-
what less for each ton of bituminous, say 250,000,000
cubic feet yearly. Iron ore needs at least 20,000,000
feet, precious metal mining needs a cubic foot for each
cube of gold, such as I have here, or say 75,000,000
cubic feet, or say 400,000,000 cubic feet a year for the
whole mining industry.

As a deadly foe to the forester the reputation of the
miner is losing his former picturesque position, as fast
as many of the sensational stories of the miner’s
depravity cease to represent present conditions, and
pass with old pioneer conditions into the legends of old
days.

Foremost among these dear old classic legends is
that of the prospector who burns off the forest to get
rid of the undergrowth so he can more easily discover
his hidden treasure. Of course, prospectors include
every sort of man, even the kind so foolish as to resort
to such methods, but such men are disclaimed by the
profession and in no way characterize the prospectors.
I doubt if any species of tramp ever traverses the
forest who uses such thoroughly trained care in ex-
tinguishing every spark of fire he kindles as the genuine
life-time prospector. He is accustomed to use every
mark of changing vegetation to guide him in looking
for changes in rock and soil conditions. He wants
trees for landmarks if nothing more, and the only
places where vegetation is so dense that burning off
would compensate for the loss of guiding marks is in
regions so wet that you could not build a forest fire
with kerosene.

AMERICAN ForEst CONGRESS 351

The main reason why the miner is no longer a foe
to forest protection, is on account of two influences at
work upon him. First, the missionary work of the
foresters has converted him from wantonness in cut-
ting timber. The mines are growing larger and less
of them, there are fewer mining superintendents to
educate and they are men of high grade. But most
significant is a changing condition in mining practice
by which the mining company falls into the same cate-
gory as the lumberman as regards forestry. The
change is this, the mining company cuts a continually
lessening percentage of its own timber and buys corre-
spondingly more from a distance. This increased
attention to their own specialty of mining and buying
their supplies of all kinds, especially their timber, from
outside agencies is as marked a development as any
other kind of industrial specialization and is as greatly
aided by increased facilities for transporting supplies
from considerable distances.

The timber merchant will in the future stand between
the forester and the mining company. ‘This is fortu-
nate, especially in one way. There is no more difficult
task than trying to educate the average mining man into
any attribute of patience such as planting trees for his
successor to use. His whole training is in the line of
getting out all his ore with the greatest possible speed—
to work out the deposit and go somewhere else.

Frankly, the mining company often has been and
occasionally still may be, worse than the man who
skins a country, the miner disembowels it and leaves
an absolute desert above and below. If the miner can
be taught by forestry methods something of conserva-
tism in rushing his mineral to market, the whole
country will be better off.

Further, it seems that as the friends of good govern-

352 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

ment all citizens may take another lesson from the
Government’s attitude to the public forest lands, and
just as the general people’s valuable forest assets are
being set apart for careful husbandry in forest reserves,
so the citizens may well insist that our public mineral
lands have ceased to serve a useful purpose as a bait to
immigration. It is no longer necessary nor good public
policy for the Government to give away practically free
to the mine promoter valuable coal, oil, gas lands, and
also lands where valuable metalliferous deposits may
be reasonably looked for.

The prospector is no longer greatly aided by such
laws. He can be helped much more by governmental
cooperation and joint ownership. It seems timely that
the same wise regulations adopted for the sale and
lease of lands belonging to the Indians should be ap-
plied to lands belonging to the people as a whole, and
it is to be hoped that Death Valley, many regions in
eastern Utah, in the Rocky Mountain regions, may
soon become Government mineral reserves.

~

PART VII

NATIONAL AND STATE FOREST POLICY

eos |

*

Py =
in a

i on

PAE WORK sOF THE - BUREAU ‘OF
FORESTRY

BY
OVERTON W. PRICE

Associate Forester, United States Department of Agriculture

| N THIS opportunity to say a word to you about the

work of the Bureau of Forestry, I want to go a
little further than merely to catalogue its present
achievement. Because it seems to me that your chief
interest lies not merely in what the Bureau has already
done. It lies rather in the power of the Bureau for
future accomplishment, which its organization and its
point of view make possible. For although in the light
of its results, the achievement of the Bureau is tangible
and far-reaching, it marks only a small beginning, in
the light of the work not yet done. And since the
great bulk of the forest work is ahead of us, I want
particularly to indicate how the policy of the Bureau
enables it to assist in the practical solution of the forest
problems still before the great industries represented
here.

Six years ago the reorganization of the Bureau took
place. At that time, the foundation of an individual,
a state, and a national forest policy had in part been
laid, but its practical application had scarcely begun.
It was the attitude of the Division then, as it is the
attitude of the Bureau now, that the printing press and
the lecture room are not in themselves adequate to get
forestry generally into effect in this country; that the
urgent need is practical field work with which to meet
great forest problems on their own ground, and that
the results of this field work, the practical solution of

356 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

these forest problems, should be published and distrib-
uted for the benefit of all—therein, as the Bureau sees
it, lies its province, its duty, and its great opportunity
for usefulness. Under this policy, the Division became
a Bureau. Above all, it is the policy under which it
has been able to attack effectively the forest problem
in all its parts.

Since its reorganization, the Bureau of Forestry has
directed its earnest and constant endeavor along these
four main lines:

First. It codperates by practical assistance and
advice in forest work which not only benefits individual
cooperators but is of help to many others.

Second. It attacks, independently, those urgent for-
est problems whose solution by private enterprise is
impossible, and thus becomes a national duty.

Third. It renders all assistance within its power in
the best use of the federal forest lands; and finally,

Fourth. It publishes and distributes the results of
its investigations for the benefit of all.

The codperative work of the Rureau began in Octo-
ber, 1898, with the offer of assistance to private owners
in the handling of their own lands. From this begin-
ning it has broadened as the direct result of an insistent
demand, until it now offers assistance not only in the
preparation of working plans, but also in tree-planting,
either for commercial purposes or for protection, and
in discovering the most conservative and profitable
methods for the use of the products of the forest. The
cooperative state forest studies, which offer a great
and increasing field for usefulness, have also grown
out of the policy of the Bureau’s cooperation with
private owners.

The codperative work in all its branches has had two
important and tangible results: Not only has it brought

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 357

about the use of new and better methods on the
ground, but, above and beyond the benefit to the indi-
vidual codperator, this work, through the publication
of its results, has been a far-reaching influence in fur-
thering that understanding of the purpose and methods
of forestry, without which its general application is
impossible. Thus, the results of the cooperative work
cannot be measured by the great areas of forest land
now under management as the result of working plans
prepared by the Bureau, or the three hundred and
thirty-four planting plans which the Bureau has pre-
pared for lands in fifty-two states and territories.
In its cooperation with railroads, the Bureau, at an
expense truly insignificant in comparison with the
value of the results, has developed facts regarding the
preservative treatment of ties and construction timbers
and the profitable use of woods of inferior kinds whose
value is beyond estimate both to the great transporta-
tion systems themselves and in its decrease in the drain
upon our forests. In its cooperative state forest
studies the Bureau’s work has in each instance had a
definite and tangible result in preparing a solid basis
for a comprehensive state forest policy. But each
piece of cooperative work, whether with the individual,
the corporation, or the state; whether in tree-planting,
in working plans, or in studies of forest products, is
justified not merely by the direct benefit to the
cooperator, but by the acquisition of knowledge for the
common good, in which its widest usefulness lies.

To the statement that this cooperative work, valu-
able as its results may be, falls properly not within the
sphere of the Government, but to the private forester,
the answer is that the Bureau of Forestry took up this
work only because no private foresters were available
to do it. It is work which the Bureau has from the

358 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

beginning recognized as purely temporary in its char-
acter. To postpone it until the private forester was in
the field would have meant that the better use of our
forests would have been for a long time delayed. The
area in woodlots and timber tracts in this country is
approximately five hundred million acres. It is from
them that our future timber supply must chiefly come.
And the inauguration of better methods in their man-
agement is thus a national duty until the private
forester is present in sufficient numbers to carry the
work. When that time comes, the Bureau will step
aside. As a matter of fact, the Bureau has by its
cooperative work not only instituted better methods
in the use of the forest, but it has hastened, by making
clear the business advantages of these methods, the
growth of forestry as a commercial enterprise, and
hence the employment of the private forester. And
right there it is significant that, with very few excep-
tions, the private foresters employed in this country
to-day owe their work either to the recommendation
of the Bureau of Forestry or as the direct result of its
cooperative work. ‘

The second line of endeavor which it is the duty of
the Bureau of Forestry to follow is that of independent
investigation. This embraces the solution of those
urgent forest problems which are beyond the scope,
the means, or the trained knowledge of the individual,
but which confront him, and through him materially
affect the development of the great industries. Just
as it is the duty of the Government through the United
States Geological Survey to map this country, so is it
also the duty of the Government through the Bureau
of Forestry to put in the hands of the people knowledge
essential to the best use of the forest, and as unobtain-
able through private enterprise only as are the maps.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 359

The Bureau of Plant Industry, of Animal Industry, of
Soils—the scientific work of the Government through-
out—conducts studies national in their importance
whose solution is beyond the power of the individual.
In exactly the same way, the Bureau of Forestry
attacks those forest problems necessary to the perma-
nent prosperity of all industries dependent upon wood
and water. Under this policy the Bureau is conducting
studies of commercial trees, since the published results
of these studies serve as.a basis for working plans, as
a source of useful information to lumbermen, and as a
valuable contribution to our knowledge of American
forests. It is conducting independent studies of forest
fires as a means for the solution of the urgent national
problems which they present, both in the form of legis-
lation which will be effective against forest fires and
in methods for their prevention and control.

In its timber tests the Bureau of Forestry is supply-
ing an urgent need of fuller technical knowledge of
the strength of our commercial timbers, and is thus
paving the way for economy in their use as well as in
the woods.

In the preparation of forest yield and volume tables
the Bureau is laying the foundation for conservative
forest management in all parts of this country. In its
forest maps, its dendrological studies, and in many
other ways, it is equipping the great industries depen-
dent upon the forest with knowledge essential to their
development.

In the third line of its endeavor, the rendering of
all assistance within its power in the best use of the
Government forest lands, the Bureau is to the full
extent of the province which legislation has entrusted
to it giving assistance and advice in the management
not only of the national reserves, but also of Indian

360 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

and military reservations. Briefly outlined, this assist-
ance has been as follows:

On December 7, 1899, the Secretary of the Interior
requested the Secretary of Agriculture for advice upon
technical questions envolved in the administration of
the reserves. The work of the Bureau of Forestry
under this request has increased steadily in volume and
scope, until at present practically all technical questions
involved in the administration of the reserves are
referred to it.

During the past two years practically all of the
recommendations for new forest reserves and changes
in the boundaries of existing forest reserves either
originated with or were submitted directly by the
Bureau of Forestry. Since it took up this line of
work the Bureau has examined 130 separate areas
proposed as forest reserves or as additions to existing
reserves.

Regulations for grazing recommended by the Bureau
are now in effect on two forest reserves in Utah and
on four forest reserves in Arizona.

Six members of the Bureau were loaned to the for-
estry division of the General Land Office for periods
of from one year to fourteen months (1902-1903).
One of these members was chief of that division, two
were inspectors, and two were head rangers.

Under the request of the Secretary of the Interior,
studies have been made of several Indian reservations,
and recommendations submitted for their forest man-
agement. The Bureau has also prepared detailed
working plans for the Prescott, Black Hills, Big Horn,
and Priest River forest reserves.

To sum up, the principles and practice recommended
by the Bureau to govern the administration of the
national forest reserves have been approved by the

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 361

Department of the Interior. The Bureau is now the
recognized source of information upon the suitability
of lands for forest reserves or of changes in the boun-
daries of existing reserves, for working plans for the
management of the reserves, and for special reports
upon grazing and other matters involved in their
administration. In no case has the Bureau mixed in
the details of reserve management. It has dealt exclu-
sively with matters of policy.

In its work under the Morris bill the Bureau has
proved that conservative lumbering pays in the pine
region of northern Minnesota. It was charged with
drawing up the regulations for conservative lumbering
and with their enforcement upon lands which, after
they have been lumbered, will constitute the Minnesota
National Forest Reserve. The result has proved that
the Bureau of Forestry can institute and conduct
successfully large administrative duties in forest man-
agement.

In the fourth branch of its work, the publication of
the results of its investigations for the benefit of all,
the Bureau has distributed well on toward 2,000,000
copies of its bulletins, circulars, and reports. I do not
wish to inflict too much statistical information regard-
ing publications upon you. But the distribution of
publications is in large measure a test of the Bureau’s
usefulness, and the demand for them a proof of the
appreciation of its work. .And I want to give you
enough facts to show, both that the publications are
going out and that they are being read and used.
Although the regular editions have been largely
increased in order to meet the demand, no less than
seventy-seven reprints have been required to satisfy it.
A notable example of the scope of this demand is The
Primer of Forestry, of which the first edition of 35,000

362 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

was authorized by congressional action. Two editions
of 10,000 each have since been printed, and since they,
too, proved insufficient, a Farmers’ Bulletin edition
became necessary. Of this, 170,000, in eight editions,
have been printed, making the total issue of the Primer
to the present time 225,000 copies. Another instance
is The Woodman’s Handbook, a compilation of log
scales and rules for forest measurements. The first
edition of 15,000 was not off the press before the
necessity for an additional supply was realized, and
before the demand began to slacken, 25,000 copies, in
three editions, were printed. The circulars giving the
Bureau’s offers of codperation have passed through the
press sixteen times in all, with a total issue of 123,000.

To sum up, the Bureau is not only the direct and
prevailing force behind the forest movement in this
country, but it is furthering the application of those
new and better methods on the ground without which
the broadest, the most enlightened forest policy will
utterly fail. It has, in my judgment, reached its pres-
ent achievement, and it possesses its power of future
achievement, as the direct result not only of an ade-
quate organization and a comprehensive point of view,
but above all because it keeps the practical aspect of
its work constantly before it; because its policy is not
one of arbitrary interference, but to bring about a
relation between the forest and the interests dependent
upon it which develops the highest usefulness and the
highest permanent profit from them both.

One of the most gratifying features of the work of
the Bureau, full of promise for its further usefulness,
is, that in spite of the overwhelming demands upon it
and of the utter impossibility, with the men and the
money at its disposal, to meet all these demands, the
technical standard of its work has grown steadily

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 363

higher. The Bureau has fallen into no rut of routine
in field work. Its methods in the field and in the office
as well are thus showing year by year improvement
which corresponds directly with the added experience
of its men and the added funds at its disposal. The
net result is a constant gain in effectiveness.

I have said very little about the past achievement of
the Bureau because you have that in its bulletins, in its
reports, and you find it in the woods on the ground.
But unless I have entirely failed, the points I hope I
have made clear are these: that the policy of the
Bureau is to help every man in the use of the forest
or of its products; that the Bureau stands ready to
take up with you the solution of the forest problem
confronting you, whatever it may be, and to take it up
not academically, not theoretically, but practically, with
due regard not only for the preservation of the forest
but for the business advantage of the interests depen-
dent upon it. That point of view has alone made the
present achievement of the Bureau possible. It is a
guarantee of still wider usefulness in the future,
because it means that you and the Bureau can begin
the larger work ahead, can face new forest problems
as they come, not singly, as a purely governmental
enterprise on the one side, or by private endeavor on
the other, but together, in active and effective accord
on the same ground.

WORK OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
IN MAPPING THE RESERVES

BY
CHARLES D. WALCOTT

Director of the United States Geological Survey

HAVE been asked many times during the last seven
years how it came about that the Geological
Survey was taking part in matters pertaining to the
Government forest reserves; and I am glad to have
the opportunity to give to this notable Congress some
of the reasons for the activity of the Survey in this
direction, and to record what has been done by it in
surveying and examining the reserves.

Let me first speak very briefly of the influences and
events that led to the Survey’s taking up the work
assigned to it by the Congress of the United States.
Not many years ago one of our leading foresters said
that, apparently, the forest policy of the Government
had been to get rid of the land and that of the people
to get rid of the timber; but within the last decade the
country has awakened to a realization of the vast
importance of its woodlands. Perhaps most influential
in this awakening were the American Forestry Associ-
ation and the Division of Forestry of the Department
of Agriculture, under the leadership of Dr. Bernhard
E. Fernow. From these organizations there came
many reports, essays, and lectures on the subject, and

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 365

these had a strong influence in creating the public
sentiment that at last manifested itself in the passage,
on March 3, 1891, of an act granting authority to the
President to set aside as public reservations public
lands bearing forests, wholly or in part covered with
timber or undergrowth. (Stat. L., vol. 26, p. 1103,
sec. 24.) Under this act seventeen forest reserves
were established prior to September 28, 1893, aggre-
gating in area 17,564,800 acres.

The establishment of these reserves did not excite
any special approval or disapproval of the policy,
except as some local interest was affected favorably
or unfavorably. - In the latter case, little attention was
given the matter by the parties directly concerned, for
there was no real protection of the reserves by patrol,
and the cutting of timber and the destruction by fires
went on as before. But by executive proclamations
of February 22, 1897, based upon recommendations of
the Forestry Commission of the National Academy
of Sciences, there were established thirteen additional
forest reserves, containing an aggregate of 21,379,840
acres. This action was followed by strong opposition
to the policy, especially in the Northwestern States, in
which many of the reserves were situated.

In the letter recommending the establishment of the
forest reserves the Forestry Commission stated, in
effect, that it had purposely recommended very large
reserves in order to create a public sentiment which
would cause Congress to enact laws securing the
proper administration of the reserves. The result of
establishing the reserves more than met the anticipa-
tions of the commission that legislation would follow,
owing to the pressure of the people on their repre-
sentatives in Congress. The first storm of protest
came mainly from South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana,

366 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

and Washington. Early in March, Congress inserted
in the Sundry Civil Bill an amendment revoking the
forest-reserve proclamations of February 22, 1897, and
repealing the authority for setting aside public forested
lands as reserves; but the bill failed, because President
Cleveland did not sign it; and when the new Congress
assembled on March 15, 1897, the agitation against
the reserves was resumed.

My predecessor, Major J. W. Powell, was much
interested in the forests of the country, but did not
take an active part in shaping the policy of the Govern-
ment control or administration of forest lands. I had
kept in touch with the general movement for the
preservation of the forests, and with the commission
of the National Academy of. Sciences, of which Mr.
Gifford Pinchot was secretary; also with the members
of Congress who were especially interested in the com-
mission’s recommendations, and knew the sentiment
these recommendations had developed. After the
attack on the policy of forest reserves in the spring of
1897, I found that the National Academy commission
could not take further action, and that nothing was
being done by the forestry officers of the Government
toward urging constructive legislation and combating
the movement to repeal the law and return the forest
reserves to the open public domain. After consulta-
tion with a number of senators from the Western
States, I drew up, at the suggestion of Senator Petti-
grew, of South Dakota, an amendment providing for
the survey and administration of the forest reserves.
The administrative features of the amendment were
based upon previously proposed but not enacted legis-
lation, and upon the recommendations of the commis-
sion of the National Academy of Sciences, modified to
meet conditions in April, 1897. The preliminary draft

AMERICAN Forest CoNGRESS 367

was then thoroughly examined by and discussed with
Senator Pettigrew.* The amendment met with the ap-
proval of the Secretary of the Interior and of the Presi-
dent, and it was introduced in the Senate in a modified
form by Senator Pettigrew on April 6, 1897, as a pro-
posed amendment to the Sundry Civil Bill and was re-
ferred tothe Committee on Appropriations. On April 8,
1897, Senator Pettigrew offered the amendment as
originally prepared, and it was referred to the Com-

* Hote, Victorta, NEw York City,
January II, 1905.
Cuar_Es D. Watcort, Eso.,
U. S. Geological Survey,
Washington, D. C.
My Dear Sir:

Your letter of January Ist has just reached me, too late, I
suppose, for me to be of use to you in connection with the
Forestry Congress. I think your account of the amendment
to the Sundry Civil Bill with regard to the administration of
the forests of the United States is substantially correct. I
was the author of the legislation of 1891, authorizing the
President to set apart forest reservations out of the public
domain, and therefore always in favor of a policy which should
protect these forests and perpetuate them, so that they would
grow better year by year.

I studied with great care Napoleon’s method for administer-
ing the forests of France; I also investigated the English
policy in India, and the policy pursued by the Austrian Gov-
ernment, and I reviewed and slightly amended the suggestions
which you made to what is now the existing law. I remember
my colleague, Senator Moody, made such modifications and
amendments as it seemed to me were not advisable, and that
you and I together went over the manuscript and struck them
out; that the result of our joint labor was the law as it now
stands, under which the forests are administered.

For my part I should be pleased if all the forest lands, and
all the other lands now owned by the Government of the
United States, were withdrawn from sale and were admin-
istered by the Government, so that the title weuld remain
forever in the Government for the benefit of the people of the
United States. Very truly yours,

(Signed) R. F. PETTIGREW.

368 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

mittee on Forest Reserves and the Protection of Game.
The amendment of April 8 was reported back to the
Senate by the latter committee with favorable recom-
mendation.

When the Sundry Civil Bill was under consideration
in the Senate on May 5, 1897, Mr. Pettigrew offered
the amendment of April 8 as an amendment to an
appropriation for the Geological Survey. (Congres-
sional Record, vol. 30, p. 899.) After discussion in
the Senate, it was accepted on May 6 (Congressional
Record, p. 908-925) and soon after went to the Con-
ference Committee of the Senate and House on the
Sundry Civil Bill, where minor amendments were
made to the provision for the administration of the
forest reserves. On May 27 the Senate agreed to the
conference report (Congressional Record, p. 1278-
1285), and on June 1 the House of Representatives
accepted it. (Congressional Record, p. 1397-1401.)
On June 4 the President approved the Sundry Civil
Bill, and thus completed the legislation providing for
the survey and administration of the forest reserves
of the United States.

The period from March 4, when President Cleveland
killed the scheme to revoke all forest reserve procla-
mations, to June 4, when President McKinley signed
the act containing the forest reserve legislation, was
a strenuous one for those directly interested in the
protection and utilization of the public forests. Con-
ferences were held at the office of the Secretary of the
Interior, Cornelius N. Bliss, and many hours of anxious
suspense followed the formulation of a plan that met
with the approbation of the department and of the
members of Congress from the western states directly
affected by the forest reserve policy. The new law
was not ideal, but it was all that could be obtained
under the conditions then existing.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 369

The administration of the forest reserves was placed
in charge of Commissioner Binger Hermann, of the
General Land Office, and continued in his charge until
1903, when Commissioner Richards succeeded him.
The surveys and examinations of the reserves were,
by the act, placed under the Geological Survey.

The survey of the reserves was begun in 1897 and
has continued to the present time. The results, briefly
stated, are as follows:

Five reserves have been completely mapped—the
Black Hills, South Dakota-Wyoming; Bighorn, Wyo-
ming ; Teton,Wyoming (now a part of the Yellowstone
Reserve); Santa Rita and Prescott, Arizona; and
work has been commenced in twenty-nine other
reserves.

The boundary lines of the Black Hills, Bighorn,
Aquarius, Logan, and Pocatello reserves have been
completely surveyed and marked with iron posts; also
parts of the Lewis and Clarke, Washington, Mount
Ranier, Madison and Payson, and Black Mesa and
Mount Graham reserves have been surveyed, com-
prising 1,328 miles of boundary line. In connection
with this, there have been surveyed 1,976 miles of
standard and subdivision lines of various kinds, for
which notes and plats have been filed in the General
Land Office, as required by law.

Reconnaissance maps have been made of the entire
Lewis and Clarke, Bitter Root, and Priest River re-
serves, comprising an area of over 12,000 square miles.

The total area mapped for publication as regular
atlas sheets, on scales of one or two miles to the inch,
in and adjacent to forest reserves, is 48,963 square
miles (not including 12,072 square miles of reconnais-
sance maps), in connection with which 12,679 miles
of levels were run and 2,983 permanent bench marks

370 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

were established. This area comprises sixty-seven
whole and five partial atlas sheets.

In the act of Congress creating the Geological
Survey the director is charged, among other things,
with the classification of the public lands. The work
done under the forest reserve legislation was therefore
in strict accord with one of the original purposes of
the Survey.

Cruisings by private parties for private purposes
have been made in this country for many years, but
the work here briefly described is the first attempt to
estimate and report upon the forests on a large scale
for the information of the public.

The field force employed in the examination of
forests has varied in different years, and most of the
men have been employed for a part of the year only.
This work being the first attempt to accurately examine
and appraise the forests of this country, it was neces-
sary both to build up an organization and to originate
plans and methods for field work and for presentation
of the results in reports and maps.

The work consists in the classification of lands as
arable, pasture, desert, wooded, and timbered, timber
land being defined as that bearing timber of merchant-
able size and quality, while wooded land bears only
trees of sizes and species suitable for firewood, posts,
poles, etc. The timber land has been roughly cruised
to learn the approximate stand of timber, with the
stand per acre; the species of trees, with the proportion
which each species bears to the total forest, and the
average height, diameter, age, and condition of the
trees. [he lands on which the timber has been cut or
culled have also been defined, and the amount and
character of the undergrowth, with its various species,
and the depth of humus and litter on the forest floor,
have been examined.

AMERICAN FOREST CONGRESS 371

The subject of fires, both ancient and recent, with
their effects upon the present forest, has been carefully
studied, and the accounts of large fires in times past
have been recorded. A study has been made of the
streams as means of transporting lumber, and the lay
of the country has been considered with a view to the
- building of roads and railroads for lumbering pur-
poses. The question of existing and future markets
for the forest products has also been studied. The
effects of grazing, especially the grazing of sheep, upon
the present forests, and their reproduction, have been
carefully investigated. The purpose of these exam-
inations has been to ascertain the economic value of
the lands and the forests.

Reports on the areas examined have been prepared
and published, the earlier ones in volumes of the
annual reports of the Survey and the later ones as
professional papers. These reports are illustrated by
maps showing the classification of the lands and the
stand of timber per acre upon the forested lands. For
this purpose the atlas sheets of the Survey are used, if
completed. The reports are also illustrated by dia-
grams showing the stand of timber per township and
the proportional distribution of the species represented.
The map and the diagram together tell a large part of
the story of the reserve.

During the last eight years there has been examined
a total of about 75,000,000 acres, or 117,000 square
miles. This area includes nearly all the reserves in
the country, besides great extents of land adjoining
them, and other regions which have been withheld
from settlement with the expectation of reserving
them.

Among these regions one was examined jointly with
the Bureau of Forestry of the Department of Agricul-

372 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

ture and the Geological Survey of North Carolina. It
is a region of about 8,000 square miles in the Southern
Appalachian Mountains. <A report on this region will
soon appear, and it will be particularly interesting
because it is the first study of its kind ever made of
the southern forests, which are characterized by a
great variety and mixture of species.

A branch of the Geological Survey which has been
much concerned with the forests and their preservation
is the hydrographic. It is now understood by every-
body that the occurrence and control of waters above
and below the earth’s surface are largely dependent
on woodland conditions. The protection of the forests
and woodlands is one of the first matters to be consid-
ered in any water-supply problem, and the study of
the quantity and quality of water available for irriga-
tion, power, and domestic and municipal purposes
touches the domain of the forester.

In 1888 the director of the Survey was authorized
to investigate the extent to which the arid lands might
be reclaimed. Surveys of reservoir sites and of the
catchment basins of streams were begun, and it was
seen that it would be necessary to withdraw and hold
permanently many of the forested areas above the
reservoirs at the sources of the rivers. At all times
there has been close cooperation between the engineers
engaged in studies of water supply and the men inves-
tigating the forest reserves.

Upon the passage of the Reclamation Act of June
17, 1902, and the organization of the Reclamation
Service as a part of the Geological Survey, the
question of the extent and preservation of forest
reserves assumed increased importance. The scientific
investigations of water supply were supplemented by
authority to build great works, and there followed the

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 7s

necessity of protecting these works by every available
natural resource. These great works might be seri-
ously injured if individuals were permitted to come in
above them and secure vested rights inimical to the
larger irrigation interests of the country; therefore the
Reclamation Service has asked that large areas of
public land embracing forests or woodlands be with-
drawn and held permanently, so that there might be
no interference with the larger development of the
waters.

In mapping the forest reserves and in recommending
their boundaries all the large matters of this character
have been taken into consideration. Frequently an
individual, looking at the matter from his standpoint,
is inclined to criticise the drawing of boundaries and
to assert that too much land has been included; but if
he would study the problem from the community or
public standpoint he would find that this land is of
great importance in connection with the control of the
water supply necessary to the development of a recla-
mation project.

By carefully and systematically permitting the
younger growth to accumulate, and perhaps by seeding
the steeper barren slopes, it will be possible to reduce
the destructive effects of the so-called cloudbursts or
local storms which wash the loose soil into the reser-
voirs or clog the hydraulic works. The beneficial
effect of this protection is well understood and every
reasonable effort is being made to bring about the best
possible conditions in the catchment basins of the
streams.

Abundance of wood is one of the prime necessities
for successful mining. There are four chief factors
in the mining enterprise—the value of the ore, the cost
of production, the cost of transportation, and the cost

M

374 “PROCEEDINGS | of “THE!

less than the first: or the mine will be closed. inal
properly tinderstood, is a business in which the profits
or losses are the result of the balance Of thésé condi-
tions, not an excavation of treasure’ “whose enormous
value renders other considerations’ insignificant. Now,
in the three costs’ above ‘enumerated, the principal
elements are water and wood.

' The cost of production includes labor, power (for
hoisting, drilling, etc.), the mine plant (including all
the necessary buildings), timbering, and _ supplies.
Where wood is scarce or absent the price of building
is enormous; rents and fuel are high, and the price of
labor must be correspondingly increased. Probably
the highest wages paid to miners in the United States
are paid in the desert; for example, in the camp of
Tonopah, in Nevada, where everyone underground
receives four dollars per day. In this camp also the
cost of power for hoisting is very high; the people
are forced to use largely gasoline or petroleum, which
must be brought a long distance with heavy transpor-
tation charges. The cost of the plant is proportional,
a moderate-sized frame building costing $15,000 to
$30,000; so that stone and iron have been largely used
in construction, at a burdensome cost.

Timbering in most mines is an important factor. In
the early history of the Georgetown (Colorado) mines,
timbers were hauled by bull wagon from Iowa, until
it was found that the native wood, though inferior,
could yet be used. Vast quantities of wood are used
for timbering in most large mining plants, and the
price of the timber is one of the important factors in
striking the balance of profit or loss. Thus the neigh-
borhood of a forest and the character of the wood in
that forest are of great importance.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 375

As to the cost of transportation, that, too, is invari-
ably increased, other things being equal, by the scarcity
of wood. Ifthe bringing in of supplies and the taking
out of ores is done by wagon, the high price of labor
above referred to brings up the cost of haulage; if by
rail, the heavy cost of ties for the road-bed and fuel
for locomotives renders a high scale of charges una-
voidable.

The cost of reduction is, for a given quality of ore,
almost entirely dependent upon wood and water. In
many a somewhat remote mining district, if wood can
be obtained for running a mill, the ore is profitable; if
not, the enterprise must be abandoned. At the desert
camp of Silver Peak, in Nevada, vast quantities of
fair-grade gold ore exist, suitable for stamp milling
and amalgamation; enough water is available for such
mills, but the great cost of fuel has hitherto stunned
mining operations. When an occasional mill-run is
made, in an old mill in this locality, the high neigh-
boring mountains are scoured for scrubby pine, much
of which is brought miles on the backs of burros, with
the result that after a run the balance is as apt to be
on the loss side as on the profit. Such deposits in a
wooded country like California would form the foun-
dation of a great mining industry.

The miner has a great and vital interest in the per-
manent preservation of the forests and in their intel-
ligent utilization, second only to that of the irrigation
farmer. He should be one of the strongest supporters
of the Government in its attempt to preserve our
woodlands and make them useful to all interests.

The saving of the wood of the living forests by the
utilization of the lignites formed of the forests of
Tertiary time is desirable if it can be done, and I have
little doubt that it can and wiil be done; it is only a

376 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

question of a relatively short period of time. The way
to do it has been ascertained. It remains for enterprise
and capital to develop and utilize the vast power resi-
dent in the lignitic coals of the West.

The Geological Survey has been conducting at the
Louisiana Purchase Exposition a series of experiments
in the combustion of coal and lignites.* This experi-
mental work has been carried on under special author-
ization of Congress for “testing and analyzing the
coals and lignites of the United States to determine
the most economical method for their utilization.’ One
of the most interesting results brought out in the
course of this investigation has been the practical
demonstration of the method for using the large
supplies of lignite which exist between the Mississippi
River and the Rocky Mountain states, and which, on
account of its high percentage of moisture, make most
unsatisfactory fuel under ordinary processes of com-
bustion. It has been shown, however, that the very
qualities which appear to unfit this lignite for use by
direct combustion tend toward the improvement of the
quality of the gas made from it in the gas producer.
In the manufacture of what is known as producer gas
all of the combustible material in the coal fed into the
producer is utilized. The quality of the gas obtained
is measured by its value in British thermal units (B. T.
U’s.) One B. T. U. is the amount of heat required to
raise one pound of water one degree in temperature
Fahrenheit. Ordinary bituminous coals make pro-

* This work has been in charge of a committee composed of
the following members of the Geological Survey: Mr. E. W.
Parker, Chairman, coal expert and statistician; Dr. J. A.
Holmes, geologist and chief of Department of Mines and
Metallurgy, St. Louis Exposition; Mr. M. R. Campbell, geolo-
gist in charge of surveys in coal areas. |

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 377

ducer gas in which the British thermal units measure
from 125 to 154 per cubic foot. It has been shown
that the gas produced from the lignites of Colorado,
North Dakota, and Texas ranges from 160 to 190 B.
T. U.’s per cubic foot, and I have been informed that
during a portion of the runs on one of the lignites from
North Dakota as high as 216 B. T. U.’s were made in
the gas. An average run of Texas lignite produced
gas of a little less than 170 B. T. U.’s.

In the operation of the coal-testing plant, the amount
of electric horse power produced by the consumption
of the coal by two different methods was ascertained.
One of these was burned under boilers connected with
the steam engine, which in turn was connected with a
dynamo that transformed this power into electrical
units. In the other case a quantity of the same coal
was burned in a gas producer, the gas thus produced
being used in a gas engine, and the power thus gen-
erated being in like manner transformed into electrical
units. By this means the amount of electrical power
generated from the same coal or lignite under the two
systems was easily compared, and it was found that
in the case of the bituminous coal the economy of the
gas engine over the steam engine ranged from 30 to
considerably more than 50 per cent. Owing to the
fact that the furnaces were not at the time suited to the
use of lignite which disintegrates on exposure, attempts
to use it under the boilers were unsatisfactory, whereas
the quality of the gas produced from the same grade of
lignites was from 20 to 25 per cent higher than that
obtained from bituminous coal. This is partly offset
by the fact that a larger amount of lignite is required
to produce the same amount of gas, and it is also true
at the present time that the installation of a gas pro-
ducer and gas engine plant is more expensive than

378 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

that of a steam engine plant, and that the expense of
operating the former is slightly higher; but to
demonstrate that these lignites can be used at all in
competition with the bituminous coals is of inestimable
value in the industrial development of the Great Plains
region. The utilization of the great lignite beds of
this area should remove, or at least greatly reduce, the
necessity of its drawing upon the forests of the region
for fuel purposes.

Tests made on the different grades of bituminous
coals show not only a large gain in efficiency of the
fuel in a gas producer plant over the steam plant, but
especially they have demonstrated that with very dirty
coals and those high in sulphur, results may be obtained
that compare more or less favorably with the results
obtained in the best type of steam plants using the
expensive grades of soft coal.

It seems possible that future work may go even a
step farther and show that “slack” coal, with even a
large proportion of impurities, may be converted into
producer gas and used in a gas engine, thereby
replacing much of the high grade fuels now in use.
Indeed, the present indications are that the economy
obtained in the gas producer plant is such that it is
destined to be the coming mode of producing power
in the future, and through this great saving the low
grade coals of the country and especially those of the
western half of the United States will be more and
more extensively used.

Of the cost of utilizing the lignites and bituminous
coals in the manner outlined, and the distribution of
the power obtained, permit me to say a few words in
order that the practical business side of the matter
may be laid before you. It is estimated that a gas
producer plant with gas engines, foundations, and

AMERICAN ForEST CONGRESS 379

housings complete, capable of furnishing 15,000 horse
power, would cost nearly $800,000. Such a plant:
would not be provided with apparatus for the recovery
of the bi-products from coal. With the recovery
apparatus such a plant would cost, approximately,
$175,000 additional. A steam-boiler plant with cross
compound condensing engines, capable of producing
the same amount of horse power, is estimated roughly
to cost $70,000 less than the gas producer plant without
the recovery apparatus, and $245,000 less than the gas
producer plant with recovery appratus. The labor
involved in the operation of a steam plant and a non-
recovery gas producer plant would probably be slightly
in favor of the former.

Unfortunately, we have only incomplete comparative
figures for the use of lignite in a plant of this kind, and
the investigations at St. Louis have been almost of a
pioneer nature on this line. But it is evident that
either in the case of soft coal or lignite when used in
the gas producer plant the saving in fuel would in a
short time be more than sufficient to make up for any
reasonable difference in the initial cost of that as com-
pared with the initial cost of a steam plant of equal
capacity.

In the present state of development of apparatus for
the generation and transmission of electric power, the
limit of line voltage is placed at, approximately, 60,000
volts, and at this voltage it is possible to transmit
effectively electrical power at a distance of 250 miles.
This means that a power plant established in the
vicinity of coal mines can supply power to a territory
having this distance of 250 miles for a radius, or,
approximately, 200,000 square miles—more than four
times the size of New York, and nearly twice the size
of all the New England states and New York included.

380 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Such a plant established, for instance, near the lignite
mines of Milam or Robertson counties, in Texas, could
supply light and power to the entire state, with the
exception of the far northwestern and western corners.

This brief sketch of the activities of the Geological
Survey in matters directly and indirectly affecting the
forests and woodlands of our country is given for the
purpose of placing on record with this Congress what
the Survey has been and is doing in this direction.
The Survey is an investigating, constructive bureau of
the Government, and desires to aid in every possible
way in advancing the great work of preserving and
utilizing the woodlands of the country.

From the point of view of effective administration,
I believe that the examination, development, and
administration of the forest reserves should be placed
in charge of the Bureau of Forestry of the Department
of Agriculture, and that the topographic mapping of
the reserves and the adjoining forest areas should
remain in charge of the director of the Geological
Survey, and be carried on in cooperation with the
Bureau of Forestry.

WORK OF THE GENERAL LAND OFFICE
IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF
THE RESERVES

BY
W. A. RICHARDS

Commissioner of the General Land Office

PUBLIC forest reserves under the control of the

Government of the United States had their in-
ception in section twenty-four of the Act of Congress,
approved March 3, 1891, which provides:

That the President of the United States may from
time to time set apart and reserve, in any State or
Territory having public land bearing forests, in any
part of the public lands wholly or in part covered with
timber or undergrowth, whether of commercial value
or not, as public reservations, and the President shall,
by public proclamation, declare the establishment of
such reservations and the limits thereof.

No provision for the administration of the reserves
so created appears to have been a matter of legislation
until June 4, 1897, when Congress prescribed the con-
ditions under which such reserves should be estab-
lished, to-wit: to improve and protect the forest to
secure favorable conditions of water flows, and to fur-
nish a continuous supply of timber for the use and
necessities of citizens of the United States; and the
Secretary of the Interior was authorized to make pro-
vision for the protection against destruction by fire
and depredations upon the public forests and forest
reservations and to make such rules and regulations
and establish such service as would insure the objects

382 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

of such reservations; that is, to regulate their occu-
pancy and use and to preserve the forests thereon from
destruction. The act also provides for the sale of so
much of the dead, matured or large growth of trees
found upon such reservations as may be compatible
with the utilization of the forests thereon, and for the
free use of such timber and stone on such reservations
by bona fide settlers, miners, residents and prospectors
for minerals, for firewood, fencing, building, mining,
prospecting and other domestic purposes, as may be
needed by such persons, but with a proviso that jsu¢h
timber should be used within the State,.or,-Territory:
where such reservations are located.,..Bona fide, |set;,
tlers, residents and prospectors ‘are protected: ,by,said.
act in any rights they may.have to‘any,lands within
such reservations, ,and..provision..was..made; for the,
relinquishment of ,any,such. claims, or Jands in, com:
plete ownership within such, boundaries for,any vacant,
public land. opened .to..settlement,, not, exceeding ,the,
area of, the tract, exchanged... Inasmuch;,as .the,,care,
of, these, reserves was. so'-closely, connected withthe;
public land service, the Secretary of the Interior placed.
the immediate control, thereof under, the, CORHIMESIOMEE
of the General, Land Office; ,,-,) ,

At the date-of.the. passage, of, this act there were i in,
existence nineteen forest reservations which. had .been
created under the) provisions.of the Act. of 1891;..one
of which ,was in, Alaska, having, an aggregate.area, of
approximately. 19,000,000 <acres..,.In addition .to these,
eleven other,reservations had heen, created, which were.
suspended, by, Congress from the. effects; of the Presi
dent’s, proclamations until, March..1,..1898,. when. said,
lands; should. become subject: to the, operation. of, said.
proclamations. These reserves, had, approximately an,
area of 20,000,000 acres, or a.total in, both, classes; of.
about 39,000,000 acres.

AMERICAN Forest CoNncrREsS 383

There are now in existence a total of sixty-one forest
reservations with an aggregate area approximately of
63,263,929 acres, located in fourteen States and Terri-
tories, as follows: Two in Alaska, eight in Arizona,
ten in California; six in Colorado, one in Idaho, one
in Idaho and Washington ; one in Idaho and Montana,
five in Montana, two in Nebraska, three in New
Mexico, one in Oklahoma, four in Oregon, two in
South Dakota, one in South Dakota and Wyoming,
eight in Utah, three in Washington, two in Wyoming,
and one in Wyoming and Montana.

To provide for the care and maintenance of the
forests on this vast area, and to provide such rules and
regulations and the enforcement thereof as would
best subserve that purpose, and at the same time to
Overcome to some extent at least, the prejudice ex-
isting among the settlers and others to the withdrawal
of such areas from the public domain, was the work
that devolved upon the General Land Office. In fur-
therance of this object rules and regulations govern-
ing forest reserves were issued by the General Land
Office June 30, 1897, and approved by the Secretary
of the Interior, in which it was clearly shown that
while such reservations were created for the purpose
of protecting the timber thereon, and conserving the
water supply, the right of the public to secure timber
therefrom, to graze live stock thereon, or to make any
legitimate use of the reservations would not be pro-
hibited, but only regulated in such a manner as would
provide not only for present but for the future.

It then became necessary to provide for the enforce-
ment of these rules and regulations, but owing to the
limited appropriation at the disposal of the Depart-
ment, very little progress was made during the first
year in that respect. During the summer of 1897 six

384 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

special forest agents were appointed for the patrolling
of the reserves, and they were assigned to duty in
California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona and New
Mexico, it being the opinion of the Department that
the reservations in those localities demanded more
immediate attention than in other portions of the
country. It is very apparent that such a limited force
was not sufficient to obtain a great measure of success
in the administration of the forest reserves, but on
July 1, 1898, a larger appropriation became available,
and an attempt was made to organize the service on a
somewhat permanent basis. The reservations then
existing were grouped into eleven districts under as
many superintendents, each of these having under
his supervision and direction several forest supervis-
ors, in immediate charge of the respective reserva-
tions assigned them, each of whom had under his
personal direction a number of forest rangers, whose
duty it was to patrol the reserves, to prevent forest
fires and trespasses from all sources, to see to the
proper cutting and removal of the timber designated
by the supervisors where sales of timber had been
made.

From the experience gained in the administration
of the reserves various changes in the force of em-
ployees have been made until the present division of
responsibility has been established, which has proven
to be the best for a careful administration of reserve
interests coupled with prompt action in any emergency
that may arise. Some of the superintendents were
dispensed with and their duties assigned to inspectors.
The reserve force in the field is now composed of three
inspectors, five superintendents, fifty-two supervisors,
seventeen first-class rangers, one hundred and twenty-
four second-class rangers and three hundred and

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 385

twenty third-class rangers. By executive order dated
December 17, 1904, all of this force was placed under
the Civil Service.

Each reserve is placed in charge of a forest super-
visor, and if necessary, an assistant supervisor, and a
number of rangers. This group of men is held re-
sponsible for the proper care of the particular reserve.
The large reservations are divided into divisions, and
to each division is assigned a forest guard. Each of
these divisions is divided into as many patrol districts
as are necessary, and to each patrol district is assigned
a forest ranger. The dividing lines of the divisions
and districts are generally mountains, canyons, rivers,
or creeks.

The size of the district depends upon the topography
of the country, the difficulty of travel, the amount of
business likely to be encountered, and the ability of the
officer in charge. The forest guard is held responsi-
ble for the satisfactory performance of the work and
the condition of his division. He carries out the or-
ders of his supervisor, assigns each ranger to his beat
and headquarters and superintends and directs his
work. He is required to keep watch over the work
of each ranger in this division, and attend to any special
work that may arise, such as timber sales, requests for
free use of timber, and any matters demanding special
investigations. He is required to visit his rangers as
often as possible, to see that the affairs in his respec-
tive districts are being conducted in accordance with
the regulations.

The assistant supervisor acts as field assistant to the
supervisor in charge of the reserve. During patrol
season he is required to look after the field force,
notify them of all unusual affairs affecting the reserve,
the transit of stock, new lumbering enterprises, prob-

386 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

able influx of tourists or others, and to assist them
in perfecting the system of signalling, of communica-
tion and of obtaining mail and supplies. To make his
services effective the assistant supervisor should be
thoroughly familiar with the woods. He must know
every trail and every mountain pass.

The forest supervisor, who has permanent head-
quarters in a town near the reserve, having good mail
and telegraph facilities, looks after all the office work
and correspondence, and is also required to make occa-
sional trips of inspection through the reserve. All
instructions are issued by the General Land Office to
the forest supervisor, who is responsible for the exe-
cution thereof through his subordinate force.

The forest inspectors are constantly inspecting the
reserves, the field force and the general conditions
thereof. The inspectors should be, and are men espe-
cially qualified in forestry matters. They are men
capable of assisting the officers in the field, instructing
them in all matters pertaining to forestry in general,
and the needs of the reserve in particular.

All the field men located permanently on a reserve
are required to furnish the necessary saddle and pack
horses to be used in connection with their work, also
camp outfits, which are necessary when the condition
of the service requires long patrols.

The object of the service has been primarily the
protection of the forest reserve, and, secondly, the
interests of the settlers and residents within the vicinity
of the reserve. The idea of withdrawing such a large
amount of land from the public domain, the fear of
losing the opportunity to use timber and to graze their
stock on the lands so withdrawn, caused a great deal
of antagonism to the forest reserve plan. This, how-
ever, was soon in a measure dispelled when it was

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 387

ascertained that under the regulations. of. the Depart-
ment all these privileges were still to be used, the only
conditions being that such privileges should be exer-
cised in a. systematic manner, under the direction of
the forest officers and for the future betterment of the
conditions then existing.

The use of the forest reserves. granted to the public
is considered a privilege, not a right. It may be re-
fused in any case, but as a rule. settlers, farmers, pros-
pectors, and others who so desire may secure, free of
charge, all kinds of timber for domestic uses, such as
fire- wood, poles and logs, and if really needed, matured
green timber. Applicants. are not. allowed to cut tim-
ber, indiscriminately ‘or wastefully, but can cut. only
such as the proper officer deemis suitable for the. pur-
pose without injury to the reserve, and they are also
required to utilize all the timber that can be used for
any. domestic. purpose and to pile the brush resulting
from the cutting in such a, manner that it may be
burned without injury to the surrounding forest. If
firewood is desired, applicants are required to utilize
any tops and ‘limbs which may have been left from
former cuttings ; if building logs are desired, they muttst
if possible utilize fire killed timber, or that which has
become infected by insects or other destructive agents.
If an applicant requires green ‘timber, he is assigned
toa locality, where it has matured and is allowed to cut
only the trees. above a certain size which must, be se-
lected and marked by a forest reserve officer. A suffi-
cient number. of seed trees are always, retained for the
purpose of insuring a new growth. Corporations or
persons desiring to obtain timber from forest reserves
for commercial. use are required , to purchase the same,
and in every ,case they’ are required to utilize all, the
timber, either for, lumber, firewood, or other purpose

388 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

and to pile the brush so that it can be burned without
injury to the living timber.

Grazing upon the reserves is also conducted uneee
the superintendence of the General Land Office, under
the direction of the Secretary of the Interior. When-
ever it appears that grazing will not damage a forest
reserve or prevent reforestation, it is allowed to such
an extent as a careful investigation warrants, so as
to prevent any injury by overgrazing. In practically
all the reserves cattle grazing is allowed, but sheep
grazing is prohibited in some localities where it is
likely to injure the forest cover or the young growth.

Each reserve is divided into grazing districts, and
persons holding stock grazing permits are assigned to
a certain district to which they must confine their stock.
This arrangement secures an even distribution of stock
on all parts of the reserve and puts an end to the strife
that formerly existed as to the right of settlers and
others to graze their stock on certain lands to the ex-
clusion of others. Whenever it has been determined
that stock may be grazed in any reserve, parties desir-
ing the privilege are required to file applications for
that privilege, which if approved by the forest officer,
are transmitted to the General Land Office for its
action. Preference is given in allowing such permits ;
first, to stock of the reserve residents; second, stock
of persons owning farms or ranches in the reserve,
but not residing thereon; third, stock belonging in the
vicinity of the reserve known as neighboring stock,
and, fourth, stock coming from a considerable distance
from the reserve, and all persons holding permits
pledge themselves to assist in protecting the reserve
and in preventing and fighting fires. The number of
cattle, horses, or sheep that may be allowed in any
reserve is fixed by the Secretary of the Interior for

AMERICAN ForEst CONGRESS 389

the following year at the end of each grazing season,
and is determined by the report of the supervisor in
connection with the effects of the former year’s graz-
ing.

In addition to the privilege of securing timber from,
and grazing upon forest reserves which may be called
general privileges, the General Land Office is called
upon to pass upon numerous applications for special
privileges, such as rights of way for irrigating ditches,
railways, roads, the establishment of hotels, the erec-
tion of saw mills and the like within forest reserve
boundaries. In all such applications the primary
question to be determined is whether the exercise of
such privilege will injure in any manner the forest or
forest cover, or interfere with the proper administra-
tion of the reserve. If this question is answered in
the negative, then it is to be determined whether the
privilege sought will be for the welfare of the public
or beneficial to the exercise of some right which the
applicant may have already acquired, either before. or
after the creation of the reserve, and if so, the privi-
lege is usually granted. The investigation necessary
to secure this information is obtained by the supervis-
ors under the direction of the General Land Office,
and upon their reports action is based.

During the winter season when patrol duty is not
necessary, a large number of the rangers are fur-
loughed, leaving the supervisors and a few of the high
grade rangers to care for the reserves, and to form
a nucleus for the increase of the service during the
following summer. These are employed in construct-
ing trails so that the various portions of the reserve
may be more easily reached, and fire breaks to aid in
the control of forest fires. Twenty-one hundred and
eighty-eight miles of trails and roads have been con-

390 _ PROCEEDINGS OF THE... ,

structed since the forest reserves came under, the con.
trol of this office, while. there. were 11,924. miles of
roads and trails there at that time, many. of which are,
of sufficient width to form a fire break.

All these matters are under the supervision, of the
General Land Office, subject to the approval, of the
Secretary of the, Interior. This system , is somewhat,
experimental in its nature. and is subject to. improve-
ment as the necessity arises. "The appropriations. have.
not been sufficient, to carry. on an effective administra-
tion, but the results. so far achieved give promise that.
it is only a question of time when, the service can. be,
made self-supporting, to ‘say nothing of the incalcula-
ble benefit that will result to those who. live. near the
whose streams are fed by, the waters therefrom. |

ee

A FEDERAL FOREST SERVICE

BY
GIFFORD PINCHOT

Forester, U. 8. Department of Agriculture

_ Note.—Almost immediately upon the adjournment of the
Forest Congress a bill to transfer the care of the forest re-
serves to the Secretary of Agriculture became law. A na-
tional forest service therefore came into actual existence in the
Bureau of Forestry of that Department, the name of which
Bureau, on the first of July, 1905, will be changed to the
Forest Service. This paper has therefore been modified in
accordance with the facts. It is now a statement of the
objects and organization of the Forest Service.

T HE National Forest Service has three principal

objects. First, it is responsible for the general
progress of forestry in the United States among the
people at large, so far as the national government is
concerned. This work rests upon the fact that in a
government such as ours no movement can be perma-
nently successful unless it is based on a general public
recognition of its importance and utility. Since,
therefore, it is essential to the well-being of the nation
that its forests should not be destroyed, the first duty
of the Forest Service is to place that fact be ste before
the people.

Second, the Forest Service, being eaee if not
quite, the only organization at present capable of so
doing, is charged with giving private owners the
knowledge of how to perpetuate their forests by wise
use. The area of private forest lands in the United
States does now, and probably must always, greatly

392 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

exceed that of the government forests. Consequently,
the supply of timber for the future depends more
upon the treatment given to private forests than upon
the national forest reserves. For this reason it is of
the utmost importance to give practical advice and
assistance to private owners so that they may be able
to introduce conservative lumbering upon their own
lands.

Third, the Forest Service is charged with the pro-
tection and administration of the national forests.
These forests at present cover an area of rather more
than 63,000,000 acres, and are slowly increasing. They
lie almost entirely upon high land at the headwaters
of streams in the Western States and Territories, and
are of vast importance to the irrigation and grazing
interests, as well as to the users of wood. ‘They are
the key to the prosperity of the West.

The administration of the forest reserves is based
upon the general principle repeatedly stated by Presi-
dent Roosevelt as the policy of his administration, that
the reserves are for use. ‘They must be useful first of
all to the people of the neighborhood in which they
lie. Nothing stands in the way of such use so effect-
ively as the delays which are sometimes caused by
official red-tape, and especially by referring local ques-
tions for decision at Washington. Every question
which can be left to the local forest officers will here-
after be decided on the ground, and the office at
Washington, as rapidly and completely as the new or-
ganization will permit, will be relieved from the con-
sideration of a multitude of details which have ham-
pered it hitherto.

Not only are the forest reserves in general for use,
but every individual resource is likewise to be used,
under the single restriction that it shall be so used as to

AMERICAN ForEst CONGRESS 393

become permanent. Timber, water, grass, minerals,
are all to be open to the conservative and continued
use of the people. They must be used, but they must
not be destroyed.

This policy of use cannot be carried out with success
unless the personnel of the Forest Service is of a high
standard. It is of the first importance that every
forest officer should be honest, intelligent, well in-
formed in forest matters, physically active, and full of
the right kind of interest in his work. Such interest
is impossible unless the work offers a man a permanent
career. That is why promotions to the higher posi-
tions in the Forest Service will invariably be made
from the lower positions, when suitable men are avail-
able.

It is along these principal lines that the Forest Ser-
vice will endeavor to make itself valuable to the nation.
By deciding local questions promptly on local grounds,
by opening all the resources of the reserves to rea-
sonable use, and by the gradual creation of an effective
staff of honest and interested public servants the Forest
Service itself should become one of the really useful
public agencies of the United States.

Vastly important as the national forests are, we must
recognize that the bulk of our forests are now, and
must always remain, in the hands of private owners;
that it is only as the private owner, large or small, be-
comes interested in forestry and carries out its practical
principles, that we shall succeed in introducing forestry
into the United States. It should be remembered by
every forester, and every man interested in forestry,
that the woodlands in farms are about three times as
great in extent as all the national forest reserves, and
that the reserves are almost insignificant when com-
pared with the vast area of timberland which is owned

394 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

by lumbermen in larger or smaller holdings, by rail-
roads, or by men of various occupations who control
the forests upon which the prosperity of this whole
country depends. The forests of the private owners
will have to be set in order if the overwhelming calam-
ity of a timber famine is to be kept from this nation.

The extension of the present forest area, by restock-
ing cut-over lands and by making plantations where
there are no forests, is one of the chief duties of the
present moment. This will be accomplished by help-
ing the States to formulate their own policies, by active
cooperation in studying the local situation in each, and
by recommending the best procedure under the condi-
tions that are found to exist. In particular, the farm-
ers in every section of the counrty must be aided, either
to develop their woodlots or to plant trees upon the
prairies.

The forests now under government control should
remain under government control so far as they are
needed for public uses. We must have forest reserves,
and we shall have to extend their area later on, not
merely by presidential proclamation, but by purchase,
both East and West. Forest lands are continually
passing out of the government’s ownership—lands
whose preservation is absolutely essential to the well-
being of the country where they lie. It will event-
ually cost the government of the United States hun-
dreds of millions of dollars to get back again the areas
which it once held, which are now in private. owner-
ship, and which are absolutely essential to the welfare
of ‘all of ‘us.

I hope to see the Bureau of Forestry act as a helper
and assistant, not only to the commercial interests,
which is its first duty, but to all the interests of every
kind that are in any way connected with the forest.

AMERICAN ForEsStT CONGRESS 395

And this not by interference or dictation. I should
like to have every man and every woman_in this con-
vention go home with the idéa that the Bureau’ of
Forestry is theservant; of every; one of:you, and asks
nothing better, and can hope for nothing better, than
to be called upon to a bie help to = utmost limit
of its power. IQORHTOS 16

feveosrcurt

PROGRESS IN FOREST RESERVATION

IN PENNSYLVANIA
BY

Dr. J. T. ROTHROCK

Secretary, Pennsylvania Reservation Commission

HE, first requirement of a State is citizens. Penn-
sylvania, acting upon this fundamental principle
early, adopted the expedient of selling land at the
nominal price of 26 2-3 cents per acre. The State
has long since outgrown the necessity of offering such
inducements; but the law which authorized the same
remains to this day unrepealed. In 1893 the Com-
monwealth still owned a few of its many acres, but
these could not be located by any State officer and
were only discovered when the surveyors, surveying
unseated lands, found here and there a tract for which
no claimant appeared.

Actual purchase of land by the States for the pur-
pose of creating forest reservations commenced in
1896. So apparent had the necessity of such action
become that, though the average price paid per acre
for the land without timber was greater than the
Commonwealth received for the land with all of its
wealth of timber upon it, no criticism was evoked.

To-day Pennsylvania is in actual, or prospective,
possession of about 700,000 acres, which has been pur-
chased for the specific purpose of creating forest
reservations, and thus to restore a normal propor-
tionate area of wooded to cleared land. A Department
of Forestry exists which ranks in recognized impor-
tance with that of Public Instruction, Agriculture, or
Internal Affairs.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 397

This department has charge of land purchases under
advice of the States Forest Reservation Commission,
and of care of the land when purchased. It has since
the commencement of the movement in Pennsylvania
been our policy to move forward no more rapidly than
public sentiment demanded, though an earnest effort
was always made to create such sentiment, when it
was lacking, but needed. It may be safely said that
up to this time no legislature has ever denied what the
forest officials of the State suggested, nor have we
ever had a governor who failed most cordially and
fully to support the forest movement since it took its
present direction.

We recognize that land must be cared for it if is
purchased; though we have not as yet placed care-
takers over any considerable part of the State’s
recently acquired possessions. The principal reason
for this has been that we did not desire to involve
expenditure of public funds until the people them-
selves demanded it. This time seems to have arrived
and the legislature will be asked this session to grant
full, explicit authority for such action.

Thus far almost no land has been purchased in the
regions which drain in the Ohio, The reason for this
is that a large part of this area contains valuable
mineral deposits, and could not be purchased without
allowing the owners to retain their rights to the min-
erals. This difficulty did not exist in the districts
- which are drained by the Susquehanna, or the Dela-
ware, because there the mineral belts were not of the
kind we desired to secure for forest purposes at present.
If, however, we had allowed retention of mineral
rights by the present owners in the one district it
would have been necessary to do so in the others.
The Forestry Commission of Pennsylvania is now

3908 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

prepared to entertain propositions to purchase land in
the regions which are tributary to the Ohio River.

We here merely allude to the ever recurring vital
question of forest fires, to say that while we still
anticipate our share of trouble, nevertheless public
sentiment in Pennsylvania never was so crystalized
against those who create them as now. This, of
course, means fewer fires and a prompter suppression
of them than ever before.

In the way of restoration of timber a good start has
been made. We have opened an experimental plan-
tation of white pine, and this year also made a good
start in cultivation of black walnut. One nursery
contains probably 300,000 seedlings which will be
ready to set out in the coming spring. Our intention
is to give the hardy catalpa a full, fair trial, though
from what we have already seen of it in Pennsylvania
our hopes are not as yet very high in regard to the
tree.

The railroad directors of the State are considering
the propriety of entering upon the cultivation of our
black locut for cross ties, and one of our leading
railroad corporations has already growing and in good
condition about 250,000 young locust trees.

For the near future our State Forestry Commis-
sion is contemplating planting considerable areas, old
farms obtained along with more extensive purchases,
in white pine. This tree formerly grew there, and is
now growing in the land adjacent in most thriving
and desirable condition, with tall, straight limbless
trunks, which promises a harvest of the oldtime “cork
pine.”

Our chief difficulty in the way of scientific forestry
work has been the want of trained wardens. If we
had enough of these we could for the time being get

AMERICAN Forest CoNGRESS 399

on with ordinary unskilled labor, where labor was
required. The time will speedily come when we can
pay liberal salaries to properly educated foresters, to
produce and to work out a comprehensive plan for our
operations. It is not here yet. To tide over the
difficulty we have opened a forest academy in the
South Mountain Reservation, and we have now twenty
young men receiving elementary forestry instruction
there. It is hoped to greatly extend the curriculum
in the near future. One feature of our method of
instruction is that our pupils divide their time about
equally between manual labor in forestry and their
studies. Thus far the combination has given fairly
satisfactory results, and for the present we are in-
clined to continue it.

Pennsylvania has, we believe judiciously, started to
utilize her forest reservations as sanatoria for cure
of cases of incipient tuberculosis. Of course, the
patients are not allowed to run at random over the
ground and locate anywhere, but a place is set apart
for them. ‘The State has provided cottages and cabins
and we now have, in the South Mountain, a colony
of about thirty such invalids who are taking the fresh
air cure. The results obtained have, in many in-
stances, been remarkable. The probabilities are that
this work will be greatly enlarged during the next
few years.

On the whole, the outlook for forestry in Pennsyl-
vania is hopeful. Some of our laws may be improved,
but we have no legal or constitutional restrictions upon
us which interfere with development of conservative
forestry ideas or plans.

IMPROMPTU ADDRESSES

Address by Hon. John Lacey

Member of Congress from Iowa

F OR the last fourteen years I have been a member

of a little forest congress, originally composed
of fifteen members and increased lately to seventeen,
namely the Committee on Public Lands. The ques-
tions that you are discussing and will discuss during
this conference here we have been struggling with
during all this time. The problem of growing trees
must of necessity be solved, not only by the private
owner, but also by the State and nation. Congress
has recognized the necessity of setting apart large
areas of forests for the purpose of preserving streams
for irrigation and for the benefit, I think, as well, of
the public health; because the forest is a source of
public health. The fact has been recognized that the
Government must take some steps and take these steps
in time. The movement has been late, but it is not
too late. This vast area of the public domain (larger
than Iowa and Ohio combined) that has thus been set
apart, and I believe, set apart for the American people
and their children and their childrens’ children forever,
need no longer remain in the custody of that great
department whose main business it is to dispose of the
public land, to transfer it to the private individual for
his home; and, therefore, for several years I personally
have championed a measure which would remove from
this great committee one of its most pleasing duties,
but yet would transfer it to a department better fitted—
admirably fitted for the future care and preservation
of this great domain. And it is not news to you, and

404 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

yet it is worthy of record here, that this measure has
passed the House of Representatives and is now pend-
ing in the Senate of the United States; and your
judgment and influence will go far, no doubt, to secure
its passage through that wise and great though some-
what slow moving body. We have at the head of the
Department of Agriculture the great head of forestry.
I, perhaps, do not mean the gentlemen that you are all
thinking of. It is not my dear young friend, Mr.
Pinchot, but the old man, who comes from the prairie
State of Iowa, a State whose chief forests consisted
of hazelbrush in the days when the Secretary of Agri-
culture first settled in his magnificent domain. And I
might say to you that so far as that State is concerned,
it is quite too rich to use much of it for forestry. They
can hardly afford it. With the land at one hundred
dollars an acre to plant out in trees, the crop of which
will be harvested seventy-five years from now, is almost
too expensive even for a nation to undertake, so lowa
will never be a forest producing State. The head of
this department will be succeeded some day—I hope a
long time in the future—by some man of equally com-
prehensive grasp and an equally prophetic view of the
future. That department has come to stay, and it is
a department that may look far into the future and
do that for the nation and for the people which the
private individual, or even the State, is not adequate
to accomplish. And, therefore, it is well that when
these reservations have finally been delimited and their
outlines fixed, that they should be transferred, not to a
department whose business it is to pass the title away
to individuals, but to a department that will hold on
to this land, that will turn it over to succeeding admin-
istrations, and that will preserve the sources of the
water supply of the country in the West, whose future

- AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 405

is entirely dependent upon the successful operation of
irrigation. And that is why, my friends, this transfer
to a different department is a matter now of necessity
when this vast domain of sixty-two or sixty-three
millions of acres shall have been selected for that
purpose.

There is another reason for the transfer. I referred
a moment ago to my young friend, Mr. Pinchot, who
is the chief forester of the Department of Agriculture.
It has been an anomaly in our legislation that the de-
partment of the Government having charge of the
forests had none of the skilled foresters of the United
States in its employ, and that the department that did
not own a tree anywhere was surrounded by the best
corps of foresters in the world. The mountain could
not come to Mahomet, and so Mahomet is going to the
mountain. The department is to be transferred—the
service transferred—to that department that is so nota-
bly fitted and so organized as to take the permanent
care of this magnificent, this wonderful domain. I
was born in the woods of Virginia. I moved (thank
God), to the prairies, and one of the most unpleasant
things of my subsequent life was to return to the woods
of Virginia, now West Virginia, to find that the old
streams—the old “swimmin’ holes’—as Whitcomb
Riley calls them, the holes we used to swim in and
where we caught so many fish, are now simply gravelly
roads. They are highways as dry, as arid, as one of
the deserts of Arizona or New Mexico—nothing but
beds of gravel. And why is it? Because the trees
have been cut down and the springs that were the chil-
dren of the forest, have dried up, and instead of a
slow running brook digging out holes here and there,
clear as crystal and full of water, we have simply an
increased torrent after each storm, carrying the pebbles

N

406 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

and the sand from the hills, washing them down and
destroying the old brooks.

Now this is one of the unpleasant features of the
denuded timber lands of the Eastern States. I see
here before me representatives from every State and
Territory in the Union, because this question has be-
come a national one and has gone into the homes of the
people. It is not too late to save some of the great
Appalachian forests of North and South Carolina. It
is not too late to save the valleys of many the Eastern
States from that destruction which followed the denu-
dation of the forests of France when the hilltops were
carried down into the valleys and the rich alluvial
plains absolutely buried with sand and gravel. It is
not yet too late, although many a fertile field has been
destroyed.

I can look at this from an impartial standpoint, with-
out prejudice, living in a country that has no forests,
that never had them, that never will have any great
forests; where we have a climate in which there is
always rain enough to grow a crop and drought enough
to dry it for harvest; where all we need in the world
is to be let alone.

I did not come here to talk to you this morning. I
sat down in the audience simply because I wanted to
touch elbows with those who are carrying this crusade
in favor of the forests into every part of the United
States; but I am glad to have this opportunity to look
these earnest people in the face and to bid them God-
speed and good cheer. There is no nation in the world
that has been so extravagant, that has been such a
spendthrift of its natural resources as the American
nation. We tap a gas field, set it on fire and advertise
for everybody to come and see it burn up—a gas field-
that it took countless millions of ages to store under the

AMERICAN Forest CoNncrkss 407

cap of a rock that covers it—and yet in a few years it
is destroyed, and the factories that were built over it
with the understanding that an everlasting source of
supply existed underneath, find themselves once more
shipping coal from hundreds of miles away in order to
supply their furnaces. ‘The same is true with oil; the
same with the beasts of the forests and the birds of the
air. People destroy them with a wantonness that al-
most looks like malignity; and all these natural re-
sources of the great United States of America are
involved, either directly or indirectly in the questions
that you are going to discuss. While preserving the
forests you will preserve the animals that roam therein ;
while preserving the forests will give shelter to the
birds of the air that make their nests therein. It is
too late to save the wild pigeon, perhaps. The count-
less millions that used to break down the woods by
their weight have disappeared, and the advent of a
dozen wild pigeons in the State of New York is taken
up by the Associated Press and published far and wide
as a wonderful thing: “A dozen wild pigoens were
seen in western New York day before yesterday.”
And yet, within the lifetime of my young friend Pin-
chot, and I refer to him because I look to him for the
future of the forests, in the lifetime of even the young-
est members present here, this magnificent bird has
practically disappeared from the face of the earth. I
know my friend, the Secretary of Agriculture, will not
fully agree with me upon the importance of the preser-
vation of the buffalo; but I expect some day to get him
to entirely agree with me.

This is a day of progress. It is not very long ago
that men rejoiced at the destruction of the buffalo,
because it opened the way for the white man in the
West. We took up the subject in Congress some years

408 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

ago, while a few remains of this magnificent animal
were still upon the earth. It was my good luck to
secure a small appropriation from our economical
chairman of the Committee on Appropriations—not a
very sentimental man, but one of the most practical
men on earth—Uncle Joe Cannon—a small appropria-
tion of $15,000 to restore a herd of bison to the Yellow-
stone Park. Four hundred of these creatures were
enclosed in the area that was reserved when this land
was set apart as a pleasure ground for the nation.
Those four hundred have gradually been killed for
their heads and for their pelts, and the calves have
been destroyed by the mountain lions and by the sever-
ity of the winters, until finally only twenty-three were
the sorry remains of that splendid herd that was set
apart for the nation in the Yellowstone; and the small
appropriation of $15,000 was made. Ejighteen animals
were purchased, part of them from the Flathead herd.
The Flathead Indians, with more prudence than their
white brethren had shown, saved thirty-five calves a
good many years ago, out of the dying herd, and made
them their private property. And that little herd of
thirty-five increased until there were nearly three hun-
dred of them. And this herd now in the Yellowstone
was selected mainly from the Flathead herd because
they were reared in an altitude something like that in
which the new herd was to live. To this herd were
added animals from ‘Texas—from the Goodnight
herd—and from Corbin’s New Hampshire herd—so
as to mingle the blood normally in this new herd as
the blood of the nations has been mingled in the United
States of America. ‘This is the way to produce a race,
to mix them and get the best you can from everywhere.
And so, starting upon the proposition of building once
more a herd in the Yellowstone, that little herd from

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 409

eighteen has grown to thirty-nine, and we have hopes
of sixteen more in the spring.

Now I only speak about this, my friends, because it
is a kindred question. It is one of the things that
grows out of the agitation of forestry. A man or a
woman who preserves a tree in a practical way will
preserve the things that that tree shelters and produces
and that are useful to man. Again, I wish to bid you
Godspeed, and I hope you will carry with you to every
part of the United States the enthusiasm which you will
generate here—the enthusiasm which you bring here
and which you will convey to one another—and that
you will be a mighty band of missionaries all the way
from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon.

Address by Hon. W. A. Reeder

Member of Congress from Kansas

| REGARD it as a privilege to be permitted to speak
to so intelligent an audience from all sections of
this great country of ours, interested in so vital a work
as the preservation of our forests. I had the good
fortune to be born in one of the best valleys of Penn-
syivania, the Cumberland Valley, but I had the better
fortune to be removed, very early in my history, to
the Solomon Valley, in the semi-arid regions of western
Kansas, and for considerably over a third of a century
I have lived in that section, and it has probably changed
my characteristics considerably from what they would
have been had I remained in the land of my nativity ;
also my interest in certain matters, particularly the
matters of irrigation and the preservation of our
forests. :
What a dense population we will be able to find

410 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

homes for in the vast arid and semi-arid regions of
the West when we put water upon those semi-arid and
arid lands! Incidentally, I wish to remark that the
district I represent has more tillable acres than all of
Japan, and while we have 200,000 population or less,
Japan is supporting 43,000,000 of people. With irri-
gation we can accommodate as dense a population as
is supported on any equal sized territory in any part
of the world. Mine is one of the seven congressional
districts of Kansas, and Kansas but a small portion of
the territory that can and will be irrigated by means
of the irrigation law. The subject I desire to present
is this: You are interested in matters that are vitally
important to irrigation. Important because of the
conservation of water by the forests at the head of
streams which supply water for irrigation. The tim-
ber should be preserved in order to conserve this water.
You are also interested in another subject which has
been spoken of by several, which if handled rightly,
will add largely to the funds of the great irrigation
movement. This is the sale of the timber on the public
domain for something near its value. We are some-
thing of an impetous people in Kansas, and have seen
times when we had to be somewhat practical. I am
glad to add, however, that we are very prosperous at
present. We Kansans who are interested in irrigation
feel that the matter of changing our laws in regard to
the sale of timber at something near its value, should
be consummated, and that soon. We Kansans are
urgent in the matter and would go direct to the source
of the difficulty delaying such action. It should have
been arranged at the last session of Congress, or even
before that, in my opinion.

The great irrigation convention held at El Paso,
Texas, in November, 1904, composed of men from

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS AII

all parts of the nation, adopted resolutions asking that
our present land laws be repealed and a system of laws
substituted providing for the sale of the stumpage of
our timber, and now, this great convention of repre-
sentative men and women express themselves so ear-
nestly in the same manner, that I ask myself why is
it so small a number of people, the speculators in our
timber land, can control in these matters against the
great mass of our influential citizens? I fear you are
not practical enough. Your are not fighting at the right
place. The Congress of the United States has control
in these matters. ‘The men who appeared before the
Committee on Public Lands last year, and argued in
favor of retaining the land laws as they are, are not
holding meetings; are not passing resolutions; are
showing no particular enthusiasm; but they are doing
the business. I say this with the utmost respect and
regard for the chairman of the Public Lands Com-
mittee, Congressman Lacey, who is on the platform.
In my judgment, our timber law should have been
changed long ere this. I wish every member of this
organization would read the hearings before the Public
Lands Committee of the House last year. I wish you
could, in some way, induce this Public Lands Commit-
tee of the House, who are solely responsible, to permit
the question of the repeal of these very harmful laws
to come before the House for consideration. This is
the only practical method of reaching this important
question. I further wish to assure you that resolutions
will not accomplish this result. <A bill for the repeal
of the Timber and Stone Act has passed the Senate,
and the Committee on Public Lands of the House have
already decided the House shall not be permitted to
consider it for one year more at least. All your in-
fluence should be used with the members of this com-

412 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

mittee, in order that the matter may be considered by
the House. I am satisfied that Congress is willing to
repeal this Timber and Stone Act and put in its place
laws for the sale of the stumpage, if they are permitted
the privilege of considering the question.

I thank you for this privilege, as I was anxious to
put this matter before you, and urge you to commence
an effort by seeing members of the Committee on
Public Lands of the House, or indirectly using your
influence with them. This committee has absolute
control in this matter. If they can be induced to per-
mit the matter to come before the House, you should
then urge your member of Congress to work and vote
in line with your wishes in the matter.

Address by Rev. Edward Everett Hale

Chaplain of the United States Senate

| SHOULD be glad to be called upon at any time,
day or night, for twelve hours or twelve minutes,
to speak upon this subject, anywhere or to anybody
who had any interest in it. I represent here the State
of Massachusetts, as well as the State of New Hamp-
shire; I represent also the Appalachian Association,
which is a large organization and has done a great
deal of good. But I am not going to speak as a New
England man; I am going to speak as an American.

I have slept under pine trees, which were high, tall,
beautiful pine trees when North America was dis-
covered. I went up through the same region two years
ago with a friend and found my pine trees all gone and
sumac and blackberry bushes in their places. It makes
a man cry to see it. I have talked with lumbermen
who knew where they could find pine trees that had

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 413

King George’s mark on them, because King George,
in 1770, valued his New England forests so much that
he would not let anybody cut down pine trees
without his permission, and he placed on the trees the
broad arrow of the English Admiral. Fortunately, he
was not able to cut down the trees afterwards. Now
we are before Congress because we want Congress to
preserve the forests for fifty square miles in that region.
I desire that my boy’s boy’s boy’s boy’s girls, two cen-
turies hence shall see such pine trees as I saw in 1841.
And for like reasons, we want an Appalachian reser-
vation made in the highlands of Tennessee and the
Carolinas.

Address by Mr. W. S. Harvey

Vice-President, Pennsylvania Forestry Association

[? is exceedingly gratifying to me, as an officer of

the Pennsylvania Forestry Association, which asso-
ciation, you are all aware, has been one of the pioneers
in the work for forestry, and probably has done more
than any other association, and has a larger member-
ship than any other association, except the American
Forestry Association, of which I also have the honor
to be a member of, and of the Board of Directors.

The highest tribute that has ever yet been paid to
the forestry work of the United States is being paid
to-day by this notable gathering of influential people,
not only from every section of our own country, but
from our kindred country, Canada. We have listened
with great interest, and I sincerely trust it will be with
great profit, to the words that my countryman, Dr.
White, has just uttered, in telling us how intelligently
Canada is administering her forests, and this Congress

414 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

will fail of the responsibility that rests upon it to do
practical work, if we do not, before we disband, take
action of a nature that will enlist the influence of every
one here and the organizations they represent. Rail-
roads, timber owners, and lumber manufacturers, those
interested in irrigation, those interested in mining,
those interested in industries collateral to the forestry
question, we should enlist their cooperation and service
to have laws enacted in the United States that will at
least put the United States on an equal footing with
our neighbor, Canada. I sincerely trust that we will
not adjourn without having some resolutions passed
that will invite the cooperation of all the bodies here
represented, to have the Timber and Stone Act
repealed. The Timber and Stone Act, as we have
learned in the Secretary’s report, allows the United
States Government to sell land in fee for $2.50 an
acre, while the reservations of the Chippewa Indians,
which were sold at public auction in December of 1903,
realized for the timber alone, the land itself being
reserved, $15.06 an acre, or more than $2,600,000, as
against $438,000 that the Government would have
received at $2.50 an acre. Why should the United
States Government sell what it owns for less than its
real, its market value? There is no reason in the world
why this should be done, and if I am not out of order,
Mr. Chairman, I think it would be appropriate that I,
or some one else, should make a motion that the
recommendations that are in the Secretary’s report
shall be referred to the Committee on Resolutions;
that the Secretary be requested to tabulate those recom-
mendations so that he can present them to the Com-
mittee on Resolutions, so they can consider them and
bring them before this Congress to be acted upon
before we separate.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS A415

The purpose of our coming together, with the im-
portant interests represented and identified with this
Congress, is to produce practical results. Our distin-
guished President said, in the address which he read
to us this morning, that the “period of talking is past
and the period of doing has come.” I think all of us
can rejoice in the fact that there has never been a
period in the history of the United States that was such
a period of doing. We have to-day an administration
that does things. American citizenship has been ex-
alted in the eyes of the entire world through the
methods of doing those things. Mr. Chairman, it is an
administration where personnel counts for much, and
we are greatly honored in the work that many of us
have been so deeply interested in for many years, in
having you at the head of this great economic work.
At first we were ridiculed for being theorists and
idealists, and we were told that there was nothing
practical in our ends and aims. We are thankful to-
day that that spirit has disappeared. We are also
highly honored in having the President of the United
States the honorary president of this Congress, who
will also deliver one of the most important addresses,
which address is to embrace in its scope, forestry in
its relation to the United States. Probably all of you
are aware that perhaps we to-day would be aborigines
if it were not indirectly for forestry.

You all know the man who discovered America
more than four hundred years ago. Columbus had
great trouble with his crew, they mutinied and had
decided that they would allow him no longer to pursue
his course to find land that they never believed would
be found, and they determined that they would compel
him to return to their native land, and just at that
juncture one of those men, looking overboard into the

416 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

sea, saw the fresh limb of a tree floating in the ocean,
and they then thought land must be near, and they
determined they would pursue their course, and
America was discovered as a result of that incident.

The president of this Association, our distinguished
Secretary of Agriculture, who is the most modest man
that was ever sent to Washington from Iowa, is a
man who also “does things,” and the greatest guaranty
and the best earnest that we can have of the future of
the forestry work, is that Secretary Wilson is at the
head of it. The department of which Secretary Wilson
is the head, we must not overlook the fact, is the one
department of the Government that produces things.
Every other department of this Government is a matter
of expenditure; Army, Navy, Interior, Post Office,
Commerce and Labor, and the Treasury Department.
All of these departments are departments that require
enormous expenditures. ‘The Department of Agricul-
ture is the department that has done more than any
other department in the United States to increase the
wealth of the United States. Friends in Wall Street
say “Secretary Wilson is the greatest bull factor on
the whole financial horizon.”

He has recently made a statement that the value of
the products of the soil in the United States the past
year is four billion, nine hundred million dollars—
four hundred millions dollars greater than they were
one year ago, and they say a shrinkage in securities
in Wall Street, from one to two billions of dollars, does
not amount to anything serious when the actual wealth
of the country is increased four billion, nine hundred
million dollars.

Secretary Wilson is going to hold himself responsi-
ble for the future of the work of this Association ; also
his associate, Mr. Pinchot. We all delight to give

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 417

honor and credit to this gifted young man, and every
one of us is sorry that we are not as young as Mr.
Pinchot, to go with him into the great future of this
work. It is going to have a great future, and I am
glad to say as a representative of the Pennsylvania
Association, that Pennsylvania is ready to go hand in
hand and cooperate with you in every good measure
of legislation, national or state, that may be desirable,
and one of the important purposes here should be to
find a base of unity and harmony of action on all
national questions. If we can interest earnestly and
sincerely the interests that are represented here to-day,
and representing the many states that they do, I under-
take to predict, and I say it without any qualification,
that I believe there is no legislation that we will not
be able to secure, because the people who represent the
forestry movement to-day will not ask anything that will
not be desirable or beneficient or wise and good for the
interest and welfare of the country.

As a member of this Congress from the State
of Pennsylvania, that is indirectly interested in
the Appalachian Forest Reserve, I want to raise
my voice here in advocacy of using our influence with
the Congress of the United States to make it possible
that we have a forest reservation in the Eastern States.
We have learned in the figures.that have been given
us that the United States owns 63,000,000 of acres of
reservations, every one of which is in the West. The
Appalachian Reservation, the purchase of which has
been endorsed and advised by commercial bodies
throughout New England and the East, by various
forest associations and by the National Board of Trade
for several years, at their meetings in January, in
Washington, embraces 3,840,000 acres of land, cover-
ing an area two hundred miles long and twenty to forty

418 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

miles wide—an average of about thirty miles. The
importance of securing it by the National Government
is of great vital interest to this Congress. This Con-
gress is to consider economic questions from a practical
point of view. The Southern States have more than
$200,000,000 invested now in cotton mills. These cot-
ton mills are in a large measure dependent upon water
power. The taking of the forest cover from the
Appalachian Mountains will largely destroy the oppor-
tunity nature has given the South to grow and increase
in wealth and prosperity, which it is doing and which
in the future it will to a greater degree than any other
section of our country. Some of you may not be aware
of the fact that the head waters of all of the rivers
that I shall name are in this Appalachian range: The
Potomac, the James, the Shenandoah, the Roanoke,
the. Dan, the Catawba, the Yadkin, the Broad, the
Santee and the Savannah on the east. On the west we
have the Cumberland, the French Broad, the New, the
Tennessee, the Kanawha, and the Ohio. The names
of these rivers should impress us with the significance
and the importance of providing a forest reservation
in the Appalachian territory in the Middle East. Res-
olutions were passed by the American Cotton Manu-
facturers’ Association in convention in the city of
Washington on the 12th day of May, 1904, as follows:
“Whereas, we recognize a great source of danger to
our water powers in the indiscriminate cutting of
timber at the headwaters of our streams; and whereas,
this opinion is confirmed by uniform experience in
other countries, where drastic remedies have been
successfully applied; and whereas, our future as a
manufacturing nation is largely dependent upon cheap
power secured from our rivers and streams; and
whereas, owing to the great improvements being made

AMERICAN ForREST CONGRESS 419

in electrical transportation our water powers should
be greater factors for furnishing power in the future
than they have in the past; and whereas, the sources
of the streams where the injury is done are often in
other States than those in which power is used, hence
this vital question becomes one which the National
Government alone can properly deal with.”

There is another important point, and that is the fact
that the southern Appalachian Mountains embrace the
last remnant of the hardwood forests of the eastern
United States. Owing to there being no swamps or
lakes in this entire region, almost the entire rainfall
will be lost at once if the forest cover is removed. Upon
the continuance of this forest cover depends almost en-
tirely the water power, navigation and agriculture of
the regions south of the Ohio and Potomac Rivers and
east of the Mississippi. This proposed forest reserve
extends through several State, and it is not practicable
to depend upon State action. I, therefore, Mr. Chair-
man, in view of these important facts that should
impress us with great earnestness and determination to
take action at this time, recommend that this question
be referred to the Committee on Resolutions, and I
sincerely trust that the Committee on Resolutions will
take definite action and bring before this Congress a
resolution for their adoption.

Address by Mr. Aubrey White

Commissioner of Crown Lands, Ontario, Canada

| ASSURE you I am taken completely by surprise in

being asked to address you at the present moment.
I had naturally expected that at some time during this
Congress I might be asked to say something in connec-

420 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

tion with forest reserves and our management of them
in the Province of Ontario, but I was not prepared to
speak at any length at the present moment. I cannot,
however, refuse to say a few words in connection with
the forest reserves of Ontario and their management.
At the outset I wish to say that I am a great lover of
the forest. In my early days in Canada it was my
good fortune, first, to trade with the Indians in the
remote part of the province, afterwards, to be engaged
in the lumber business, first in the subordinate position
of cutting roads and gradually working up, until at the
present time I am in charge, as the permanent official
of all the timber and Crown Lands of the great Prov-
ince of Ontario. In my peregrinations through the
back country by canoe, particularly after coming over
a long, tiresome portage, it was often a source of great
delight to me on putting my canoe down off my head
to see a little lake surrounded by the beautiful green
forest, figurately, like a diamond set in emeralds. There
can be nothing more gratifying to the eye of man than
such a sight, particularly under such circumstances.
And then, as the eloquent gentleman who has just ad-
dressed you a moment ago, said with respect to his
experience in his own State of Virginia, I have gone
back later to some of these little lakes and seen them
spoiled, the timber having been burned up and the
locality denuded of all its beauty and become an eye-
sore in the landscape. Therefore, as a lover of the
beautiful, as one who is fond of nature, I am anxious
to do everything in my power to educate the people
upon the subject of forestry, and the conservation of
our forests, as well from the standpoint of the beautiful
as from a commercial standpoint.

We in Canada have an altogether different system in
managing our forests from what you have in this

AMERICAN ForEST CONGRESS 421

country. I sometimes think it is better to adhere to
an old system, improving it from time to time as expe-
rience may dictate, than it is to evolve a new system.
The genesis of our system of forest management is to
be found back in the days of the French regime in
Canada. At that time, when the Crown was parting
with the soil, it reserved to the King of France all the
timber on the land that was suitable for naval purposes.
The oak was the principal timber used for naval pur-
poses, and it was the timber reserved. Permits had to
be obtained to get into the forests and cut it. When
the country came into the possession of the British,
the same system was still pursued, but by this time
pine had become the valuable naval timber, and it was
reserved, and so it has been ever since. In all the titles
we give to settlers and others, we reserve the pine
timber until the patent has issued. So far as the
Province of Ontario is concerned, our principal revenue
is derived from the sale of pine timber. We have no
State tax as you have in the different States of the
Union. The people of Ontario are not taxed one
five-cent piece for State purposes, if I may put it in
that way. Our principal revenue comes from two
sources, first, the per capita grant made by the Federal
Government to the Province, and the other, the pro-
ceeds of the sale of our timber and lands. This last
year, 1904, our revenue from timber alone was some
$2,800,000. When we determine to dispose of any
quantity of timber, we survey it in what we call
“berths,” that is, blocks of land having an area of
from two to fifty miles, as the case may be. Then we
advertise the sale very widely, notifying the people to
come and bid for these blocks. Before the day of
sale we have them carefully inspected, the timber upon
them estimated, and we put a value upon each block,

422 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

which is called the “upset price.” Then we put them
up for sale by the mile at a price which we call the
“bonus value,” that is, the amount of money paid for
the privilege of obtaining a license to cut the timber,
subject to a royalty when it is cut. The present roy-
alty, exclusive of the bonus paid at the sale, runs from
$1.00 to $2.00 a thousand. The bonus derived from
a sale is sometimes enormous. At the last sale we held
in 1903, we received $30,500 a mile for the right to
cut timber on a certain berth, with a royalty of $2.00
per thousand feet, board measure, to be paid as the
timber was cut and removed. We have a very valu-
able asset in our pine timber and we are taking care
of it, we are not giving it away. Now, you have had
in this country, as we have, the problem of preventing
the destruction of the forests by fire. When I entered
the service of the Ontario Government, one of the first
questions addressed to me by my chief was, “Can you
not recommend something by which we can prevent
the forests being destroyed by fire?” I said I thought
I could, and I evolved the plan which has been copied
in all the provinces and by the Federal Government,
and is, I think, if I may say so without egotism, now
followed to some extent, at any rate, in the United
States. I said we should try to guard the forests
during what may be called the dangerous period; that
is, from the month of May to the beginning of October.
We have some 20,000 miles in the Province of Ontario
under timber license, and my suggestion was that the
owners of these licenses should be asked to recommend
or select men who were cool-headed and knew their
limits, as such men could best protect them, that these
men should be put on duty as fire rangers or fire police
during the dangerous period, the Government bearing
one-half of the expense and the timber licensees the

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 423

other. I suggested that the licensees should be asked
to name the rangers because I wanted to get capable
men and to divorce the service from any connection
with politics. If the Government had appointed all the
rangers I fear we would have had the insinuation that
some of them were appointed for political purposes.
In order to get rid of that idea once and forever, we
said we would allow the licensees, who were of all
schools of political thought, to select the men, then
we will appoint them and pay half their wages. That
system has been approved and expanded and is in
force at the present time. During the last year, in
the Province of Ontario, we have not had a single forest
fire, although thousands of people are moving about
through the forests during the summer season. Large
numbers of your own countrymen come up to our
country during the summer, regarding it as a play-
ground because we have the forest there in which they
can come in contact with nature and enjoy themselves.
Recently we have thought we ought to go a step fur-
ther; that we ought to set apart large tracts of land
as forest reserves, the timber of which should be cut
subject to regulations as to the size of the timber and
measurements and everything of that sort, and that the
trees to be cut should be marked by rangers appointed
by the Government, the timber to be disposed of in
the open market from time to time as might be thought
proper. We have set apart in the Province of Ontario
some 7,000,000 acres of forest reserves, and we have
on these 7,000,000 acres probably some 10,000,000,000
feet of white pine timber, and in this white pine we
think we have one of the most valuable assets that any
province or State could have, because there is no
property that is more rapidly increasing in value than
white pine stumpage. We are using our best efforts

424 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

to take care of it, to protect it, and I think I may say
that so far as the prevention of the destruction of the
forest by fire is concerned, we have almost, if not com-
pletely, solved the problem.

I am delighted to have had the opportunity of saying
a few words to this great Congress upon the manage-
ment of our forest reserves. Necessarily I have been
somewhat disjointed in my remarks, being called upon
on the spur of the moment without any preparation to
address the meeting. Before I sit down I want to
congratulate you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to con-
gratulate everybody present upon the amount of good
that can be done by such a meeting as this. If every-
one here is determined to do everything in their power
to educate the people upon the subject of the protection
of the forest and its conservation for national purposes,
I think we shall have a better public opinion upon the
matter.

Address by Dr. B. E. Fernow

Author of ‘‘ Economics of Forestry ”’

[7 was said this morning that the time for talking is

past and time for action is present, and so I sup-
posed that talking was no longer in order and had not
even thought of what I might say to you should I be
called upon. I might, however, be reminiscent of
an occasion similar to the present one, when the first
Forestry Congress was called, to Cincinnati, in 1882,
when the first attempt was made in the United States
to arouse public attention to the necessity of the subject
which now occupies this large assembly. Do not
believe for a moment that those were all sentimentalists
that came together at that early stage of development.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS A25

There were economists present with sentiment, to be
sure, but not moved by sentimentality. Later a large
amount of sentimentality was introduced into the
subject, thanks to the ladies, and this, too, was a good
thing at the time, because in that way interest was
gradually spread among all classes of the public, even
to the practical men of the woods. I feel greatly
gratified that all the talk that we of the earlier ages
performed, has made it possible to bring together such
an assembly as the present one, with practical men, the
lumbermen themselves, in the audience and on the
platform. It has taken a large amount of talk to make
that possible, but still more so, as was stated by the
secretary of the Association this morning, the natural
development of economic laws has brought around a
good many who doubted the necessity and propriety
of our earlier work.

As far as the Federal Government’s interests are
concerned, I dare say they are now well understood
and cared for, and some of the States are initiating
the Federal Government and have been awakened to
their duty. They have begun to perform it, and as
time goes on, will perform it better and better. As far
as private interests are concerned, I want to accentuate
the fact which Dr. Schenck tried to bring out this morn-
ing, namely, that the lumberman is a necessary agent
in our civilization and that the lumberman, while he
serves himself, serves civilization, although I dare say
that not one of the lumbermen here has gone into
business for the purpose of helping civilization along,
but for the purpose of helping his own pocket. The
private interests, then, leaving out the interest of the
nation at large, lies in the profit that might be expected
from a change in the use of forest properties. It would
be difficult for anyone to prove that such a change at

426 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

the present time, adopting forestry methods, would
lead to on immediate increase of profits. Forestry is
profitable only in the long run, in the future. To
discuss its profitableness you must be able to predict
what the needs of the future in the use of wood will
be, and what the prices are likely to be.

Now I have, within the past few weeks, occupied
myself with this most important question: Will wood
prices rise, and will it pay at the present time to spend
money in the care of forest properties, or to leave
money in the forest properties, not taking all that can
be taken at the present time with a view to an increased
revenue in the future? This is somewhat of a tech-
nical subject, but I believe you will have to deal here
with technical subjects in formulating a policy which
appeals to the interest of private forest owners. Con-
trary to the statement of some statisticians of name and
fame, wood prices have been, even in the United States,
rising continuously for the last seventy years at the
rate of about one and one-half per cent; and at the
present time, if you take shorter periods of ten, fifteen
or twenty years, you will find that this rate of increase
has been very much greater. In the last forty years
the industrial nations of the world, such as England,
France and Germany, as well as the United States,
have increased the wood consumption to a marvelous
extent, not according to the number of their population,
but an increase per capita consumption. This is a
remarkable fact when we consider that stone, iron and
steel have taken the place of wood in building materials
to a large extent, and coal has replaced it as fuel. So
it is impressed upon us that our civilization is con-
tinuously dependent upon wood. Hence a supply for
the future is one of the requisites of our modern civili-
zation. ‘The consideration of the rapid increase in the

AMERICAN ForEst CONGRESS 427

consumption, which means, of course, a rapid decrease
in the natural supply, and hence an increase in price, is
the first basis upon which to discuss the question of
private interests in forest properties. We can now
prove that forestry will be profitable, for the history
of the past gives us a clue to the history of the future.

But we may discuss this question and we may discuss
the methods of forestry ad infinitum, yet we will never
succeed in persuading the private owner until we have
produced the conditions which make it possible to hold
forest property uninjured for the long time which is
necessary in order to reap the benefit. Of course, you
will see at once that I am coming to the fire question.
I have come down to this last issue as the one which
must be solved first before the others can be ap-
proached. One incident will suffice to illustrate what
I mean. A lumber company in New Hampshire was
induced to do what is called “conservative lumbering” ;
that is to say, not robbing the forest of all salable
timber, but to leave some for future taking. "They saw
that was a good policy and treated one hundred thou-
sand acres in that fashion; leaving the smaller sizes
below a certain diameter. A fire came and swept over
the ground and destroyed everything that had been
left, and now there is one friend of forestry less.

I am glad to say that there are not any more of the
mere economists and the sentimentalists interested in
this question, but the lumbermen themselves. With
their pocket-books interested, they will find the methods
of protecting their forest property and they will insist
that the function of the State, which first of all is to
protect property, should be properly employed.

I do not know that I have been able to say anything
that is new. All these things have been threshed out
for the last twenty-four years at least, when the first

428 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Forestry Congress met, and perhaps before that time.
There is nothing unknown, so far as I am aware, that
would lead us to comprehend conditions better, and it
is only necessary for us to put into practice what we
know, TO DO, as was suggested this morning.

Address by Mrs. L. P. Williams

Chairman Forestry Committee, General Federation of Women’s Clubs ©

| HAVE not my resolution in my pocket, nor have I

any greetings prepared, and am somewhat sur-
prised to be called upon at this time; however, I will
take the opportunity to say that it gives me much
pleasure to sit in this meeting and see these many
allied interests and forces drawing together, since
cooperation means progress.

I am glad also to say that you recognize and permit
women to have a share in your deliberations and be
helpful in the work. Women have ever been recog-
nized as conservators of the interests of the home,
then why should they not assist in this particular work
that contributes to the building of prosperous homes,
which are the foundation upon which national pros-
perity is built?

The General Federation of Womens Clubs held its
biennial convention in St. Louis last May, and seven
days we sat in council—daughters from the South,
where the great, wide-spreading paternal oak vies with
the palm, magnolia, and acacia in casting its benign
shade—sisters from the Fast, where maple, elm, and
chestnut burst into varied green and glow and flame
and mellow under autumn skies. Comrades from the
North, where forest paths are carpeted with the fra-
grant needle of the fir and pine. Co-workers from the

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 429

Rockies, Cascades, and Sierras, where the king of the
larches, the Douglas spruce and the majestic Sequoias
stand alone as sole survivors on the horizon of antiquity
and speak of a past so remote that history makes no
attempt to follow.

From each section of the country came the delegates,
that as loyal daughters of this Republic they might
consider those problems that stand closest to the
nation’s life and most affect her common weal. The
seven days were crowded full of earnest thought and
anxious desire to know how best to combat the forces
of evil and dispel ignorance to the end that our land
may be filled with prosperous homes and we be a
virtuous and happy people.

Forestry we approached last as if to be reminded
that back of the whirr of spindles, the infected air of
sweat shops and the stiffling, vice-polluting atmosphere
of crowded tenements, after consideration of soulless
corporations and corrupt party politics we should
move back to nature and take comfort in the thought
that in field and forest lies the nation’s hope. The
land policy and the forest policy of our country holds
' the key to the solution of many of the problems that
vex the social economist of to-day. Henry Clay held,
back in the fifties, that the land policy of the country
will be a vital problem of the day after the tariff
question has ceased to exist. We recognize in 1905
that he should have included its twin sister, the forest
policy, which must go hand in hand with the land
policy, as an essential part of it, if our valleys shall
be watered and fruitful, our deep waterways be kept
open and float our cargoes, and our waste land be
utilized and Columbia’s beauty be perpetuated.

I extend to this body fraternal greetings from that
General Federation of Women’s Clubs, eight hundred

430 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

thousand strong, a great reserve force that is coming
to your aid in forestry, although as yet you may regard
us as the awkward squad. Forestry was added to our
work only three years ago, but the committee questions
if any department of the General Federation can show
so great an increase of interest during the three years
as in forestry. Thirty-eight States have, where it was
not already a department of work, added work in
forestry, and the committees are enthusiastically
spreading the propaganda of tree-planting, forest
preservation, and irrigation. Like a prairie fire, in-
terest among State Federations in national and State
movements for the preservation of large blocks of
forest, is spreading and blazing up here and there
from the cypress groves of California to the spruce
clad slopes of New Hampshire.

Forestry as apprehended in our work covers both
arboriculture and scientific forestry. A very general
activity is manifest throughout the length and breadth
of the country in arboriculture, or tree-planting for
decorative purposes ; parks, cemeteries, school grounds,
highways and treeless plains in rural districts, towns
and villages, are coming into their inheritance of
beauty and beneficence through the grateful shade and
presence in their midst of oak and linden, larch and
chestnut, palm and pine, as numerous instances in the
State reports testify. Not always have the clubs taken
the initiative, but all are actively codperating, and in
many cases are the originators of forestry movements.

The work of the Thursday Club of St. Paul deserves
especial mention. The club last spring obtained the
consent of the Board of Education to make an appeal,
‘through the teachers of the public schools, to the chil-
dren to purchase and plant fruit trees on Arbor Day,
which the club agreed to furnish at small cost. The

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 431

Park Commission codperated and allowed each child
who desired to plant his trees in one of the city parks
to do so, and tag it with his name. The result was the
purchase and planting of 14,000 fruit trees by the
children.

In the San Diego District of California, out of
twenty-six clubs, nine have taken up the study of
forestry: Three have been tree-planting, and the San
Diego Clubs have raised $5,000 to improve their 1,400
acre park. Beaufort, S. C., reports twenty-five miles
of clear hard-shell road, generously provided with
young shade trees, and a Delaware club has planted
an avenue of trees one mile long, reaching from one
town to another. The Massachusetts clubs are giving
valuable assistance in fighting the brown tail and gipsy
moth. The women of Salem have aroused public
interest and the children have gathered and burned
375,000 moth nests, and adjacent towns are following
Salem’s example. Salem’s latter-day burnings are to
be commended!

A member from Minnesota said to me, “You women
had so much to do with the repeal of the ‘Dead and
Down Timber Act,’ under which the Chippewa Reserve
was administered prior to the application of the Morris
law, that you ought to tell, sometime during the Con-
gress, the story of finding the lamp, to show how trees
were brought under the ‘dead and down’ provision.”
To make sentiment for the repeal of the bill the Min-
nesota club women planned an excursion to Leech
Lake, which is within the reserve. The lumbermen
in Minnesota are not all converted to conservative
forestry, and gallantry sometimes is forgotten when
“so many board feet measure” enter into the proposi-
tion. Our party numbered about fifty, and included
Miss Dock, a member of the Pennsylvania Forestry

432 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Commission, who is a delegate to this convention.
There were two available steamers on the lake that
were very good, and one poor old house-boat. The
manager had chartered the steamers for our use;
imagine our surprise on arriving to learn that the
night before the boiler of the best steamer had been
scuttled and put out of use and at daybreak the other
steamer was seen scudding off down the lake. A
launch was sent flying after the steamer, and it was
finally hailed and the captain asked to explain where
he was going, and why he had broken faith with the
ladies. “Oh,” he replied, “a lumberman down the
lake has engaged the steamer for a week.”

Fortunately, a boiler inspector reached the town that
_ morning, special providence you know, and resenting
such ungallant treatment of the ladies, declared if it
was possible the boat should be put in repair and be
ready for use the following morning. Blacksmiths,
plumbers and carpenters, all lent a hand, and by noon
the following day the party was able to go aboard.

Our forestry friend from Pennsylvania was anxious
to see the character of the second growth on the
reserve, and seeing a bold bluff at that point, and with
Father Wright, chief of the Chippewas and missionary
at the agency for forty years, to act as guide, we made
a landing.

Our astonishment can be imagined when we found
each one of those beautiful old virgin pines burned at
the root, just enough to bring it under the condemned
list. Unfamiliar with the vicious workings of the dead
and down law, we looked about to learn the cause of
the fire. Nota leaf, twig, or grass blade was scorched,
there was no sign of tramp or camper, but on examin-
ing the burning in the noblest tree of all the group we
discovered a small kerosene lamp almost melted down.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 433

Father Wright sat at a little distance looking out
at the blue waters of the lake over which for centuries
the birch canoes of his people had glided so swiftly.
We approached, and holding aloft the lamp, said:
“What does this mean?’ With a pathos in his voice
that I shall never forget, he replied, “Dead and Down
Timber Act, burn, want to buy.”

I assure you the old lamp was good campaign mate-
rial. At our next State meeting, when our brothers
were present, we told the story and exhibited the lamp
and said, “Are not the Indians the wards of this nation ?
Shall we, through our laws, offer a premium for
criminal practices? ‘This lamp should cause blush of
shame to mantle the cheek of every honest voter in
Minnesota and kindle a back fire of indignation that
should wipe from off the statutes such nefarious laws.

It is true, women do not vote, but who shall say
that they are actually “counted out?’ Let me illus-
trate that we have a little influence, by another incident
in our forest reserve campaign. When the stress
came, and the news reached us that some of our
Minnesota members in Washington had gone over to
the enemy, the club women concluded it was desirable
to send representatives to interview our Congressmen.
On reaching Washington, we first sent our cards to a
member with whom we had a personal acquaintance,
and were received most graciously with this greeting,
“When did you arrive, how did you leave my con-
stituents, and what can I do to enhance the pleasure
and profit of your visit?’ But as soon as we men-
tioned the forest reserve the atmosphere seemed sud-
denly struck by a nor’easter and the mercury fell as
quickly as at Chilkoot Pass, and in icy accents these
words fell upon our ears: “Well, ladies, I’m not much
interested in that forest reserve scheme, and I don’t

434 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

think my constituents are!’ We replied are we not
your constituents? “Oh, yes, of course, I want to please
the ladies,’ he answered, and triflingly added, “but
you know the mosquitoes are too thick!” Disregard-
ing his trifling remark, the women of Minnesota are
desperately in earnest in this matter. We represent
the State Federation of Women’s Clubs, which has a
membership of between six and seven thousand, and
you know that six or seven thousand women represent
collectively six or seven thousand husbands and a few
thousand sons, who will possibly vote as their fathers
vote. We grant you, the mosquitoes are thick, but
they could hardly disable you for your Congressional
duties, but beware of setting six or seven thousand
bees buzzing in women’s bonnets. And, strange to
relate, the mercury began to rise until the atmosphere
was quite tropical.

Some two weeks later, having retired from the field,
we dared to send a batch of petitions to this same
member, and received this gracious answer: “Yours
at hand, petitions submitted to the House and referred
to the Committee on Public Lands, and I desire to
assure you, if I can advance the interests of the forest
reserve movement in any way, command my services
at any time.”

Do not think our interview with the member was
intended to savor of intimidation. We simply stated
facts and gave a little kindly information. You know
a woman has no “axe to grind,” she just speaks out
what is in her heart, and so sometimes it carries
weight—being a club woman, of course it carried
weight.

I desire to say, in closing, that the passage of a bill
to increase the Navy of the United States, finds many
friends, and is an easy proposition compared with

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 435

securing an appropriation for a forest reserve, for
you see there isn’t anything in the latter for anybody
except the people. While, for the former you can
“line up” a solid phalanx of shipbuilders, armor plate,
and boiler makers and all their henchmen to bear down
upon our Congressmen with silver-tipped arrows and
promissory appeals that win. We foresters work for
the people, and so oftimes our arguments and bills
have to wait a long while before they are given a
hearing and penetrate the crust of human selfishness.

Address by Filibert Roth

Professor of Forestry, University of Michigan

| CAME, here as an individual to enjoy meeting
friends and gather inspiration which will enable
me to perform better my duty as a citizen, as a servant
of the Michigan Forestry Commission, and as a teacher
at the University. I also came here as the servant
of that Commission, representing it, I am afraid, very
poorly. I came here to say to you that Michigan is
still in the front ranks of this union as one of its
greatest States. For nearly a century we in Michigan
have been hewing out of the forests the homes for
more than two million people, our lumbermen have
hustled, and have provided the lumber to build the
homes of the prairie States from the Dominion to
Texas. We worked faster than we knew. Had we
continued with the ox team and the old-time “up and
down” sash saw, we would still have pine to sell. But
the old methods were too slow; the old-fashioned “cog
gear” gave away to “rope feed,’ and rope feed was
thrown away and replaced by “shotgun” feed to rush
the timber against the whirling saw.
Working with steam and electricity we went beyond

430 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

our proper mark, and for years it seemed as if the signs
of the times would remain unheeded. And many of
us began to wonder what the matter was with our
State of Michigan. The people of the Dominion, our
neighbors, were awake, and introduced better methods ;
the older States had gone ahead, and, realizing that
they, too, had gone too far, had begun to check the
damage and prepare for its correction; but we in our
State were still going the swift pace of slaughter and
destruction. Were we to be behind? No. I have
come to say to you that Michigan is not behind the
rest of the States. We were merely too busy to realize
just where we were. Michigan has awakened to the
importance of doing; she has begun to check the evil,
she is organizing to repair the damage. Michigan has
a Forestry Commission, which looks after the forest
interests of the State; it has begun a proper land
policy and established the nucleus of a State forest, and
is training its boys in the care of the woods at its two
great institutions, the University of Michigan, and the
Agricultural College. ‘The business men of every city
in the State are united in a desire—even demand—
that something be done and done at once, to check
further timber devastation and to restore to the State
the supply of material so necessary for its welfare.
We have with us the people, even the women of our
State have taken up the matter of forestry, and that
great factor of civilization, civic and social improve-
ment, the Federation of Womens Clubs of Michigan
has begun a systematic, well directed campaign in favor
of State and private forestry. We are moving, and
our path is clearly before us, and our opportunities are
as good as those of any State in the Union. It gives
me great pleasure to tell you of this, and to say that
Michigan is here with you, and stands ready to co-
Operate with its sister States in this great movement.

AMERICAN Forest CoNGRESS 437

Address by Dr. C. A. Schenck

Director, Biltmore Forest School

M Y connection with forestry in western North
Carolina is of a three-fold character: I am a
lumberman, a forester and a teacher.

I am a lumberman, and I must confess to being
somewhat afraid as a lumberman to appear before this
audience. Still, while in charge of a large forest in
western North Carolina, I cannot help being a lum-
berman. Without lumbering no cash dividend is ob-
tainable from forest investments. ‘Therefore, I cut
the trees, though I can truthfully add that I do not
cut all the tree—for the reason that it pays better not
to cut all of them, under the conditions now prevailing
in western North Carolina.

We are just beginning a new year, and, as new year’s
wishes are in order, I wish that every one of you were
possessed of 50,000 acres of hardwood lands in the
Appalachian range! If you were the owners of such
timber tracts in our mountains, or anywhere in the
East, what would you do with the timber? I ask your
conscience, would you let the timber stand, or would
you convert that timber, all of it or part of it, into
money? We are in the habit of blaming the other
fellow for cutting the trees. Now, pardon me when
I ask: What would you do with the trees if you
owned them?

Secondly, I am a forester, and as a forester I am
meant to raise trees, partly by planting, partly by
lending Nature a helping hand. The owner of the
Biltmore estate, without doubt, would authorize me to
practice more silviculture if he could consider silvicul-
ture (the raising and tending of a second growth) a
remunerative investment; I had better, perhaps, say a

safe and remunerative investment.
O

438 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

However, as fires annually rage over large sections
of our grounds, it is hazardous—nay! it is almost
folly—to invest money in silvicultural pursuits. At
Biltmore we are forced to restrict reforestation to such
regions in the proximity of Biltmore House in which
we can control fires absolutely. In a large primeval
tract covering 120,000 acres of backwoods, absolute
fire protection is out of the question. Here I do not
attempt to enforce regeneration, simply allowing Na-
ture to do the work as best she can, trying at the same
time to protect the second growth from fire wherever
it appears.

Foresters are very frequently, I think, of the opinion
that the little trees—second growth—are really the
best money makers. Foresters working in the Appa-
lachians might just as well begin to change their
minds. The fact has been pointed out to-day re-
peatedly that the price of hardwood stumpage is
increasing rapidly. If that is true, the big tree is the
best money maker, and really mature trees do not
exist—moribunds excepted—where and as long as the
price of stumpage advances rapidly.

In 1896 I sold many a fine white oak at fifty cents
per thousand feet, board measure. I wish I could
replace these trees. I would gladly put them back in
the woods at $4 a thousand—because they are worth
now $5 a thousand. In 18908 I got for similar trees
$1.25 a thousand feet, board measure; in 1902 I re-
ceived $2.50, and last year I found a man who was
willing to give me as much as $8 per thousand!

Thus it happens that the big trees—the three, four,
five and six-footers—are my pride, more so than the
seedlings and saplings. I hold the big giants dearly;
I refrain from cutting them—merely for the reason
that they are my best money makers, the best part of
my investments—and also the safest part of my invest-

AMERICAN Forrest CONGRESS 439

ments since they are not subject to destructive forest
fires. So much for the forest.

Finally, I am the director of the Biltmore Forest
School, established at Biltmore, North Carolina, in
1898. I am delighted, though it makes me feel old, to
see so many of my former pupils present in this hall.
Permit me to use this chance for reminding them for-
cibly of my old demands and unceasing teachings—so
often repeated with the regularity of a canary bird or of
a whippoorwill—keep constantly before your eyes the
fact that forestry swbserves lumbering, that forestry 1s
lumbering to a very large extent.

Silviculture and lumbering together will, I think,
compose the work of the forester in this country for
many a year to come. The greater portion of prac-
tical wood’s work will lie in the line of lumbering, and
the lesser part will consist of silviculture merely be-
cause silviculture is not as safe an investment at
present, nor is it as remunerative as lumbering.

The time will come when the reserve will be the
case. It will come when the superiority of conserva-
tive lumbering over destructive lumbering is clearly
evidenced by the larger number of dollars which con-
servative lumbering can draw as a dividend from the
forest.

Address by Rutherford P. Hayes

President, The Appalachian Forest Reserve Association

O far most of the discussions here have related to
the extreme West. The problems that they are
working out there we have with us in the Southern
Appalachians. The effect of destroying the forests
and filling up the rivers is comparable with what is
going on now on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge

440 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Mountains. The rivers running from there through
North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia used to
be all clear mountain streams, and in times of flood
there was simply a flow of water and after it passed
away that was the end of it. Now they have their
times of higher flood and their times of greater drought
and the river beds and mill dams are all being ruined
by the silt that is washed down. We seem to have a
very much more fluid soil when it gets wet than a great
deal of that we have in the North, and the ‘extent of
this destruction is becoming apparent all through the
South. On the Catawba River what were a few years
ago good farm lands are now covered with eight, ten,
or twelve feet of sand and gravel. Two years ago
there was a flood along the French Broad River and
the destruction was very great. It reached Knoxville,
and it was the first time that anybody in Tennessee
had become interested in the preservation of these
forests.

We have standing on the Appalachian Mountains,
the Blue Ridge and the great Smoky ranges from
southern Virginia through to northern Alabama, the
last remains of the hardwood forests of the East. The
Blue Ridge is pretty well cleared. We have been try-
ing, through our Appalachian Forest Reserve Associa-
tion, to create an interest in Congress that would save
the balance of this country from being cleared. Con-
gress has appropriated over four and one-half million
dollars in the past three years for the improvement of
the rivers in this section, and unless these forests are
preserved, most of this money is wasted. The Great
Smoky range, the boundary line between North Caro-
lina and Tennessee, has been inaccessible as compared
with the Blue Ridge, and is little cleared. I do not
know how much you know of the particulars of that
country. We have as rough mountains as they have in

AMERICAN FOREST CONGRESS 441

the Rocky Mountains. We have what they had years
ago, mountains covered with forests. We are getting
to have what they have now, bare mountains. The
illustrations that are being given of the Rocky Moun-
tains and the results that are going on there, we can
see in all its different states, and we are anxious to
have our friends help us to try and save this great
region. Looking at it from the economic point, it
means the saving of water power, and the transporta-
tion of the entire South, from where the ‘Tennessee
River enters the Ohio, to the south and east clear
around to the Potomac River.

I have prepared a resolution on the subject of forest
reservation and will present it to the Resolutions Com-
mittee. We want to have the Government buy this
tract of land in the Great Smoky Mountains, the boun-
dary between North Carolina and Tennessee, about
two hundred miles long and from twenty to forty miles
wide, and control it as the forest reserves in the West
are controlled. If any one within that territory wishes
to retain his property and will manage it on proper
forest plans, there will be no reason for interfering
with him. There will be rights of way through the
forest reserve the same as has been mentioned for the
West. This reserve will be within twenty-four hours’
ride of three-fourths of the population of the United
States, and would be available as a pleasure ground for
a large proportion of our country. Of course the
Yellowstone Park is the park of the United States,
but a forest reserve in the Southern Appalachians,
which could be used as a pleasure ground as well,
would be of much more immediate interest to our
people than one so far away as the other. As I said
before, I will prepare a resolution and give it to our
Resolutions Committee and hope for your favorable
support.

442 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Address by Mr. Elihu Stewart

Superintendent, Forestry Branch, Department of the Interior, Canada

| HAVE listened with a great deal of pleasure indeed

to the various addresses that have been made,
and above all, I think all who have come from across
the lines and all who have come from this side of
the lines, cannot help but be wonderfully impressed
with the magnificent address that President Roosevelt
gave us yesterday.

I have heard a good deal about your system of work,
and I am in position to know what your Bureau of
Forestry is doing, because I get all its bulletins. But
above all, with such a President as you have, with such
a head of the nation as you have, and with such an
administrator as you have in Mr. Pinchot, I feel that
there is a guaranty above all others that your forestry
matters will be looked after in the future, and that
you will progress in the lines that Mr. Pinchot has so
admirably pointed out as the direction he intends to
give the interests of forestry matters in the United
States of America. I am not going to say a word
about our system across the line. My friend, Mr.
White, has, I think, done that sufficiently, and more
in that line would not be interesting to you, except
this :

It has only been about five years since I undertook,
in a very feeble way, to organize the forestry service
for the Federal Government in Canada. Shortly after
starting the work, I wrote to my friend Pinchot and
told him I was anxious to learn of the workings of the
Bureau here, and asked him if he would be kind
enough to let me know when he thought would be best
or most convenient for me to come here and endeavor
to get information as to the workings of his Bureau

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 443

in this country, which had been in operation for some
little time. He replied that he thought the best time
would be when the meeting of the American Forestry
Association was being held. So I came over—lI think
it was five years ago—and on my return—I think
somewhere between here and Baltimore—I was alone
on the train. I went into the smoker, and I think there
must have been inspiration there—it isn’t often I have
inspirations, and don’t believe I ever had one before
that resulted in anything, but this one did—for it
occurred to me, why could not we have a Canadian
Forestry Association? Once the thought flashed across
my mind I knew that we could; and I want to say that
as a legitimate offspring of that inspiration and his
association in the United States, we have a most suc-
cessful one in Canada. Not so much on account of
the numbers—we have only about six hundred mem-
bers as yet—but it is the personnel. We found that
the best people in the country were just waiting for
an opportunity to express their views collectively and
at once. We got together a committee formed gover-
nors, ex-governors, senators, and influential men in
every part of the Dominion, commencing in Prince Ed-
ward Island, where we have one of the most active men,
through Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and every dis-
trict in the great Northwest—even the Yukon. Every
district is represented. And without taking up your
time—as I know I must not do so—I wish to say that
we are. having a meeting in the old city of Quebec
on the 11th of March—a meeting of that association,
and I want to invite every one who can come from
this side of the line to come over at that time and make
us a visit.

One thought more occurs to me. We have a fire.
ranging system in the West similar to yours in the
reserves. I was away out in Alberta, near the Priest

444 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

River Reserve, and two of the rangers came over while
I was at a little town called Cardston. I think perhaps
it was their practice to come over there on Saturday
nights. They were in the hotel, discussing interna-
tional matters—the boundaries. I had to go back
about eleven o’clock at night in order to start in the
morning, and about that time the discussion was be-
coming very animated. I hope it has been decided.
I simply say that in order to show how closely the
people out there along the boundaries are related.
And as being of interest to the people of Washington
and Oregon, I wish to say that we are doing all we
can to guard the timber upon the upper reaches of
the Columbia River, which, as you know, has its rise
in British Columbia and finally finds its outlet at
Astoria, and we shall continue to do our part so far as
our limited means will permit.

Address by Mr. G. O. Shields

President, League of American Sportsmen

I REPRESENT the League of American Sportsmen,
which has a membership of 10,700 men and
women, distributed throughout every State and Terri-
tory of the Union, also largely in Canada and Mexico.
As every man who has ever thought of the subject
knows, the causes of game protection and forest pro-
tection go hand in hand. Whatever you ladies and
gentlemen do in the interest of preserving the forests
you do as well in the interest of preserving the wild
life of this country, and we claim that is a subject
worthy the attention of all earnest men and women.
We have two important measures before Congress
to-day, on which we need the assistance of this Con-

AMERICAN ForeEST CONGRESS A45

gress. One of these concerns especially the Territory
of Oklahoma, of which my friend has just spoken.
The Wichita Forest Reserve was created some years
ago, and Congressman Lacey, of Iowa, introduced a
bill at the last session to erect that forest reserve into
a game preserve, for the purpose of propagating quail,
prairie chickens, wild turkeys and deer, and then
shipping them to the Northern and Eastern States,
where they have been exterminated or nearly so.

The other measure affects all the forest reservations.
It aims to empower the President of the United States
to set aside certain sections in forest reserves already
created, to be known as game preserves; to stop all
shooting thereon and, if necessary, all fishing; to let
the game have a few asylums in these mountain regions
where it can live and increase.

Every man and woman in this audience knows what
a wonderful success has been made in the Yellowstone
Park, in preserving the wild animals there. Mr. Lacey
told me to-day he had just seen photographs from the
park showing 500 antelope grazing, some of them in
the streets of Gardner, a town five miles outside the
park. There are supposed to be 30,000 or 35,000 elk
in the park. There are about forty buffaloes, several
hundred Rocky Mountain sheep and many thousands
of deer.

I want to impress on your minds these important
facts that are associated so intimately with the cause
of forest preservation. The object of setting aside
these forest reserves, the primary object, is to preserve
trees; the secondary object, the important one of the
association I represent, is the preservation of wild
animals and birds. We are working as industriously
for the preservation of insectivorous and song birds
as we are for the game birds.

446 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Another thing I desire to call attention to, and on
this point I shall present a resolution when the time
comes. It is the disastrous and alarming destruction
of our forest for the purpose of making paper. We
must all have our reading matter, and the problem of
supplying wood pulp for the making of paper is a
serious one. I do not know whether it is to be taken
up in this Congress or not, but it certainly should be
considered. I want you to ask Congress to offer a
very generous reward to any person who will devise
or discover a method of making pulp, and from that
paper, from any product that farmers can raise on
their farms every year. It seems to me this is a very
important subject for this Congress to consider.

Address by Mr. Charles L. Pack

"[ HERE is little I can say to edify this Congress.

I am simply a plain owner of trees, of forest
lands in different parts of the country. I have taken
great interest in this subject for many years, and |
may say also that I have learned a great deal this week
in Washington. I have studied the commercial side
of forestry at home and abroad, and I have come to
believe that the man who cuts down a tree should plant
or cultivate or care for two new ones. Our economic
laws should make it an inducement for him to do so.
We must do something to catch up, as we have been
very tardy in applying what experience teaches on
this subject. The problem of private forestry is a
great one. I am caring for, at present, several thou-
sand acres of small timber in different parts of the
country, but I am faced with the taxation question;

AMERICAN Forest ConcreEss 447

and I think one of the greatest questions of forestry
within the States having to do with the private owner-
ship of the forest and the promotion of forestry locally,
is the taxation question. Much baby timber is cut
because its owners can’t pay exorbitant taxes. I will
not detain you by giving my ideas at this time upon
the subject, but I think an equitable State taxation
scheme can be devised with the aid of those present.
I believe that the time is long past when the Govern-
ment should, through the operation of any law, sell or
dispose of timber by the acre, but that every tree
disposed of should be under the direction of the Forest
Service, and be sold by the thousand feet. And, I
believe, further, that while in years past our forefathers
cut the trees of the forest without leave or hindrance,
that now we all readily see that no man has a private
right to the timber on public lands without paying a
full consideration. Under our present laws much tim-
ber is annually obtained, and at a fraction of its actual
value. And, I believe, that the same is true with
regard to the use of the forest reserves by the stock-
man, by the sheep raiser and the cattle raiser. I think
the time is at hand when they should pay a small, but
equitable and just charge for the use of the ranges.

RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED BY THE
AMERICAN FOREST CONGRESS

Resolved, That we urge upon Congress and upon
all legislative bodies the necessity at all times of giv-
ing full protection to the forests of the country and of
preserving them through wise and beneficent laws, so
that they may contribute in the most complete manner
to the continued prosperity of the country.

Resolved, That we earnestly commend to all state
authorities the enactment and enforcement of laws for
the protection of the forests from fire, and for reduc-
ing the burden of taxation on lands held for forest re-
production in order that persons and corporations may
be induced to put in practice the principles of forest
conservation.

Resolved, That we are in entire accord with the ef-
orts to repeal the Timber and Stone Act, and we favor
the passage of an act as a substitute therefor which
shall confer authority upon the proper officer of the
United States to sell timber growing on the public
lands when such sale shall be for the public welfare.

Resolved, That we favor the passage by Congress of
an amendment to the law regarding exchange of lands
included within a forest reserve so that such exchanges
or lieu selections shall be confined to lands of equivalent
value or similar condition as regards forest growth.*

Resolved, That the law which prohibits the export
of forest reserve timber from the state in which it is
grown should be repealed as to the states in which the
export of such timber is in the public interest, and in no
others.

*Lieu land law was repealed.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 449

Resolved, That we favor the passage of a law which
will authorize the sale of all non-mineral products
of the forest reserves, the proceeds of such sales to be
applied to their management and protection, and the
construction of roads and trails within the forest re-
serve.

Resolved, That we heartily approve the movement
for the unification of all the forest work of the Govern-
ment, including the administration of the National
Forest Reserves, in the Department of Agriculture,
and urge upon Congress the necessity for immediate
action to that end.**

Resolved, That Congress declare forfeited all right
of way permits not exercised promptly upon issuance,
and secure to all industries engaged in lawful busi-
ness, and’ which will exercise promptly their permits,
the possession of necessary rights of way, in the same
manner that railroads and irrigating companies are
secured in their rights of way, and that the various
right-of-way acts on forest reserves and other public
lands be so amended as to provide for reasonable pay-
ment for the use of these valuable rights.

Resolved, That this Congress urges upon all schools,
and especially the rural schools, the necessity for a
study of forests and tree-planting in their effect upon
the general well-being of the nation, and in particular
upon the wealth and happiness of communities through
the modification of local climate; and that we urge all
state legislatures to provide laws and financial aid to
consolidate the rural schools in units sufficiently large
that forestry, agriculture, and home economics may be
successfully taught by precept, example, and practical
work.

*kPassed by Congress and signed by President Roosevelt
February I, 1905.

450 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Resolved, That this Congress recommends the in-
crease of opportunities for general forest education
in schools and colleges, and for professional training
in post-graduate schools; and approves the movement
to extend and systematize industrial education in the
interest of a more general distribution of the popula-
tion on the land.

Resolved, That the Congress of the United States
be asked to appropriate adequate sums for the promo-
tion of forest education and forest experiment work in
the agricultural colleges and experiment stations of
the United States; Provided, however, such appropri-
ations be made directly to state forestry departments,
bureaus, or commissions, where existing, to be used
in their respective states as may seem best for forestry
educational purposes.

Resolved, That this Congress approves and reaf-
firms the resolutions of various scientific and commer-
cial bodies during the past few years in favor of the es-
tablishment of national forest reserves in the South-
ern Appalachian Mountains and in the White Moun-
tains of New Hampshire, and that we earnestly urge
the immediate passage of bills for these purposes which
are now pending in both houses of Congress.

Resolved, That we protest against the attempt to re-
duce the area of the Minnesota National Forest Re-
serve and against any step which would enhance the
difficulty of the perpetuation of the forests upon it.

Resolved, That we heartily endorse the movement
for the purchase of the Calaveras Grove of Big Trees
by the National Government and earnestly recom-
mend the prompt enactment of legislation to that end;
and, further, we recommend the reconveying by the
State of California to the National Government of the
Yosemite Park in order that this may be adequately

AMERICAN Forrest CONGRESS ASI

protected and placed upon the same basis as other
national parks.

Resolved, That this Congress urges tree-planting and
the preservation of shade trees along public highways
throughout America.

Resolved, That we approve the suggestion that a
tree be planted at Mount Vernon to commemorate
the American Forest Congress, and that funds for this
purpose be collected through Forestry and Irrigation.

Resolved, That as Oklahoma would immeasurably
profit by increased land valuation resulting from great-
er crop capacity as the outgrowth of wind reduction;
therefore, the territory should be empowered to offer
school land occupants a reasonable realty tax reduction
during a stipulated growing period of tree wind-
breaks ; Provided, that the department of government
under Shit the nation’s forestry interests are managed
shall outline, control, and perfect, in all particulars, ides
termining how and to which lands the provisions shall
apply, except that purchasers at the time of sale have
option as to acceptance of these terms.

Resolved, That it is the sense of this Congress that
the National Homestead Law should be ead so
as to require the planting of at least 5 per cent of the
area of a homestead before final title be acquired, and
that the tree planting be under the supervision of the
Bureau of Forestry.

LIST OF DELEGATES

Adams, J. B., Washington, D. C.; representing Bureau
of Forestry.

Adams, Miss B. E., Washington, D. C.; General Land
Office.

Agar, John G., New York City; Society for Protection
of the Adirondacks.

Agnew, Mrs. Kate L., Valparaiso, Ind.; State of
Indiana.

Ahern, Capt. Geo. P., Manila; Forestry Bureau of
Philippines.

Aitken, Geo., Woodstock, Vt.; Vermont Forestry
Association.

Akerman, A. K., State Forester, Boston, Mass.;
Massachusetts Forestry Association.

Allen, E. T., Forest Inspector, Bureau of Forestry,
Washington, D. C.

Allen, E. W., Office of Ex. Stations, Department of
Agriculture, Washington, D. C.

Anderson, A. A., New York City; Forest Reserve
Service and New York Chamber of Commerce.

Anderson, J. W., General Land Office, Washington,
Din.

Andrews, Byron, Washington, D. C.; American
Forestry Association from South Dakota.

Atkinson, A. L. C., Honolulu, Hawaii.

Ayres, Philip W., Forester, Society for Protection of
New Hampshire Forests, Concord, N. H.

Baily, Joshua L., Philadelphia, Pa.; American Forestry

Association from Pennsylvania.

Baird, Dan W., Nashville, Tenn.; Editor Southern

Lumberman.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 453

Baker, J. F., Bureau of Forestry, Washington, D. C.;
Saline Valley Telephone Company.

Ball, C. R., Washington, D. C.; Iowa Park and
Forestry Association.

Barber, J. T., Eau Claire, Wis.; Mississippi Valley
Lumberman’s Association and Northwestern Hem-
lock Manufacturers’ Association.

Barnard, E. C., U. S. Geological Survey, Washington,
eC,

Barms, W. E., St: Louis,’ Mo.: Editor St Louts
Lumberman.

Bartlett, J. H., Middleboro, Ky.; State of Kentucky.

Becker, G. F., U. S. Geological Survey, Washington,
DC.

Beecher, F. R., Retail Lumber Dealers’ Association,
Canadaigua, N. Y.

Bell, Dr. Robt., Agricultural Department, Ottawa,
Ontario, Canada; Canadian Forestry Association.
Bentz, Hon. P. J., Woonsocket, S. D.; State of South

Dakota.

Berg, Walter G., Philadelphia, Pa.; Lehigh Valley
Railroad system.

Berthrong, I. P., Washington, D. C.; General Land
Office.

Bidwell, Geo. F. Chicago, Ill.; Chicago and North-
western Railway Company.

Bein, Morris, U. 5. Geological Survey, Washington,
2 oe

Binford, L. M., Saco, Maine; National Association of
Box and Box Shook Manufacturers of the United
States.

Bitler, F. L., Philadelphia, Pa.; Pennsylvania Forestry
Association.

Blades, J. B., Elizabeth City, N. C.; National Whole-
sale Lumber Dealers’ Association and North Caro-
lina Forestry Association.

454 : PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Blanchard, C. J., U. S. Geological Survey, Washing-
tony ee;

Bliss, Geo. Hi Spokane, Wash.; Reclamation Service.

Blodgett, James H., Washington, D. C.; American
Forestry Association.

Bogue, Prof. E. E., Michigan Agricultural College,
Agricultural College P. O., Michigan.

Bond, Frank, General Land Office, Washington, D. C.

Borst, Theo. F., Clinton, Mass.; American Forestry
Association from Massachusetts.

Brooks, Hon. F. E., Colorado Springs, Colo.; State
of Colorado.

Bowers, Edward A., New Haven, Conn.; Connecticut
Forestry Association and American Forestry As-
sociation.

Brooks, A. H., U. S. Geological Survey, Washington,
Dee:

Bruce, E. S., Bureau of Forestry, Washington, D. C.

Bruce, Grant, Bureau of Forestry, Washington, D. C.;
American Forestry Association.

Bulllock, Capt. Seth, Deadwood, S. D.; South Dakota
Forest Reserve Service.

Bunker, Wm. M., Washington, D. C.; Chamber of
Commerce of San Francisco.

Burkholder, $., Crawfordsville, Ind.; National Whole-
sale Lumber Dealers’ Association.

Burton, P. G., Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone
Company, Washington, D. C.

Campbell, R. H., Secretary Canadian Forestry Asso-
ciation, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. |
Candland, W.: D., Mt. Pleasant, Utah; Utah Weel

Growers’ Association.

Cary, Austin, Brunswick, Me.; American Forestry
Association from Maine.

Chapman, C. S., Bureau of Forestry, Washington,
EA:

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 455

Chapman, Herman H., Bureau of Forestry, Washing-
ton, D. C.; American Forestry Association.

Charlton, R. H., Denver, Colo.; Forest Reserve Ser-
vice.

Chittenden, A. K., Bureau of Forestry, Washington,
PC.

Chown, C. Y., Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario,
Canada.

Churchill, C. S., Roanoke, Va.; Norfolk and Western
Railway.

Clark, C. C., Washington, D. C.; Department of Agri-
culture.

Clark, Hon. Clarence D., U. S. Senate, Washington,
D. C.; State of Wyoming. —

Clark, Dr. J. F., Department of the Interior, Ontario,
Canada; Ontario Bureau of Forestry.

Clark, Dr. Wm. B., State Geologist, Baltimore, Md.;
State Geological and Economic Society.

Clarke, S. A., General Land Office, Washington, D.
C.; State of Oregon.

Clement, G. E., Bureau of Forestry, Washington, D.
C.; American Forestry Association.

Cleveland, J. F., Chicago, Ill.; Chicago and North-
western Railway.

Clothier, Geo. L., Bureau of Forestry, Washington,
Bes;

Cochran, Geo. G., New York City; Erie Railroad
Company.

Cone, Albert B., Chicago, Ill.; American Lumberman.

Conklin, Robt. S., Harrisburg, Pa.; Pennsylvania For-
estry Association and Forestry Commission.

Cooke, Chas. B., Richmond, Va.; State of Virginia.

Cooper, Thomas, St. Paul, Minn.; Northern Pacific
Railway Company.

Cosgriffe, T. A., Cheyenne, Wyo.; Northern Pacific
Railroad.

456 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Coville, F. V., Washington, D. C.; American Forestry
Association.

Cox, Wm. T., St. Anthony Park, Minn.; Minnesota
State Forestry Association.

Craft, Q. R., Washington, D. C.; American Forestry
Association from Kansas.

Craig, A. R., Mesa, Colo.; Forest Reserve Service.

Crawford, C. G., Washington, D. C.; American For-
estry Association.

Crenshaw, R. C., Frankfort, Ky.; State of Kentucky.

Curtin, Gen. G. W., Sutton, W. Va.; State of West
Virginia.

Craig, D. A., Washington, D. C.; Washington Evening
Star.

Crenshaw, A. P., Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone
Company, Washington, D. C.

Croft, A. J., Enosburg, Vt.; Vermont Maple Sugar
Makers’ Association.

Cutler, J. H., Raleigh, N. C.; State of North Carolina.

Davant, T. S., Roanoke, Va.; Norfolk and Western
Railway Company.

Davis, L. G., Saratoga, Wyo.; Wyoming Forest Re-
serve Sv.vice.

Daw, N. L., Roanoke, Va.; Norfolk and Western
Railway Company.

Daish, John B., Washington, D. C.; National Hay
Association.

Davis, A. P., U. S. Geological Survey, Washington,
Gs

Deale, J. T., Chairman North Carolina Pine Associa-
tion, Norfolk, Va.

Deering, Hon. Frank C. Bedford, Me.; State of Maine.

Defebaugh, J. E., Chicago, IIll.; Editor American
Lumberman.

Dezendorf, Mr., General Land Office, Washington,
DAC.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 457

Dickinson, L. F., Greenfield, Mass. ; National Associa-
tion of Box and Box Shook Manufacturers of the
United States.

Dill, Lewis, Baltimore, Md.; National Wholesale Lum-
ber Dealers’ Association.

Dixon, Hon. J. M., Washington, D. C.; Montana
Stock Growers’ Association.

Dock, Miss Mira L., State Forestry Commission, Har-
risburg, Pa.

Donnelly, J. W., General Land Office, Washington,
iy a

DuBois, C. L., General Land Office, Washington,
eC,

Durgin, Jno. C., Sandy Hill, N. Y.; Forest, Water
Storage and Manufacturing Association.

Drummond, A. T., Toronto, Canada; American For-
estry Association.

Eaton, Hon. Geo. H., Calais, Me.; State of Maine.

Eberlein, Chas. W., Southern Pacific Railway.

Eddy, J. R., Washington, D. C.; National Geological
Park.

Edmands, J. Rayner, Boston, Mass.; Massachusetts
Forestry Association.

Elliott, Howard T., St. Paul, Minn.; President North-
ern Pacific Railway Company.

Elliott, S. B., State Forestry Commission, Harrisburg,
Pa.

Emerson, Col. Geo. H., Hoquiam, Wash. ; Pacific Coast
Lumbermen.

England, Charles, Washington, D. C.; National Hay
Association.

Faull, J. H., University of Toronto, Canada.

Fellows, A. L., U. S. Geological Survey, Washington,
iC.

Fenn, Maj. F. A., Kalispell, Mont.; Montana Forest
Reserve Service.

458 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Fernow, Dr. Bernhard E., Ithaca, N. Y.; American
Forestry Association from New York and Society
for Protection of the Adirondacks.

Fimple, J. H., General Land Office, Washington, D. C.

Fischer, Fred C., Tryon, N. C.; National Lumber
Manufacturers’ Association.

Fisher, Prof. Richard T., Harvard University, Cam-
bridge, Mass.

Fisher, Wm. H., Cincinnati, Ohio; State of Ohio.

Fitch, C. H., U. S. Geological Survey, Washington,
Ban OS

Fletcher, Dr. Jas., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada ; Canadian
Forestry Association.

Foley, John, Bureau of Forestry, Washington, D. C. —

Foster, H. D., Washington, D. C.; American Forestry
Association.

Foster, N. C., Wisconsin Hardwood Lumbermen’s As-
sociation, Fairchild, Wis.

Fowler, Hon. B. A., Phoenix, Ariz.; Territory of
Arizona.

Fox, Col. Wm. F., Superintendent of State Forests,
Albany, N. Y.; Association for Protection of Adi-
rondacks.

Franklin, Blake, General Land Office, Washington,
De.

Freeman, Miss Harriet E., Boston, Mass., American
Forestry Association from Massachusetts and Mass-
achusetts Forestry Association.

Freeman, Hon. Wm. F., State Forester, Indianapolis,
Ind.; Indiana State Board of Forestry.

Fulton, John, State Forestry Commission, Harrisburg,
Fa.

Gannett, Dr. Henry, U. S. Geological Survey, Wash-
ington, D. C.; Sierra Club.

Gannett, Miss Mary C., Bureau of Forestry, Wash-
ington, D. C.; American Forestry Association.

AMERICAN ForREST CONGRESS 459

Gardner, W. A., Chicago, Ill.; Chicago & Northwest-
ern Railway.

Gardner, Wesley J., Bureau of Forestry, Washington,
| 8 a

Garrett, Robt., Baltimore, Md.; Delegate-at-large from
Maryland.

Garver, L. J., General Land Office, Washington, D. C.

Gaskill, Alfred, Bureau of Forestry, Washington, D. C.

Gennett, Andrew, South Carolina; State of South Car-
olina.

Gibson, Edgar, Clyde Park, Mont.; State of Montana.

Gilbert, Dr. G. K., Sierra Club, San Francisco, Cal.

Gilfry, H.. H., Washington, D. C.; State of Oregon.

Gillenwaters, EF. P., Glascow, Ky.; State of Kentucky.

Girtanner, Jules, Linden, N. J.; American Forestry
Association.

Goddard, Hon. Albert J., Tacoma, Wash.; Tacoma
Chamber of Commerce.

Gosney, E. S., President Arizona Wool Growers’ As-
sociation, Flagstaff, Ariz.

Green, Dr. Samuel B., St. Anthony Park, Minn.; State
of Minnesota and Minnesota State Forestry Asso-
ciation.

Green, Prof. W. J., Agricultural Experiment Station,
Wooster, Ohio; State of Ohio.

Grier, T. J., Superintendent Homestake Mining Com-
pany, Lead, S. D.

Griffith, E. M., Madison, Wis.; State Forest Service.

Grimes, E. P., Maine; State of Maine.

Grinnell, Henry, Bureau of Forestry, Washington, D.
Oe

Griswold, W. T., U. S. Geological Survey, Washing-
ton: D. C:

Grosvenor, Gilbert H., Washington, D. C.; American
Forestry Association.

460 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Grunsky, C. E., Washington, D. C.; State of Cali-

_ fornia.

Gwinn, J. H., Pendleton, Ore.; Oregon Wool Grow-
ers’ Association.

Haas, L. G., Baltimore, Md.; Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad.

Hagenbarth, F. J., National Live Stock Association
Denver, Colo. ,

Haines, A. S., Westtown, Pa.; Pennsylvania Forestry
Association.

Hale, Dr. Edward Everett, Washington, D. C.; State
of Massachusetts, Massachusetts Forestry Associa-
tion, Appalachian Mountain Club.

Hall, Edward Hagaman, New York city; Association
for Protection of the Adirondacks. |

Hall, Geo. F., Chicago, Ill.; Chicago-Texas L. and
Co:

Hall, James B., Clay City, Ky.; Beer Stock Manufac-
turers’ Association.

Hall, Wm. L., Bureau of Forestry, Washington, D. C.;
Hawaii Forestry Service.

Hansen, Prof. N. E., Agricultural College, Brookings,
S. D.; State of South Dakota.

Happy, H. W., General Land Office, Washington, D.
Ce

Harrison, W. F., Norfolk, Va.; North Carolina Pine
Association.

Harvey, Wm. S., Phildelphia, Pa.; Pennsylvania
Forestry Association.

Hawes, Austin F., State Forester, New Haven, Conn.

Hawley, R. C., Amherst, Mass.; American Forestry
Association from Massachusetts.

Hayes, C. W., U. S. Geological Survey, Washington,
18 Ses Oe

Hayes, R. P., Asheville, N. C.; State of North Caro-
lina.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 461

Henry, Alfred J., Washington, D. C.; American For-
estry Association.

Henry, H. D., Athens, Ohio; Union Association of
Lumber Dealers.

Herndon, T. H., General Land Office, Washington,
DC,

Hightower, Clement, Capitan, N. M.; Territory of
New Mexico.

Higgins, S. M., Forester, Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Com-
pany, Negaunee, Mich.

Hinshaw, G. W., President Stone Mountain Railway
Company, Winston, N. C.

Hobbs, Jno, E., North Brunswick, Me.; American
Forestry Association.

Hodge, Wm. C., Jr., Bureau of Forestry, Washington,
Oe Ore

Hodson, E. R., Washington, D. C.; Iowa Park and
Forestry Association.

Holcombe, E. P., General Land Office, Washington,
Be.C,

Holdredge, G. W., Chicago, Ill.; Chicago, Burlington
and Quincy Railway Company.

Holmes, J.; State of Connecticut.

Holt, W. A., Oconto, Wis.; Northwestern Hemlock
Manufacturers’ Association.

Holter, Norman, Helena, Mont.; State of Montana.

Hoover, T. L., Carlisle, Pa.; Pennsylvania Forestry
Association.

Hopkins, Dr. A. D., Washington, D. C.; American
Forestry Association.

Hotchkiss, Geo. W., Chicago, Ill.; Lumber Secretaries’
Bureau of Information.

Hoyt, Colgate, New York city; Missouri, Kansas and
Texas Railway system.

Hutcheson, David, Congressional Library, Washing-
pone. 1D...

462 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Hutchinson, James, Randolph, Vt.; Delegate-at-large.

Imes, R. P., Washington, D. C., American Forestry
Association.

Irvin, Hon. Edw. A., Curwensville, Pa.; State of Penn-
sylvania.

Irvine, Wm., Chippewa Falls, Wis.; Mississippi Val-
ley Lumber Association.

Ivy, Thos. P., Conway, N. H.; State of New Hamp-
shire.

Jackson, Luis, New York city; Erie Railroad Com-
pany.

Jastro, H. A., Bakersfield, Cal.; Kern County Cattle
Growers’ Association.

Jenks, Robt., Cleveland, Ohio; Lumbering.

Jensen, A. W., Ephraim, Utah; Forest Reserve Service.

Johnson, L. E., Roanoke, Va., President Norfolk and
Western Railway Company.

Jones, Hunt, Louisville, Ky.; State of Kentucky.

Jones, H. H., Washington, D. C.; General Land Office.

Jones, William, Tacoma, Wash.; Chamber of Com-
merce:

Justus, T. W., Baltimore, Md.; Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad.

Kalanianaole, Hon. Jonah K., Honolulu, Hawaii;
Territory of Hawaii.

Kaul, Jno. L., Birmingham, Ala.; Southern Lumber
Manufacturers’ Association.

Keen, Miss Florence, Philadelphia, Pa.; American
Forestry Association.

Keller, O. B., New York city; American Forestry As-
sociation from New York.

Kellogg, J. C., Louisiana; State of Louisiana.

Kellogg, R. S., Fay, Kan.; State of Kansas.

Kelsey, Frederick W., Orange, N. J.; American For-
estry Association.

AMERICAN Forrest CONGRESS 463

Killen, Wm. H., Milwaukee, Wis.; Wisconsin Cen-
tral Railway Company.

Kinney, David G., Washington, D. C.; Bureau of For-
estry.

Kittredge, G. W., Cincinnati, Ohio; Cleveland, Cin-
cinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway Company.
Kneeper, David, Harrisburg, Pa.; Pennsylvania State

Forestry Service.

Koch, Elers, Washington, D. C.; American Forestry
Association.

Lamb, Hon John, Richniond, Va.; State of Virginia.

Langille, H. D., Santa Barbara, Cal.; Forest Re-
serve Service.

Langworthy, C. F., Washington, D. C.; American
Forestry Association.

Lazenby, Wm. R., Columbus, Ohio; Ohio State For-
estry Society.

Leland, J. D., Washington, D. C.; General Land Office.

Lewis, W. H., Washington, D. C.; General Land Of-
fice.

Lippincott, J. B., Washington, D. C.; U. S. Geologi-
cal Survey.

Little, Wm. T., Perry, Okla.; American Forestry As-
sociation oe Oklahoma.

Loring, Hon. C. M., Minneapolis, Minn.; Minnesota
Forestry Association.

Luebkert, Otto, Washington, D. C.; American For-
estry Association.

McAllaster, Birdsall, Omaha, Neb.; Union Pacific
Railway Company.

MacNaughton, James, New York city; American So-
ciety oF Civic Engineers, New York Board of Trade
and Transportation, and Association for Protection
of the Adirondacks.

McBee, Silas, New York city ; Delegate-at-large.

404 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

McCann, John A., Philadelphia, Pa.; Editor National
Coopers’ Journal.

McClure, R. C., Silver City, N. M.; Forest Reserve
Service.

McCoy, Wilbur, New York city; Atlantic Coast Line
Railroad Company.

McKeithan, D. T., South Carolina; State of South
Carolina.

McKinney, J. M., Washington, D. C.; General Land
Office.

McLeod, N. W., St. Louis, Mo.; Southern Lumber
Manufacturers’ Association.

Macbride, Thos. H., Iowa City, Iowa.; State of Iowa.

McNeeley, E. J., Tacoma, Wash.; State of Washing-
ton.

McPhaul, John, Washington, D. C.; General Land
Office.

McVean, M. J., Washington, D. C.; General Land
Office.

Macey, J. T., Washington, D. C.; General Land Office.

Maffet, Miss Martha A., Wilkesbarre, Pa.; American
Forestry Association.

Maher, N. D., Roanoke, Va.; Norfolk and Western
Railway.

Manderson, Gen. Chas. F., Chicago, Ill.; Chicago,
Burlington and Quincy Railway Company.

Macoun, Prof. J. M., Canadian Geological Survey,
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Manning, W. H., Boston, Mass.; American Forestry
Association.

Marr, S. S., General Land Office, Washington, D. C.

Marston, Roy L., Yale Forest School, New Haven,
Conn.

Mason, S. C., Berea, Ky.; State of Kentucky.

Mast, Wm. H., Halsey, Neb.; State of Nebraska.

AMERICAN Forest ConcREssS 465

Mather, William G., Cleveland, Ohio; Cleveland
Chamber of Commerce.

Mathewson, Dr. Arthur, Woodstock, Conn. ; Connecti-
cut Forestry Association.

Mattoon, W. R., Washington, D. C.; American For-
estry Association.

Maxwell, Geo. H., Chicago, Ill.; National Irrigation
Association and State of California.

Mead, Elwood, Washington, D. C.; Department of
Agriculture.

Meekham, H. S., Washington, D. C.; American For-
estry Association.

Merriam, Dr. C. Hart, Geological Survey, Washington,
D. C.; Sierra Club and American Forestry Associa-
tion.

Merrill, H.-G., American Forestry Association.

Merry, Capt. J. F., Dubuque, Iowa; Illinois Central
Railroad Company.

Methudy, L., St. Louis, Mo.; National Lumber Ex-
porters’ Association.

Miller, Prof. Frank G., Lincoln, Neb.; University of
Nebraska.

Miller, L. C., Washington, D. C.; Bureau of Forestry.

Miller, W. H., Madison, Ind.; Retail Lumber Dealers’
Association.

Mitchell, Guy E., Washington, D. C.; American For-
estry Association.

Moore, M. C., Milwaukee, Wis.; Editor Packages.

Mosle, M. A.; Delegate-at-large.

Mulford, Walter, New Haven, Conn.; State of Con-
necticut.

Murphy, J. T., Washington, D. C.; General Land Of-
fice.

Nelson, John M., Jr., Rider, Md.; State of Maryland.

Newhall, D. S., Philadelphia, Pa.; Pennsylvania Rail-
way Company.

406 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Newell, F. H., U. S. Geological Survey, Washington,
ESE:

Norris, Jos. L., Leesburg, Va.; State of Virginia

Oak, Hon. Chas. E., Bangor, Me.; State of Maine.

Olmsted, F. E., Washington, D. C.; Bureau of For-
estry.

Pack, Charles L., Lakewood, N. J.; Cleveland Cham-
ber of Commerce.

Palmer, T. S., Washington, D. C.; American Forestry
Association.

Pammel, Prof. L. Hi, Secretary Iowa Park and For-
estry Association, Ames, Iowa.

Parsons, Mrs. Henry, New York city; American For-
estry Association.

Peavy, Geo. W., Washington, D. C.; American For-
estry Association.

Penrose, Dr..Chas. B., Philadelphia, Pa.; Statemen
Pennsylvania.

Perry, E. F., New York city; National Wholesale
Lumber Dealers’ Association.

Peters, J. Girvin, Washington, D. C.; American For-
estry Association,

Peyton, Miss J. $., General Land Office, Washington,
10,

Philbrick, S. W., Skowhegan, Me.; State of Maine.

Pinchot, Gifford, Bureau of Forestry, Washington, D.
C.; Bureau of Forestry, American Forestry Asso-
ciation, Sierra Club, Society American Foresters,
Society American Civil Engineers.

Pinchot, James W., New York city; New York Cham-
ber of Commerce.

Pollock, G. F., General Land Office, Washington, D. C.

Pope, J. W., Atlanta, Ga.; State of Georgia:

Potter, A. F., Bureau of Forestry, Washington, D. C.

Potter, H. G., General Land Office, Washington, D. C.

AMERICAN Forest CONGRESS 467

Price, Overton W., Bureau of Forestry, Washington,
Del.

Purington, Pres. D. B., State University, Morgan-
town, W. Va.; State of West Virginia.

Putnam, H., C., Eau Claire, Wis. ; Lumbering.

Rane, Prof. F. Wm., Durham, N. H.; New Hamp-
shire College, Boston and Maine Railroad, State of
New Hampshire.

Reed, Franklin W., Washington, D. C.; Society Amer-
ican Foresters.

Richards, J. T., Philadelphia, Pa.; Pennsylvania Rail-
way Company.

Rinewalt, John M., Mt. Carroll, Ill.; Delegate-at-
large from Illinios.

Ring, Hon. Edgar E., Forest Commissioner, Augusta,
Me.

Ross, D. M., Boise, Idaho; U. S. Geological Survey.

Ross, Norman M., Ottawa, Canada; Dominion For-
est Service.

Roth, Prof. Filibert, Ann Arbor, Mich. ; State of Michi-
gan, University of Michigan.

Rothrock, J. T., Secretary State Forestry Reservation
Commission, Harrisburg, Pa.

Russell, I. C., Washington, D. C.; National Geographic
Society.

Russell, Jas. S.; Boston, Mass.; Massachusetts For-
estry Association.

Russell, F. B., Beer Stock Manufacturers’ Association,
Louisville, Ky.

Satterlee, J. B., General Land Office, Washington,
Ee.

savage, H. N., U. S. Geological Survey, Washington,
| ed

Scaife, Marvin F., Pittsburg, Pa.; Pennsylvania State
Forestry Association.

468 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Schaperkotter, Jas. F., Philadelphia, Pa.; Lehigh Val-
ley Railroad system.

Schenck, Dr. C. A., Biltmore, N. C.; Biltmore For-
estry School.

Schwarz, G. Fred, New York city; American Fores-
try Association from New York city.

Scott, Chas. A., Halsey, Neb.; State of Nebraska.

Sebastian, Jon., Chicago, Ill.; Rock Island Railway
system,

See, Mrs. Horace, New York city; American Forestry
Association.

Seeley, J. B., Virginia City, Mont.; Forest Reserve
Service.

Shaw, A. C., General Land Office, Washington, D. C.

Shaw, Eugene, Wisconsin Hardwood Lumbermen’s
Association, Eau Claire, Wis.; Mississippi Valley
Lumber Association.

Sheller, D. B., Tacoma, Wash.; Washington Forest
Reserve Service.

Sherfesse, W. F., Charleston, S. C.; State of South
Carolina.

_ Shepardson, H. L., Baldwinville, Mass.; National As-
sociation of Box and Box Shook Manufacturers of
United States.

Sherman, W. F., General Land Office, Washington,
ag Ge

Sherrard, Thos. H., Bureau of Forestry, Washington,
De Sal

Shields, G. O., Editor and Manager Recreation;
League of American Sportsmen, Delegate-at-large.

Shoemaker, Samuel M., Stevenson, Md.; State of
Maryland.

Silcox, F. E., Charleston, S. C.; State of South Caro-
lina.

Silvester, Pres. R. W., Maryland Agricultural College,

AMERICAN ForEST CONGRESS 469

College Park, Md.; American Forestry Association
from Maryland.

Smith, G. O., U. S. Geological Survey, Washington,
poe.

Smith, H. A., Bureau of Forestry, Washington, D. C.

Smith, Geo. K., Secretary Southern Lumber Manu-
facturers’ Association, St. Louis, Mo.; Southern
Lumber Manufacturers’ Association, National Lum-
ber Manufacturers’ Association, Western Pine Ship-
pers’ Association.

Snyder, J. M., Bay City, Mich.; American Forestry
Association.

Spring, Preston B., Easton, Md.; State of Maryland.

Spring, Prof. Samuel N., Orono, Me.; University of
Maine. |

Start, Edwin A., Boston, Mass.; Massachusetts For-
estry Association.

Steele, Henry M., Macon, Ga.; Central Georgia Rail-
way Company.

Sterling, E. A., Bureau of Forestry, Washington, D. C.

Sheller, R. H., Tacoma, Wash.; Forest Reserve Ser-
vice.

Stewart, Elihu, Forestry Branch, Department of In-
terior, Ottawa, Ontario; Canadian Forestry Asso-
ciation.

Stewart, Frank, Prescott, Ariz.; Territory of Arizona.

Strong, C. B., General Land Office, Washington, D. C.

Stout, J. H., Menomonee, Wis.; State of Wisconsin.

Strong, Miss L. M., General Land Office, Washington,
BEX.

Sudworth, Geo. B., Bureau of Forestry, Washington,
BAC,

Suter, H. M., Washington, D. C.; Editor Forestry
and Irrigation.

Tennilie, A. F., Washington, D. C.; The American

Lumberman.
Pp

470 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Thayer, Hon. Samuel R., Minneapolis, Minn.; Minne-
sota State Forestry Association.

Thomas, E. B., Los Angeles, Cal.; Forest Reserve
Service.

Tompkins, H. J., Washington, D. C.; Bureau of Fores-
try.

Totten, Mrs. S. G., Washington, D. C.; General Land
Office.

Toumey, Prof. J. W., New Haven, Conn.; Yale Forest
School.

Tower, G. E., Washington, D. C.; American Forestry
Association.

Tremaine, Morris, Buffalo, N. Y.; National Whole-
sale Lumber Dealers’ Association.

Underwood, Geo. F., New York city; Water Storage
and Manufacturing Association.

Von Schrenk, Dr. Hermann, Washington, D. C.; Bu-
reau of Forestry.

Van Aiken, C. M., New York city; National Slack
Cooperage Association.

Vreeland, Robert, Frankfort, Ky.; State of Kentucky.

Wadsworth, W. A., Genesee, N. Y.; State of New
York.

Waite, Mrs. C. V., Roggen, Colo.; State of Colorado.

Walcott, Dr. Chas. D., Washington, D. C.; U. S. Geo-
logical Survey.

Walker, F. B., Washington, D. C.; General Land Of-
fice.

Walsh, Thos. F., Washington, D. C.; Denver Chamber
of Commerce.

Wantland, C. E., Denver, Colo.; State of Colorado.

Ware, Miss Mary Lee, Boston, Mass.; Massachusetts
Forestry Association.

Webster, Jr., N. E., Washington, D. C.; U. S. Recla-

mation Service.

AMERICAN FOREST CONGRESS 471

Weed, W. H., Washington, D. C.; U. S. Geological
Survey.

Wells, Geo. T., Drifton, Pa.; American Forestry As-
sociation from Pennsylvania.

Weyerhaeuser, Jr., Fred E., St. Paul, Minn.; Weyer-
haeuser Lumber Company and Mississippi Valley
Lumberman’s Association.

Wheeler, Mrs. C. H., Boston, Mass.; American Fores-
try Association. |

White, J. B., Kansas City, Mo.; Southern Lumber
Manufacturers’ Association.

White, J. W., Portsmouth, Va.; Seaboard Air Line
Railway.

Whittlesey, Geo. P., Washington, D. C.; American
Forestry Association.

White, Aubrey, Toronto, Canada; Canada.

White, H. D., Enid, Okla.; Territory of Oklahoma.

White, W. H., Warren City, Mich.; Hardwood Manu-
facturers’ Association.

White, T. Brook, Portland, Ore.; State of Oregon.

Wiggins, Vice-Chancellor B. L., Sewanee, Tenn. ; Uni-
versity of the South.

Williams, A. S., Berlin, N. H.; Berlin Mills Company.

Williams, F. B., Patterson, La.; National Lumber
Manufacturers’ Association.

Williams, Irvin C., Harrisburg, Pa.; Forestry Academy
and Pennsylvania Forestry Association.

Williams, Mrs. L. P., Minneapolis, Minn.; State of
Minnesota.

Williams, Hon. M. M., Little Falls, Minn.; State of
Minnesota.

Wilms, William, Chicago, Ill.; Hardwood Manufac-
turers’ Association.

Wilson, H. M., Washington, D. C.; U. S. Geological
Survey and American Society of Civil Engineers.

472 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

Winchester, A. H., New Orleans, La.; Lumber Trade
Journal.

Winchester, Col. A. H., Buckhannon, W. Va.; State of
West Virginia.

Wirt, Geo. H., Harrisburg, Pa.; Forestry Academy
and Pennsylvania Forestry Association.

Witten, J. W., Washington, D. C.; General Land
Office.

Wood, Richard, Philadelphia, Pa.; Pennsylvania
Forestry Association.

Woodruff, Geo. W., Washington, D. C.; Bureau of
Forestry.

Worden, F. E., Oshkosh, Wis.; Northwestern Hem-
lock Manufacturers’ Association.

Ziegler, EF. A., Washington, D. C., Saline Valley Tele-
prone Company.

THE AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIA-
TION
President, HON. JAMES WILSON

Secretary of Agriculture

The American Forestry Association was organized
in 1882, and incorporated in January, 1897. It now has
nearly three thousand members, residents of every
State in the Union, Canada, and foreign countries.
It has at all times been active in promoting measures
tending toward the proper utilization of the forests
and their protection from destruction by fires and
wasteful use.

The objects of this Association are to promote:

1. A business-like and conservative use and treat-
ment of the forest resources of this country ;

2. The advancement of legislation tending to this
end, both in the States and the Congress of the
United States, the inauguration of forest admin-
istration by the Federal Government and by the
States ; and the extension of sound forestry by all
proper methods ;

3. The diffusion of knowledge regarding the conser-
vation, management, and renewal of forests, the
proper utilization of their products, methods of
reforestation of waste lands, and the planting of
trees.

The Association desires and needs as members all
who are interested in promoting the objects for which
it is organized—all who realize the importance of us-
ing the national resources of the country in such a man-

474 PROCEEDINGS OF THE

ner as not to exhaust them, or to work ruin to other
interests. In particular it appeals to owners of wood-
lands, to lumbermen and foresters, as well as to engi-
neers, professional, and business men who have to do
with wood and its manifold uses, and to persons con-
cerned in the conservation of water supplies for irri-
gation or other purposes.

The American Forestry Association holds annual aird
special meetings at different places in the country for
the discussion and exchange of ideas, and to stimulate
interest in its objects. Forestry and Irrigation, the
magazine of authority in its special field, is the official
organ of the Association, and is sent free to every
member monthly. Its list of contributors includes prac-
tically all persons prominent in forest work in the
United States, making it alone worth the cost of
annual membership in the Association.

The annual dues are, for regular members, $2.00,
for sustaining members, $25.00; life membership is
$100, with no further dues. Any person contributing
$1,000 to the funds of the Association shall be a
Patron.

H. M. Suter, Secretary.
Address: P. O. Box 356, Washington, D. C.

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