82 BOTANICAL SURVEY OF THE C(EUR D'ALENE MOUNTAINS. 



and files. Monthly reports setting forth the particulars, with copy of 

 each license issued, should he made to the general commissioner of 

 forestry, who would thereby be enabled to judge as to the actual 

 amount of timber removed from each district monthly. 



Let us examine in detail the different classes and purposes to whom 

 and for which licenses should issue, beginning with the prospector for 

 mineral deposits. This class of timber depredators is by far the most 

 difficult to control. They are very numerous, and each summer they 

 scatter over a great area of country, very often the most difficult of 

 access, where it is impossible to subject them to direct supervision 

 even were the forest areas patrolled. 



To tit their case the mining laws should be so amended as to require 

 each one of them to secure a yearly license before being allowed to 

 prospect for mineral lodes upon any part of the public domain. These 

 licenses should hold good in any locality for the time issued (one year), 

 but before any prospector could legally enter within the boundaries of 

 a district different from the one in which his original license was issued 

 for the purposes of discovering mineral deposits he should be required 

 to have his license duly indorsed by the commissioner for that district. 

 There should be as an aid a law framed defining the act of tiring the 

 public forest domain as a crime, and fixing punishments both by fine 

 and imprisonment, with a reward for the detection of the criminal. 

 Copies of this law should be supplied to every prospector applying for 

 a license. The system of licensing the prospectors would result in 

 keeping an accurate tally of all persons in a district employed in this 

 work. E am of the opinion that the knowledge of this fact, together 

 with the certainty of severe punishment if detected, would very mate- 

 rially reduce the number of forest fires due to this cause if it did not 

 entirely prevent them. 



Wood choppers, tie choppers, charcoal burners, sawmill and logging 

 concerns should be required to obtain yearly licenses upon their appli- 

 cations, setting forth where they intend to operate, for what pur- 

 poses, and the estimated value of the yearly product. If this exceeded 

 a certain sum, say $1,000, the application should be referred to the gen- 

 eral forestry commissioner, with the facts of the case as indorsed by 

 the district commissioner. If the yearly output was less than §1,000 

 in value, the authority of the district commissioner to issue the license 

 should be sufficient. A stumpage should be charged in connection 

 with the removal of any portion of the timber for purposes of profit. 

 Each of these licensed occupations should be required to file monthly 

 or quarterly with the district commissioner sworn statements as to the 

 quantity of timber taken, and upon the basis of this the stumpage 

 should be collected, penalties being provided for false returns, and the 

 scaling books of logging and lumbering concerns to be open for inspec- 

 tion by the commissioner at any time, as also the accounts of tie and 

 wood choppers. When the value of the yearly cut by any lumbering 



