COMMITTEES ON BEHALF OF THE GOVERNMENT 317 
prospectors for the purpose of clearing the ground. “ Nearly 
every summer their smoke obscured for months the sight of the 
sun over hundreds of square miles.” To this destruction by fire 
was added a widespread devastation caused by wandering herds 
of sheep, which ranged about the borders of the forests, stripping 
the ground bare of seedling trees and growing shrubs, trampling 
the tender plants, and dislodging the soil on steep mountain 
slopes. On the unreserved lands, the theft of timber by settlers, 
mining prospectors, railroad contractors and others had assumed 
enormous proportions. The Department of the Interior which 
was charged with the custody of these lands was powerless to 
stop this plunder of the public domain, owing mainly to defec- 
tive and conflicting laws and the sentiment of the people in the 
States and Territories in which the forests are located that they 
belonged to them and not to the people of the United States as a 
whole. 
Upon its return from the West, the committee on February 1, 
1897, presented a preliminary report to the Secretary of the 
Interior, in which it recommended the establishment of thirteen 
new forest reservations, covering somewhat more than twenty- 
one million acres, to be added to the seventeen reserves already 
existing, which comprised seventeen and one-half million acres. 
This report was forwarded to the President on February 6, 
1897, by the Secretary of the Interior, David R. Francis, with a 
favorable recommendation, and on February 22, the 165th 
anniversary of the birth of Washington, President Cleveland 
promulgated proclamations establishing the reserves. 
About two months later, on May 1, 1897, the committee sub- 
mitted its complete report on the inauguration of a forest policy, 
which was transmitted on the same date by President Wolcott 
Gibbs to the Secretary of the Interior and printed at the Govern- 
ment Printing Office.“ This report, which covers 45 printed 
pages, is comprehensive in scope and contains definite recom- 
mendations for the establishment of a national forestry service. 
*™ See p. 383; also Rep. Nat. Acad. Sci. for 1897, pp. 29-73, where the report is printed 
in full. 
22 
