THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 



MONTHLY. 



JUNE, 1901. 

 QUE FOREST RESERVATIONS. 



By Professor J. \V. TOUMEY, 



YALE FOREST SCHOOL. 



IT is highly probable that the future will chronicle the act of March 

 3, 1891, under which the Chief Executive of the United States is 

 given power to segregate forest reservations from the public domain, as 

 a law most fruitful in results of vast import to the future welfare 

 of the coimtry. Armed with the power conferred by this act, the 

 successive Presidents ha^•e in the past ten years established no less 

 ihan thirtv-nine national forest reservations. 



As the act provides that the reservations are to be segregated from 

 the public domain, they are for the most part in the Rocky Mountain 

 region and in the Pacific Coast States where large areas of public forest 

 lands were available. 



The thirty-nine reservations in the aggregate contain more than 

 46,800,000 acres, an area more than fifteen times as large as the State 

 of Connecticut, or about one-fortieth of the total area of the country 

 exclusive of Alaska. 



Much controversy has arisen as to the wisdom of withdrawing such* 

 large areas of the public lands from sale or from other disposition 

 under the laws of the land office. Much of the opposition has disap- 

 peared during the past few years, and public sentiment in favor of forest 

 reservations is rapidly increasing. In fact, so rapid has been this change 

 in public sentiment that a movement is now on foot, with prospect 

 of success, to establish a national forest reservation in the southern 

 Appalachian Mountains, where it will be necessary for the Govern- 

 ment to purchase the land at an expense of several million dollars. 

 There is also an effort being made on the part of a good many public- 



