3 i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



timber lands as national forests. Speaking generally, there has been 

 reserved of the existing forests about 70 per cent, of all the timber lands 

 of the government. Within these forests (including 26,000,000 acres 

 in two forests in Alaska) are 192,000,000 of acres, of which 166,000,000 

 of acres are in the United States proper, and include within their 

 boundaries something like 22,000,000 of acres that belong to the state 

 or to private individuals. We have, then, excluding Alaska forests, a 

 total of about 144,000,000 acres of forests belonging to the government 

 which is being treated in accord with the principles of scientific forestry. 



The law now prohibits the reservation of any more forest lands in 

 Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Colorado and Wyoming, except 

 by act of congress. I am informed by the department of agriculture 

 that the government owns other tracts of timber land in these states 

 which should be included in the forest reserves. I expect to recom- 

 mend to congress that the limitation herein imposed shall be repealed. 



In the present forest reserves there are lands which are not properly 

 forest land, and which ought to be subject to homestead entry. This 

 has caused some local irritation. We are carefully eliminating such 

 lands from forest reserves, or where their elimination is not practicable, 

 listing them for entry under the forest homestead act. Congress ought 

 to trust the executive to use the power of reservation only with respect 

 to land covered by timber or which will be useful in the plan of refor- 

 estation. During the present administration 6,250,000 acres of land, 

 largely non-timbered, have been excluded from forest reserves, and 

 3,500,000 acres of land principally valuable for forest purposes have 

 been included in forest reserves, making a reduction in forest reserves 

 of non-timbered land amounting to 2,750,000 acres. The Bureau of 

 Forestry since its creation has initiated reforestation on 5,600 acres. 



A great deal of the forest land is available for grazing. During the 

 past year the grazing lessees numbered 25,400, and they pastured upon 

 the forest reserves 1,400,000 cattle, 84,540 horses and 7,580,400 sheep, 

 for which the government received $986,715 — a decrease from the pre- 

 ceding year of $45,470, due to the fact that no money was collected or 

 received for grazing on the non-timbered lands eliminated from the 

 forest reserve. Another source of profit in the forestry is the receipts 

 for timber sold. This year they amounted to $1,043,000, an increase 

 of $307,000 over the receipts of last year. This increase is due to the 

 improvement in transportation to market and to the greater facility 

 with which the timber can be reached. 



The government timber in this country amounts to only one fourth 

 of all the timber, the rest being in private ownership. Only 3 per cent. 

 of that which is in private ownership is looked after properly and 

 treated according to modern rules of forestry. The usual destructive 

 waste and neglect continues in the remainder of the forests owned by 



