252 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



May 



cated to a startling realization of how 

 we have recklessly squandered our 

 heritage of forests, soil and other nat- 

 ural resources for over a hundred 

 years. Our prodigality has been 

 shameful and criminal." It says: "No 

 where in the world are forest reserves 

 more enthusiastically approved and ap- 

 preciated as an institution as in this 

 arid Western country." It refers to 

 the Appalachian- White Mountain for- 

 est proposal as a far-seeing one. It 

 speaks of the Government Reclamation 

 work with the highest approval. At 

 the same time it offers some sharp 

 criticisms. 



It is strongly opposed to Govern- 

 ment control and leasing of the open 

 public range. This proposal, in its 

 view, is demanded by the Forest Ser- 

 vice and by big cattle owners, in each 

 case for revenue only. 



This policy, it claims, is highly det- 

 rimental to the interests of the com- 

 munities immediately concerned. The 

 big cattle men anticipate long leases of 

 land from which the home-owner 

 would practically be excluded. Thus 

 the settlement of the country would 

 be retarded and opportunity denied 

 the man of small means seeking a 

 home. 



In answer it may be said that what- 

 ever interest the Forest Service may 

 have had in revenue, whether from 

 National Forests or range, in the past, 

 it has none now. The Fifty-ninth Con- 

 gress provided that all revenues from 

 National Forests should, hereafter, be 

 covered into the Federal Treasury, and 

 the Forest Service should be main- 

 tained not by revenues from the Na- 

 tional Forests but by direct appropria- 

 tions from Congress. Revenues from 

 the range would, of course, be no 

 more available to the Service than rev- 

 enues from the National Forests. 



As to regulating the use of the 

 range, it must be conceded that the 

 Government owns the range and 

 hence has the right to control it. 

 Again, according to the dictionaries, 

 the absence of government is anarchy. 

 Those who advocate it should show 

 why anarchy on the range is superior 



to anarchy elsewhere. Experience is 

 proving that government in the irra- 

 tional Forests, as outside, is vastly 

 superior to no government ; the nat- 

 ural inference would therefore be that 

 government on the range would be 

 superior to no government there. 



The need for regulation should be 

 plain. Unregulated grazing is damag- 

 ing and, in some cases, destroying the 

 range, as unregulated use and abuse 

 are damaging and destroying the 

 forests. 



Again, throwing a fertile range 

 open to competing regiments or armies 

 of cattle and sheep men is much like 

 "throwing a banana to a cage of mon- 

 keys," or throwing open the Cherokee 

 Strip to settlers. Civilization should 

 have advanced beyond that method of 

 distribution. 



Further, government is necessary 

 to the establishment of homes upon 

 the land. 



If the plans for regulation pro- 

 vided by the Burkett or Scott bills 

 are objectionable, let the objectors sug- 

 gest better plans. 



Again, stress is laid (outside the 

 editorial) upon the irrigation situa- 

 tion. Attention is called 'to the fact 

 that the Government irrigates only on 

 large projects; a multitude of :-\n\Y> 

 ones must therefore, if irrigated at all, 

 be irrigated through private initiative. 

 The private irrigator, usually a big 

 stock man, and the small home owner, 

 it is argued, work together under the 

 non-governmental system in harmony ; 

 the big man furnishes the water, and 

 the little one the crop, which he sells 

 to the irrigator for winter feed. The 

 lease system, however, with its long 

 tenure, would justify the big cattle 

 man in raising his own feed and would 

 thus eliminate the home owner. 



The obvious remedy for this diffi- 

 culty is more Government irrigation. 

 It is recognized that the present Na- 

 tional irrigation works cost the coun- 

 try nothing ; that it is maintained by a 

 perpetually self -renewing, revolving 

 fund ; that what the Government pays 

 out with one hand for reclamation 

 work it takes back with another 



