840 JOURNAL OF FORESTRV 



detail and consideration of the peculiar circumstances surrounding the 

 individual. Those engaged in the direction of forestry work must con- 

 sider the general purpose of the Congress and the plans of the Depart- 

 ment and the Indian Office for the advancement of the Indian. With- 

 out yielding ground as to the essential principles of theory and practice, 

 the Forestry Branch of the Indian Service has pursued the ideal of con- 

 ciliatory cooperation with other branches of the Indian Service. By 

 such policy little has been lost and much gained. Very substantial 

 progress has been made and the future can be faced with confidence. 



Within the past two years there has been a revival of the idea, first 

 entertained in the Department of Agriculture nearly twenty years ago, 

 that the forests on Indian Reservations should be administered by the 

 Forest Service. The proposition has appeared in several bills offered 

 in the last session of the 66th Congress and in the special session of the 

 67th Congress. It appears that these bills have been prepared in col- 

 laboration with the Forest Service, and House Bill No. 129, 67th Con- 

 gress, 1st Session, known as the Snell Bill, has received the public 

 endorsement of that Service. An explanation of the purposes of this 

 bill so far as it affects Indian lands was contained in an article by 

 Mr. E. A. Sherman in the April (1921) issue of the Journal of 

 Forestry, entitled, "A Plan for the Disposal of Indian Reservation 

 Timberlands." 



Section 9 of the Snell Bill withholds from entry, appropriation or 

 allotment (except as to mineral entry) all lands within Indian Reserva- 

 tions that may be classified by the Secretary of Agriculture (obviously 

 through the instrumentality of the Forest Service) as "valuable chiefly 

 for the production of timber or protection of watersheds." By Sec- 

 tion 10 of this bill the National Forest Reservation Commission is 

 "directed to recommend to the President the incorporation in National 

 Forests of any lands classified as valuable chiefly for the production of 

 timber or protection of watersheds and v/ithdrawn from entry under 

 the preceding section, which, in the judgment of said Commission are 

 adapted for National Forest purposes. Said Commission is further 

 authorized to determine the value of any lands so withdrawn which are 

 the property of Indian tribes." 



The effect of these two sections would be to place the determination 

 of the price to be paid to the Indians for their legal or equitable rights 

 in reservation timberlands almost solely in the discretion of the Forest 

 Service in the Department of Agriculture, which is charged by the bill 



