FORESTRY MOVEMENT OF THE SEVENTIES 401 



tirely inadequate ; that as a final result in a few years the mountain sides of 

 those States and Territories will be stripped bare of the timber now growing 

 upon them, with no possibility of its reproduction, the soil being once washed off 

 from the slopes, and that the irreparable destruction of the forests will bring 

 upon those States all the calamities experienced from the same causes in dis- 

 tricts in Europe and Asia similarly situated. 



"It appears to me, therefore, that the repeal of the above-named act, and the 

 substitution therefor of a law embodying a more provident policy, similar to that 

 of the above-mentioned Senate bill No. 609, is in the highest degree desirable. 

 If the destruction of the forests in those States be permitted, the agricultural 

 and pasturage interests in the mountainous regions will inevitably be sacrificed, 

 and the valleys in the course of time become unfit for the habitation of men. 



"The act for the sale of timber lands in the States of California, Oregon 

 and Nevada, and in Washington Territory, passed by Congress at the last ses- 

 sion, is, in a letter addressed to this department [under date of May 27, 1878], 

 commented upon by the Commissioner of the General Land Office in the fol- 

 lowing language : 



'It is a bill of local and not general application to the timberlands of the 

 United States, and adds one more to the already numerous special acts for 

 the disposal of the public domain. The price fixed is too low, as much of the 

 land is worth from five to fifty dollars per acre. 



'Under the provisions of the bill the timber lands will, in my opinion, be 

 speedily taken up and pass into the hands of speculators, notwithstanding the 

 provisions to prevent such result. The soil should not be sold with the tim- 

 ber where the land is not fit for cultivation. Only the timber of a certain 

 size should be sold, and the soil and young timber retained with a view to 

 the reproduction of the forests. The bill should have limited the sale of the 

 lands to persons who have farms and homes within the State or Territory, 

 and it ought to have required the purchasers to show affirmatively that they 

 had need of timber for domestic uses. 



'The last clause of the second section will permit any person applying for 

 a tract of timber land and securing a certificate from the register, to sell his 

 right and interest therein immediately, and the purchaser, although it may 

 have been obtained by perjury, may be entitled to a patent for the land. 



'Section .') provides that any person prosecuted under section 2401 of the 

 Revised Statutes of the United States, may be relieved of the penalty by the 

 payment of two dollars and fifty cents ($2..')0) per acre for the land tres- 

 passed upon. This is objectionable, for the reason that the penalty fixed is 

 altogether inadequate, and does not require the payment of costs of prose- 

 cution, which are often greater than the penalty to be collected. It should 

 require that the trespasser should pay for the entire subdivision trespassed 

 upon. 



'There can be no doubt that if this bill becomes a law it will be taken ad- 

 vantage of, by persons who want to make money quickly, to acquire the tim- 

 ber lands under its provisions at a very low price, and strip the mountain 

 sides of their forest growth as rapidly as possible. How disastrous such a 

 result will be to these States and Territories need not be detailed here." 



"I fully concur with the Commissioner of the General Land Office in his 

 opinion thus expressed. 



"The traditions of a time are still alive when the area covered with virgin 

 forest in this country was so great that the settler might consider the trees on 

 the land he occupied as a mere difiiculty to be overcome and. to be swept out of 



