402 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



his way. But circumstances have been very materially changed. We are now 

 rapidly approaching the day when the forests of this country will no longer be 

 sufficient to supply our home wants, and it is the highest time that the old no- 

 tion that the timber on the publis lands belongs to anybody and everybody, to be 

 cut down and taken off at pleasure, should give way. A provident policy, hav- 

 ing our future wants in view, can not be adopted too soon. Every year lost 

 inflicts upon the economical interests of this country an injury, which in every 

 part of the country will be seriously felt, but in the mountainous regions threat- 

 ens to become especially disastrous and absolutely irreparable. We ought to 

 learn something from the calamitous experiences of other parts of the world. 

 If the necessity of such a provident policy be not recognized while it is time, the 

 neglect of it will be painfully appreciated when it is too late. I am so deeply 

 impressed with the importance of this subject, that as long as I remain entrusted 

 with my present duties I shall never cease to urge it upon the attention of 

 Congress." 



That this promise was made good is evidenced in his next annual 

 report by the following repetition of his previous appeals : 



"In my last annual report I discussed the inadequacy of the laws enacted by 

 the last Congress 'Authorizing the citizens of Colorado, Nevada, and the Ter- 

 ritories to fell and remove timber on the public domain for mining and domes- 

 tic purposes,' and providing 'for the sale of timber lands in the States of Cali- 

 fornia and Oregon and in Washington Territory.' The opinion I then ven- 

 tured to express, that the first of these acts would be taken advantage of not 

 only by settlers and miners to provide economically for their actual current 

 wants, but by persons who would see in this donation a chance to make money 

 quickly ; that it would stimulate a wasteful consumption beyond actual need 

 and lead to wanton destruction, and that the machinery left to this department 

 to prevent or repress such waste and destruction through the enforcement of 

 rules to be made by the Commissioner of the General Land Office would be 

 found insufficient for that purpose, has already in many places been verified by 

 experience; also the predictions made by the Commissioner of the General Land 

 Office with regard to the effect of the second one of the above named acts. Re- 

 ferring to what was said about these laws in my last annual report, I repeat 

 my earnest recommendation that they be repealed, and that more adequate leg- 

 islation be substituted therefor. 

 ."It is by no means denied that the people of the above-named States and Ter- 

 ritories must have timber for their domestic use as well as the requirements of 

 their local industries. Neither is it insisted upon that the timber so required 

 should be imported from a distance, so that the forests in those States and 

 Territories might remain intact. This would be unreasonable. But it is deemed 

 necessary that a law be enacted providing that the people may lawfully acquire 

 the timber required for their domestic use and their local industries from the 

 public lands under such regulations as will prevent the indiscriminate and ir- 

 reparable destruction of forests, with its train of disastrous consequences. It 

 is thought that this end will be reached by authorizing the government to sell 



