FORESTRY MOVEMENT OF THE SEVENTIES 403 



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timber from the public lands principally valuable for the timber thereon, with- 

 out conveying the fee, and to conduct such sales by government officers under 

 such instructions from this department as will be calculated to prevent the 

 denudation of large tracts, especially in those mountain regions where forests 

 once destroyed will not reproduce themselves. I have no doubt that under 

 such a law, well considered in its provisions, the people of those States and Ter- 

 ritories would be enabled to obtain all the timber they need for domestic as 

 well as industrial purposes at reasonable rates, and that at the same time the 

 cutting of timber can be so regulated as to afford sufficient protection to the 

 existence and reproduction of the forests, which is so indispensable to the fu- 

 ture prosperity of those regions. I venture to express the opinion that the 

 enactment of such a law has become a pressing necessity, and can not much 

 longer be delayed without great and irreparable injury to one of the most vital 

 interests of the people. I therefore again commend to the consideration of 

 Congress the bill introduced as Senate bill No. 609 in the last Congress. 



"The subject of the destruction of forests by fire also calls for early and 

 earnest attention. In most, if not all, of the States where timber lands are in 

 private possession, the setting of fires in them is made a highly penal offense 

 by statute. But there is no law of the United States providing specifically for 

 the punishment of such offenses when committed on the public lands. 

 I therefore repeat the recommendation made in my first annual report, that a 

 law be enacted prescribing a severe penalty for the willful or negligent setting 

 of fires upon the public lands of the United States, and also for the recovery of 

 all damages thereby sustained. . 



"I would also repeat the recommendation made in former reports that the 

 President be authorized to appoint a commission, composed of qualified per- 

 sons, to study the laws and practices adopted in other countries for the preser- 

 vation and cultivation of forests, and to report to Congress a plan for the same 

 object, applicable to our circumstances. The time is fast approaching when for- 

 est-culture will be to the people of the United States as important a question 

 as it is in older countries; and then it will be a subject of painful wonder to 

 thinking men, how it could have been so long neglected." 



Later, Carl Schurz, when closing his career as Secretary of the 

 Interior, in making his final annual report took up the subject again, 

 passed in review his whole course of action, placing it in sharp con- 

 trast with the failure of Congress to support him with needed legis- 

 lation, and then concluded with a word of warning directed to Con- 

 gress — a warning which, it is interesting to note, carried as much of 

 an appeal as a reproach. This final spur to action reads, in part, as 

 follows : 



"In my first annual report I had the honor to present to you in 1877, and 

 every successive year thereafter, I invited attention to the extensive depreda- 

 tions committed on the timberlands of the United States, and the rapid and 

 indiscriminate destruction of our forests, especially in the South and in the 

 States and Territories of the West. Referring to the warning example fur- 



