404 JOURNAL OF foke;stry 



nished by other parts of the world, where the disappearance of the forests had 

 been followed by the most deplorable consequences : the drying- up of springs ; 

 the irregularity of the water supply in navigable rivers; the frequency of de- 

 structive freshets and inundations ; the transformation of once productive and 

 flourishing agricultural disttricts into barren wastes, almost uninhabitable to 

 man — I showed that the same results would inevitably befall certain parts of 

 this country, if so short-sighted and reckless a practice be persisted in as is now 

 prevailing. I set forth as a universally acknowledged fact that especially in 

 our mountainous regions the stripping of the slopes of their timber would be an 

 irreparable injury, inasmuch as the rainfall and the water from melting snows 

 would wash down the soil, transform brooks and rivulets running regularly 

 while the forests stand, into raging torrents at certain seasons, and sweeping 

 masses of gravel and loose rock into the valleys below, apt to render them in- 

 capable of cultivation, while on the mountain sides the forests once destroyed 

 would in most cases never grow up again. . . . Whatever our success in 

 this respect [dealing with depredations upon public timber] may have been so 

 far, it is certain that the evil will spring up again if the efiforts of the govern- 

 ment to arrest it should be in the least relaxed in the future, or if Congress 

 should fail, by leaving the laws of the country in their present condition, to 

 show an active sympathy with this policy. To that want of proper legislation 

 I have each successive year called attention in my reports to you, as well as by 

 direct appeals to Congress. The main features of the legislation urged by this 

 department are very simple. They consist in two propositions : First, that the 

 government should be authorised to sell timber from lands principally valuable 

 for the timber growing upon them — that is to say, not agricultural nor mineral — 

 at reasonable, perhaps even at merely nominal, rates to supply all domestic 

 needs and all the wants of local business enterprise, as well as of commerce, 

 the latter so far as compatible with the public interest ; and, secondly, that 

 these sales of timber be so regulated as to preserve the necessary propoftion of 

 the forests on the public lands from wa^te and indiscritmivate destruction. Such 

 a policy can, in my opinion, be carried out without great cost, with a simple 

 machinery, and in perfect justice to the wants of settlers and the business en- 

 terprises of the country. It is virtually the policy proposed to Congress by the 

 Public Lands Commission in the report and the bill submitted to Congress at its 

 last session. (Italics are the author's.) 



"I would also urge once more upon Congress the importance of the passage 

 of a law, repeatedly recommended in my reports, prescribing a severe penalty 

 for the willful, negligent, or careless setting of fires upon public timberlands 

 of the United States, and also providing for the recovery of damages thereby 

 sustained. . 



"The question of the preservation of forests in just proportion to the area 

 of the country is engaging the attention of prudent men in every civilized na- 

 tion. By competent authorities it is estimated that this proportion should be 

 about one-fourth of the whole. In some foreign countries the injury caused by 

 the barbarous ignorance and improvidence of past times has bec-ime already too 

 great to be repaired, and the evil consequences are keenly felt. In the United 

 States the consumption of timber is enormous and rapidly increasing. It is in 



