FORESTRY ON INDIAN RESERVATIONS. 



By J. P. Kinney 



Three centuries have passed since the adventurous CavaUers at 

 Jamestown and the conscience-pressed Puritans at Plymouth 

 boldly began the work of making America a white man's country. 

 At that time the forests of the United States formed a practically 

 unbroken cover along the Atlantic coast from the St. Croix River 

 to the river St. Johns, and westward to an irregular line far 

 beyond the mighty Father of Waters, spread a verdant blanket 

 over both slopes of the Rocky Mountains, and along the Pacific 

 coast attained a magnificence unequalled in the whole world. 

 These forests, extending over an area of more than one-half bil- 

 lion acres, all belonged by right of possession to the red man. 



What has the Indian to-day ? 



The latest statistics gathered by the Indian Service show that 

 there are in the United States approximately 300,000 Indians 

 holding about 72,000,000 acres of land, more than three-fourths 

 of which was never forest land within historic times. Of these 

 72,000,000 acres over 40,000,000 have been allotted ; the remainder 

 is held in common by the various tribes. 



Nearly 170,000 allotments have been made varying from 40 

 acres to 320 acres each, or even more, according to the character 

 of the land and the special legislation passed for the allotment of 

 particular tribes. Somewhat less than one-half of these allotted 

 lands is held under trust patents, with the fee in the United 

 States. The work of assigning individual allotments of land to 

 Indians has been in progress for more than twenty years. During 

 the fiscal year ending June 30, 191 1, nearly 14,000 allotments, 

 embracing over 2,000,000 acres, were made in the field. There 

 are 120,000 Indians who have not yet received allotments. 



By implication the General Allotment Act of 1887, known as 

 the Dawes Act, did not include timberland. However, upon 

 reservations where there was an insufficiency of agricultural land 

 to supply all members of the tribe with allotments, where the 

 better agricultural land was covered with timber, where practi- 

 cally all the lands were forested or where the allotment was made 



