REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 31 



Finally, the practical issue of all these endeavors cannot fail to 

 have its effect in all the ramifications of important branches of trade 

 and commerce, and the subject is commended as worthy of the most 

 careful deliberation. 



FORESTRY. 



I desire again to refer in strong terms to the urgent needs of the 

 country for a changed forest policy and the requirements of the De- 

 partment for a proper prosecution of needful investigations into the 

 subject of forestry. While I have made only the usual estimate of 

 $10,000 for the continuance of the division, I consider this amount 

 below the actual requirements for a line of work which, if it is to be 

 done at all under Government control, recommendation, or advice, 

 should be pursued in a manner adequate to its importance to the 

 nation at large. 



While, from the experience of the Old World, we may learn the 

 effects of recklessness and waste, and the necessity of a rational for- 

 est policy, yet with our different system of landholding we cannot 

 expect to adopt their plans of administration. While from European 

 forest management we may learn the principles underlying forest 

 growth and forest management in general, with our different forest, 

 flora, and different climatic conditions we shall have to work out our 

 own systems of management. This requires painstaking and sys- 

 tematic study and inquiry at the hands of experts conversant with 

 forestry principles and forest conditions. The Department should be 

 placed in position to employ and pay liberally the very best talent on 

 these subjects which the couintry affords. 



Regarded simply from a business point of view, the forestry prob- 

 lem is growing every year jn importance and urgency as the forest 

 area is diminished by both legitimate and reckless denudation, and 

 it should be an object of serious concern to the Government to insure 

 continuity of supply of raw material to a lumber industry represent- 

 ing a capital invested of not less than $200,000,000, not to speak of 

 the many minor necessities of a wood supply for railroad building, 

 manufactures, and domestic purposes. Figures are at hand to prove 

 that this supply must be waning. 



Practically there is in the United States no forest reproduction 

 attempted or forest planting done worth mentioning, in comparison 

 with the enormous annual consumption of forest products. 



Of still more momentous bearing upon the welfare of the country 

 are the effects upon climatic and agricultural conditions caused by 

 improper deforestation. 



The influence of the forest cover on water supply has become espe- 

 cially noticeable in those districts which, like Eastern Colorado and 

 Southern California, are dependent for their agricultural success upon 

 irrigation, and where a diminution and irregularity of the wonted 



