FOREST PRESERVATION GRAVES. 445 



which are now unsalable in anticipation of the time when they will 

 be salable, it must never be thought that the question of money 

 profits is the vital one. The interest, of the public in the preservation 

 of the existing- supply of national forest timber is much more than 

 an interest in what it will sell for. It is an interest in preserv- 

 ing the supply of material necessary to the carrying on of many 

 industries. 



More than this, it is an interest also in the continuation of the 

 benefits obtained from the forests in other ways than from the use 

 of timber. Many of the national forests were created, and are pro- 

 tected, not because they furnish valuable supplies of timber, for they 

 do not; but because they protect much more valuable supplies of 

 water. If the question of the wisdom or unwisdom of the national 

 forest policy were to be tested by balancing expenditures against 

 receipts it would follow that the first thing to be done would be to get 

 rid of forests from which a net income is not either now being ob- 

 tained or reasonably to be expected. This would throw out almost 

 the whole national forest area in southern California; large parts 

 of the forests in Arizona and New Mexico, maintained for the pro- 

 tection of projects developed or to be developed by the Reclamation 

 Service ; and much of the present area of the national forests in other 

 States. Neither public sentiment nor the public interest could permit 

 this. The national forests are a gigantic public undertaking, con- 

 ceived with a vieAv to the future. They are like a system of public 

 works in process of construction. It would be almost as absurd to 

 settle the question whether the Panama Canal is worth while on the 

 basis of income, compared with the expenditures at the present time, 

 as it would be to answer the same question in the case of the national 

 forests by the same method. The application of any such test is 

 equivalent to the adoption of the policy of " scuttle." It is not to 

 be imagined that public sentiment would permit the adoption of any 

 such policy, were it proposed. 



