2 ACQUIKING LAND FOR PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS, ETC. 



lands may be permanently reserved, held, and administered as national 

 forest lands, and that in such case the owner shall cut and remove the 

 timber thereon only under such rules and regulations as will provide 

 for the protection of the forest in the aid of navigation. The section 

 provides that in no case is the United States to be liable for anv dam- 

 age resulting from fire or any other cause on such lands. 



Section 4 provides that from receipts from the sale or disposal of 

 any products or the use of lands or resources from the public lands 

 now or hereafter to be set aside as national forests which may here- 

 after be turned into the Treasury of the United States and which are 

 not otherwise appropriated, there shall be available $1,000,000 for the 

 fiscal year ending June 30, 1909, and not to exceed $2,000,000 for each 

 fiscal year thereafter, to be used in the examination, survey, and ac- 

 quirement of lands located on the headwaters of navigable streams, or 

 those which are being or which ma} r be developed for navigable pur- 

 poses, and further provides that the provisions of this section shall 

 expire by limitation on June 80, 1919. 



This section has two features not included in any of the other bills 

 referred to the committee. The first is, that the proceeds from the 

 present national forests, so far as they are at present unappropriated, 

 are to be turned to the purchase of forest lands to the amounts above 

 mentioned. The second feature is, that instead of limiting the acquisi- 

 tions by purchase or otherwise for this purpose to any particular 

 region or regions, such as the Southern Appalachian or White Moun- 

 tain region, lands may be acquired on any watershed, so far as they 

 fall within the purposes of the bill. 



Section 5 provides for the establishment of a National Forest Res- 

 ervation Commission, to be composed of the S^retary of War, the 

 Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, one member 

 of the Senate, and one member of the House of Representatives, the 

 object of the commission being to consider and pass upon such lands 

 as may be recommended for purchase and to fix the price or prices 

 to be paid for such lands. It further provides for limiting incum- 

 bency and for filling vacancies in the commission. 



Section 6 provides for an annual report to Congress of the operations 

 'and expenditures of the commission. 



Section 7 authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to examine and 

 locate lands to be recommended to the National Forest Reservation 

 Commission for purchase. The section also provides that a report 

 shall be made to the Secretary of Agriculture by the Geological Survey 

 showing in what way the control of such lands will promote or protect 

 the navigation of streams on whose watersheds they lie. 



Sections S and 9 provide the method b}^ which lands may be acquired 

 by the Secretary of Agriculture after they have been approved by the 

 National Forest Reservation Commission. 



Section 10 provides that the owner of the land from whom title 

 passes to the United States may, under certain conditions, reserve the 

 minerals and merchantable timber within or upon such lands at the 

 date of conve}^ance, and provides the method by which the removal of 

 such minerals or timber may thereafter be accomplished. 



Section 11 provides for the sale of small areas of agricultural lands 

 which may of necessity or by inadvertence be included in tracts acquired 

 under this act. 



