246 PRACTICAL FORESTRY 
vations and the one which needs emphasis at present, 
is the vastness of the interests which they subserve in 
the West, and the dependence of the development of 
irrigable arid lands upon their extension and proper 
administration. The great mining interests of the 
West are dependent upon a timber supply. In addi- 
tion, there are important grazing interests which must 
be checked and regulated. At present the responsi- 
bility of the administration is too diffuse, and there is 
urgent need of consolidation and the appointment of 
trained officers such as Prof. Filibert Roth, the effi- 
cient chief of the new Division of Forestry of the 
General Land-Office. 
It must not be assumed that these reservations 
constitute all the land owned by the Government in ~ 
Western America. These are only portions of the 
public domain which have been withdrawn from fu- 
ture settlement. Neither are these absolute reser- 
vations, inasmuch as private parties still have many 
rights and claims; in fact, in two reservations, only 
every other section is reserved. The people of the 
United States as a whole still own a vast area in our 
West. Much of it is desert or so mountainous that 
agriculture is impossible. Much of it is used for pas- 
turage. The percentage of vacant land, according 
to the United States Geological Survey, is approx- 
imately as follows: 
