FOREST LANDS FOR THE PROTECTION OF WATERSHEDS. 13 



The precise position of the State of New Hampshire has been 

 alluded to. I am a resident of that State every summer; in fact, I 

 officially represent here a body of the people of one of the valleys 

 there, who were kind enough to make me the chairman. That State, 

 the chairman must remember, includes not only the waters of the 

 Connecticut Kiver, but the waters of the Androscoggin River, which 

 rise in the State of Maine. I do not think, Mr. Chairman^ that 

 anybody had dreamed, when I was here a year ago, that this com- 

 mittee had not full power to act in that purpose. I think it was an 

 academic question which came up afterwards, when our friends say 

 the Judiciary Committee sent down to you and said you could not 

 do certain things which you wished to do. But it seems to me that 

 the question of the live-oak lands is an interesting one, and it shows 

 that the people one hundred years ago thought they had that power, 

 and if that does arise, it shows that the conditions of timber cutting 

 are wholly different from what they were one hundred years ago. 



I see the chairman looking at his watch, and I only allude to the 

 question of the bonds, and if you will fix it so that the Government 

 will take care of the forests as Bavaria and other European countries 

 have, fifty years hence you will have a larger revenue from your 

 forests and you will pay "f or your bonds with them. 



STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN H. STEPHENS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 

 CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS. 



Mr. STEPHENS. Mr. Chairman, I desire to state that I have a bill on 

 all fours with the Appalachian and White Mountain bill, for protect- 

 ing a natural forest growing on the headwaters of the Red River in 

 the plains of Texas, extending almost to the eastern side of New 

 Mexico. We have organized, in the southwest four States, into a 

 congress known as " The Red River Improvement Association." We 

 passed resolutions requesting that 100,000 acres of land be purchased 

 on the headwaters of the Red River for the purpose of protecting the 

 forests there, and the conditions will not exist as described by the last 

 speaker if Congress would purchase this land and protect the timber 

 there now, which will not require being replanted. Neither will the 

 conditions exist that exist at present in the Southern Appalachians, 

 but the land has passed from the State of Texas ; it no longer belongs 

 to us. One-half of it was given for the purpose of building interstate 

 railroads running across the continent, the Texas Pacific and the 

 Southern Pacific, and that is the reason we have not any public do- 

 main left there, mainly because we gave away one-half of it for the 

 purpose of building our railroads. So we now ask that the Govern- 

 ment appropriate $500,000 for the purpose of purchasing 100,000 acres 

 of land as a forest reserve and a park on the headwaters of that river. 

 This is joined in by all of those States and by various cities and towns 

 and various associations, and I will now ask leave to file these, together 

 with the numerous maps and documents obtained from the Forestry 

 Bureau and other documents of interest in this matter, with your com- 

 mittee for your investigation. 



The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the papers will be filed. 



