126 FOBEST LANDS FOB THE PBOTECTION OF WATEBSHEDS. 

 CONCLUSIONS. 



The great increase in floods in our rivers, together with the increas- 

 ing property loss and annual loss of soils, shows that in some sections 

 of the country we are rapidly approaching the situation in which 

 China now finds herself. It is not now too late for nature to restore 

 the forests on the mountains, but the time is rapidly coming when it 

 will be. The question of protecting the forests at the headwaters of 

 the streams is a national as well as a state problem. It is not right to 

 expect the State to deal entirely with areas requiring protection when 

 those areas affect chiefly other States. It is impossible for States 

 which suffer from conditions outside their own territory to remedy 

 them by their own action. The mountains of the West are already 

 largely under government protection. So far as they are not pro- 

 tected this bill is applicable to them. It is applicable to all other sec- 

 tions of the United States in which the source streams of the navigable 

 rivers lie in nonagricultural, mountainous regions, and it is believed 

 that it will accomplish the necessary protection to the Southern 

 Appalachians and White Mountains. 



If the action which this bill proposes is taken by Congress, it will 

 work out to the great benefit of both agriculture and the manufactur- 

 ing industries, while to the permanent development of our inland 

 waterways the benefits will be fundamental. 



KlTTREDGE HASKINS. 



WILLIAM W. COCKS. 

 RALPH D. COLE. 

 ERNEST M. POLLARD. 

 CLARENCE C. GILHAMS. 

 JAMES C. MCLAUGHLIN. 

 JOHN W. WEEKS. 

 JOHN LAMB. 

 ASBURY F. LEVER. 

 AUGUSTUS O. STANLEY. 

 J. THOMAS HEFLIN. 



Your committee therefore recommend that all after the enacting 

 clause of Senate bill 4825 be stricken out and the following inserted 

 in lieu thereof: 



That the consent of the Congress of the United States is hereby given to each of 

 the seyeral States of the Union to enter into any agreement or compact, not in con- 

 flict with any law of the Cnited States, with any other State or States, for the pur- 

 pose of conserving the forests and the water supply of the States entering into such 

 agreement or compact. 



SEC. 2. That the sum of one hundred thousand dollars is hereby appropriated and 

 made available until expended, out of any moneys in the National Treasury not 

 otherwise appropriated, to enable the Secretary of Agriculture to cooperate with any 

 State or group of States, when requested to do BO, in the protection from fire of the 

 forested watersheds of navigable streams, and the Secretary of Agriculture is hereby 

 authorized, and on such conditions as he deems wise, to stipulate and agree with any 

 State or group of States to cooperate in the organization and maintenance of a system 

 of fire protection on any private or state forest lands within such State or States and 

 situated upon the watershed of a navigable river: Provided, That no such stipulation 

 or agreement shall be made with any State which has not provided by law for a 

 system of forest-fire protection: Provided further, That in no case shall the amount 

 expended in any State exceed in any fiscal year the amount appropriated by that 

 State for the same purpose during the same fiscal year. 



SEC. 3. That the Secretary of Agriculture, for the 'further protection of the water- 

 sheds of said navigable streams, may, in his discretion, and he is hereby authorized, 



