112 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



The trees were useful to the aborigines and are now 

 useful to us. They should be preserved for use and not 

 from use. And aborigines that remain are becoming civ- 

 ilized ; and we are trying to take care of them also. And 

 we have made the discovery that the forests can not be 

 destroyed as a whole without changing the climate of the 

 country itself ; and therefore in that high sense of taking 

 care of the farmer all over the United States it is neces- 

 sary to take care of the forests of the United States, 



Not a single additional employee will be required. The 

 gentleman from Arkansas has prepared an amendment, 

 which I shall support, providing that as fast as it be- 

 comes proper to transfer a reserve from the custody of 

 the Department of the Interior to the Department of Agri- 

 culture a corresponding number of the force of the in- 

 terior department shall be transferred. In other words, 

 no more employees will be required than at present. We 

 have these two bureaus, or rather we have a division and 

 a bureau, and we have the employees in both. The same 

 amount of forest land will exist after any portion is 

 transferred to the Department of Agriculture, and you 

 simply transfer the men having it in charge. For in- 

 stance, there are a certain number of custodians of the 

 Grand Canyon Reserve of Arizona, and the San Francis- 

 co Forest Reserve. Now, if those two reserves are trans- 

 ferred to the Department of Agriculture the employees 

 will also be transferred, and the expense will be precisely 

 the same as if it were handled by the Department of the 

 Interior. It makes no change whatever. 



There are two duties to perform in regard to forest re- 

 serves. There are duties in relation to private individ- 

 uals who have interests in public lands. Those matters 

 are for the land department. Matters from the land de- 

 partment may be transferred by mandamus to the courts. 

 If a patent is issued, a direct proceeding may be brought 



