ARBOR DAY ITS HISTORY AND OBSERVANCE. 7 



to 350 cubic feet per capita, as against 12 to 14 cubic feet per capita in 

 Great Britaiu and about 40 cubic feet in Germany. 



Some specifications may help us to apprehend the situation. Our 

 railroads consume, on an average, annually for their construction 

 500,000,000 cubic feet of our very best timber. Our mines use for 

 internal props and for the reduction of their ores immense amounts. 

 One mine may be taken as an illustration. The Anaconda Mining 

 Company, of Montana well named Anaconda, in view of its enormous 

 capacity for swallowing the forests whole, as it were made a state- 

 ment four years ago, now on file in one of the Departments of the Gov- 

 ernment, from which it appears that during a period of six months it 

 consumed 05,000 cords of wood and 18,500,000 feet of lumber. At the 

 same time the company stated that its daily consumption hereafter 

 would be, wood 700 cords, lumber 100,000 feet, and its consumption 

 for the year 1892 would be, wood 255,000 cords, lumber 40,000,000 feet. 

 This lumber is mostly in the form of timber used as mine props. 



Most of the wood and timber used by this. and other mines in the 

 Kocky Mountain and other western regions is cut from the public 

 lands. Such is the indulgence shown by the Government that those 

 engaged in mining or even prospecting for mines are allowed to cut 

 and consume the timber on the public lauds free of cost and with only 

 such restrictions as may be made by the Secretary of the Interior. 

 These restrictions are not close or narrow in character, and are easily 

 evaded if not absolutely ignored, and so are to a great extent prac- 

 tically inoperative. The scanty appropriations of Congress do not 

 allow the Secretary of the Interior to retain a sufficient number of 

 inspectors to watch the immense extent of territory occupied by the 

 forests and take notice of the depredations which may be made upon 

 them, and even Avhen depredations are occasionally discovered it is 

 very difficult to secure a conviction and inflict the penalty prescribed 

 for the offense. 



To show the extent of these depredations and the scale on which the 

 forests are consumed, may be instanced the case of one mining company 

 in Dakota against which the Government has brought suit for the sum 

 of $088,000, this being the alleged value of the trees cut less than 8 

 inches in diameter, which restriction had been placed upon the permit 

 to cut. What must have been the number and value of the larger trees 

 cut and consumed by this company? The operations of the Anaconda 

 Company are carried on upon so large a scale that it is said they refuse 

 to make a contract for less than 40,000 cords of wood in any single 

 case, and their contracts range from that amount to 200,000 cords, 

 while nearly 1,000,000 cords are constantly kept on hand. The company 

 held last year a permit from the Secretary of the Interior to cut from 

 four sections of public land within twelve months 14,000,000 feet of 

 timber. The great Coinstock Lode of Nevada is, if possible, a greater 

 anaconda, whole mountains of forest having gone into its capacious 



