FOREST POLICY. 117 



fire protection in either state forests or private forests, provided 

 that such forests are drained by navigable streams, and provided 

 that the state spends at least as much money on forest fire pro- 

 tection as will be donated to it by the United States. 



3. The Secretary of Agriculture may enter into a "working 

 plan agreement" with any private owner of woodlands at the 

 head of navigable streams, to the effect that: 



(a) the owner should cut and remove the timber from his 

 own land only under rules and regulations sanctioned by the 

 nation's representative; 



(b) the nation, at its expense, administers and protects such 

 private forests as if they were national forests. The Weeks 

 Bill, however, does not provide any appropriation for the pur- 

 pose named under (b). 



President Taft maintains that the constitution of the United 

 States does not authorize any federal control over the forests in 

 any state, unless such forests are owned by the nation ; and 

 that the control over private forests is a matter of state rather 

 than federal forest policy. 



There remains, whatever the case may be, one duty for each 

 state: viz., that of handing down to posterity, unimpaired by 

 reckless use, all such resources of the state as are possible 

 of conservation. 



Prominent amongst these resources is the soil farm soil as 

 well as forest soil and the productiveness thereof. 



In the eastern states, from the beginning of the settlement 

 on, the cry of the day has been "down with the woods." It 

 was cleared land, and not forest land that the pioneer desired to 

 obtain. From the farmer's standpoint the trees are the most 

 objectionable weeds on a farm : the forest is, was, and could be 

 considered only as an encumbrance of the ground. The suc- 

 cessful devastation of the forest for the benefit of farming 

 caused general rejoicing at the "log rollings." Thus it happened 

 that the demand of all state forestry in the past was "to get rid 

 of the timber." All of the states were slow in perceiving the 

 turning-point of the economic situation ; all of the states were 

 (or are) at a loss to see that a policy, wise on agricultural soil< 

 becomes unwise when practised on sandy soil, fit in the long 



