C4 Condition of Forests on the Public Lands. [248 



other way b} r which the timber could be acquired, 

 and so lumbermen hired hundreds of choppers who, 

 in addition to their regular work, were required to 

 enter a tract of 160 acres under the pre-emption or 

 homestead laws, and after a nominal compliance with 

 the law, to deed the land to their employers. After 

 stripping the timber from the land it was abandoned, 

 and over great areas once located for homes one can 

 pass now without finding an occupant, the dead 

 trees and barren stumps or an occasional cabin alone 

 attesting the former occupancy of man. Settlements 

 upon timber lands are rarely made in good faith 

 that is, to establish a home because the public lands 

 upon which timber is now growing are almost entirely 

 unfit for agriculture, and the system puts a premium 

 upon perjury and wastefulness. For what desire has 

 such a settler to husband the resources of his land ? 

 He wants to cut and sell the best portions of his 

 timber, and be off before his fraud is discovered. Or 

 if he sells, the lumberman who buys pays an entirely 

 inadequate price, so that neither the government nor 

 the settler gets the benefit. This great profit goes 

 into the pockets of the wealthy lumberman, who can 

 afford to waste the poorer portions of the timber, as 

 he has paid a price much below the real value of the 

 timber. If he had to pay the approximate value of 

 the timber, this waste would be materially reduced, 

 and the forest thus far preserved. Even when the 

 land is valuable for agriculture, the pioneer who 

 settles upon it to make a home is eager to remove as 

 soon as possible the forest which for him only cum- 

 bers the ground. He wastes thoughtlessly the prod- 

 ucts of centuries, and rejoices in the fall of every 



