72 Condition of Forests on the Public Lands. [25G 



Many of the honest timber agents find themselves 

 unfit for the work, but have not the frankness to 

 admit it, or the wisdom to resign. Of the dishonest 

 ones, of whom there are too many, I need only say 

 that their position offers them many chances for 

 blackmail, to which the mill-men will submit rather 

 than undergo the cost and anxiety of prosecutions, 

 although they may feel that the prosecutions will 

 be fruitless. A mill-man complained to me on one 

 occasion, that he had 110 objection to there being a 

 timber agent in the country, as he had found it a 

 cheap way of securing protection, but that recently 

 there had been so many changes made in timber 

 agents that he began to find it too expensive. 



The call for some legislation by which timber can 

 be honestly cut from the public lands and paid for is 

 earnest among the mill-men supplying the local 

 demands for lumber in the arid region. 



On the Pacific Coast the conditions are entirely dif- 

 ferent. There the timber is cut principally for export, 

 and not for local use. Unquestionably the 'finest body 

 of timber anywhere now existing in the United States 

 lies between the Coast Range and the Pacific Ocean, 

 and there milling is pursued on such a large scale that 

 the comparatively small methods of the Rocky Moun- 

 tain region would not meet their requirements. So, 

 in 1878, what is known as the timber and stone act 

 was passed. By means of this any citizen of the 

 United States, or head of a family, can take up 160 

 acres of timber land, and by paying $2.50 for it 

 obtain title to the land. There was some attempt in 

 the act to limit its operations by requiring that the 

 would-be purchaser should make affidavit that the 

 land was entered exclusively for his own use and 



