257] Condition of Forests on the PuU'u: Lands. 73 



benefit, and by not allowing any association of indi- 

 viduals to enter more than 160 acres, nor could any 

 member of such association make an individual 

 entry. But under this act a very large percentage 

 of the entries made have been made by laborers in 

 the employ of mill companies for those companies, 

 and in one case which came under my observation 

 it was the practice of a lumber company to hire the 

 entire crew of any vessel which might happen to 

 touch at any port to enter pieces of timber land and 

 deed them to the company at once, the company pay- 

 ing all expenses and giving the entryman $50 for 

 his trouble. By such methods have our unequalled 

 red-wood forests been absorbed by foreign and resi- 

 dent capitalists. 



From this statement of the condition of the public 

 timber lands of the United States but one conclusion 

 can be drawn; that is, a new departure in the man- 

 agement by the government of its forest property 

 is imperative. The time now seems ripe for the 

 introduction of some intelligent policy in the 

 management of our public timber lands. Some 

 of the very men who have been the devastators of 

 our finest forests begin to see the folly of their 

 course, and fear that soon there will be no material 

 for the lumber trade. They are ready and willing to 

 pay the government a reasonable price for timber 

 which can be properly sold, and aver that some sys- 

 tem by which they can cut under authority of law is 

 a necessity, being desirous of doing away with the 

 subterfuges of the past. The more intelligent pioneers 

 of the arid regions realize that the regular flow of the 

 streams throughout the whole season, furnishing 

 the water for irrigation through the summer drouth; 



