275] An Aii/t'rirtin Forest Administration. 91 



and puerile, and is really directed, not against a 

 possible forest administration, but against existing 

 methods of filling offices. 



As long as offices are filled for political favors, 

 held as temporary make-shifts, bringing neither 

 honor, adequate pay nor assurance of continuity, this 

 objection may not be without foundation, but it is 

 hoped that the spirit of reform may have gathered 

 strength enough to change conditions by the time 

 this administration is to be organized. 



To meet any objections against the practicability 

 of such an administration on the score of expense, a 

 rough consideration of this question, based, to be 

 sure, on slender facts, may be in place: Allowing 

 50,000,000 acres of timber land reserved, I find that 

 a tolerably efficient administration may be provided 

 for a round 2,500,000, or fi ve cents per acre. 



It would be satisfactory, of course, if only this 

 expense be covered by the revenue. While the annual 

 growth of wood per acre on the reserved area would 

 exceed in value the assumed cost of administration, 

 the consumption is restricted. But when we con- 

 sider that the present saw-mill capacity of the region 

 affected is over three billion feet B. M., and the resi- 

 dent population three million, requiring at least fifty 

 cubic feet of wood material per capita, sufficient 

 margin is assured even if only half of these amounts 

 are furnished from the government timber lands. 



While, then, from a business point of view a national 

 forest administration is entirely practicable, from a 

 governmental and legislative point of view such diffi- 

 culties exist as withdraw themselves from the discus- 

 sion of the uninitiated. Personal considerations and 

 considerations of expediency offer such obstacles to 



