52 ANNUAL REPORT OF 



of fires in a dry and dangerous season. This, it must be 

 remembered, is for an extraordinary season. For ordi- 

 nary seasons the appropriation, as I have stated at the 

 beginning of this report, should be increased. 



WHAT IS FOREST PRESERVATION. 



The greater part of the standing timber in this country 

 belongs to private owners, who will cut it as fast as they 

 find a good market. 



When a timber tree has ceased to earn good interest 

 by its growth, it has reached its fiscal age, and ought to 

 be cut. 



What we mean, then, by forest preservation is the pro- 

 tection of forests from fire, the reservation and treatment 

 on forestry principles of such of the remaining public 

 timber lands as are better adapted for forestry than for 

 agriculture, and the acquisition by states by purchase of 

 any considerable tracts of private nonagricultural lands in 

 their limits, especially at the sources of rivers, and hold- 

 ing and using the same for forestry. 



Strictly speaking, forestry looks only at dollars and 

 cents. At the same time, it yields indirect benefits 

 which concern everyone. The forest beautifies landscape, 

 improves climate, enriches soil, maintains water courses, 

 makes covert for game, affords means of recreation. 



The significance of forestry is that it utilizes waste 

 land land that is too hilly, too rocky or too sandy for 

 agriculture. If a forest of pine should now be started on 

 such land it would in eighty years reach merchantable 

 size. The population of this country increases eighteen 

 per cent every ten years. By the time the forest had 

 matured our population would be 287,000,000. What an 

 increased demand for forest products at that period! 



