102 PACIFIC STATES FLORAL CONGRESS. 



extinction threatening him, his disregard of everything but temporary 

 success is but natural to human activity. 



We are disposed, therefore, to ascribe the present unorganized con- 

 dition of our great forest interests in the west, to the neglect of our 

 legislative bodies, and particularly of Congress. It has been demon- 

 strated by every progressive nation of Europe, by France, by Ger- 

 many, by Switzerland, by British India that it is commercially 

 profitable for nations, and for communities, as well as for individuals, 

 to administer this great natural resource on scientific principles. It 

 would, therefore, be no hazardous experiment for us to try it.^ 



During the past five years a great public sentiment has sprung up 

 in favor of a rational treatment of the interests of our forests. This has 

 been led and supported by a devoted company of educated foresters in the 

 Bureau of Forestry at Washington, to whom and to other men of 

 science we owe the influence that has led to the reservation from sale 

 or entry of 47.000,000 acres of national forest land. But up to the 

 present time, Congress has ignored the example of other nations, has 

 neglected public sentiment and the advice of experts, and therefore 

 derives no income from its woods, and has taken no steps to insure the 

 continuance of the forest over denuded areas, naturally fit only for the 

 growth of timber. 



There stands ready at Washington a body of educated men, under 

 a chief forester who is one of the most devoted, intelligent, and tactful 

 of American men of science, which is ready to examine every wooded 

 area on the national domain, and furnish the government working 

 plans as to the management of the same. On the other hand, here are 

 the forests waiting to yield a handsome revenue to the State, and a 

 great people ardently desiring that the one shall be placed under the 

 management of the other. It is little short of ridiculous that a body 

 of statesmen should not take time to pass a law which shall be the 

 means of bringing order and profit to a nation's domain, where nov 

 exist only neglect, expense, and the danger of destruction. 



Let us look for a few moments at our own state, ascertain thf- dis- 

 tribution of our own timber areas, the composition of them, and the 

 several ways in which forestry, through its experts, might best adapt 

 them to the best interests of our people. The woods of this state 

 are practically all coniferous, and there are few forest-makers, indeed, 

 which are not pines, firs, spruces, and cypresses, or related to them. 

 There are two marked areas, the one where the forests normally 

 inhabit the valleys or broadened plains of rivers flowing toward our 

 west and northwest coast; the other where the forests are normally on 

 the high mountains or on the elevated plateaus between mountains. 

 The first is the redwood belt extending from the Oregon border to Mon- 



