THE AIPALACHIAN FOKESTS 



363 



his cattle under circumstances which 

 showed that he expected and intended that 

 they would go upon the reserve to graze 

 thereon. Under the facts the court prop- 

 erly granted an injunction. The judg- 

 ment was right on the merits, wholly re- 

 gardless of the question as to whether the 

 Government had enclosed its property. 



This makes it unnecessary to consider how 

 far the United States is required to fence 

 its property, or the other constitutional 

 questions involved. For, as said in Silver 

 V. Louisville d Nashville R. R., 213 U. S., 

 23, "where cases in this court can be de- 

 cided without reference to questions aris- 

 ing under the Federal Constitution that 

 course it usually pursued, and is not de- 

 parted from without important reasons." 

 The decree is therefore aflBrmed. 



SECRETARY WILSON'S COMMENT. 



Secretar>' Wilson, after reviewing the 

 cases said : "I feel very certain now that these 

 questions are so definitely settled, that we 

 shall have no further trouble in regulating 

 the use of National Forest ranges by live 

 stock. Indeed we have had very little for 

 some time, because the stockmen themselves, 

 although originally inclined to resent the 

 interference of the Government with their 

 long and uncontrolled use of the lands 

 now within these forests, have, recently, 

 accepted the situation and are rapidly real- 

 izing that their occupancy of these grazing 

 lands is vastly more satisfactory under 

 present conditions than it was in the old 

 days when these areas were open to all 

 comers and it was a constant struggle to 

 obtain feed for their herds." 



THE APPALACHIAN FORESTS 



Offers of land for the new Appalachian 

 national forests are being received at the 

 Forest Service with encouraging rapidity. 

 The prices range from ?1 to $8 an acre. 

 The Service now has nine men in the field 

 in Georgia, four in North Carolina, and 

 sixteen in the White Mountains, making 

 examinations of tracts that have been 

 offered. On the 12th of May there was in- 

 troduced simultaneously in the House and 

 Senate by Representative Weeks and Sena- 

 tor Gallinger a joint resolution providing 

 that the appropriation of 11,000,000 dollars 

 carried by the Weeks Bill for the fiscal 

 year ending June 30, 1910, and $2,000,000 

 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1911, 

 shall be available for use at any time prior 

 to June 30, 1915. 



If this resolution passes the two houses 

 it will carry out the original intent of the 

 bill, which was to make a total amount of 

 $11,000,000 available for the new national 

 forests to be expended before June 30, 1915. 



There is in the state of Alabama some- 

 thing over 100,000 acres of public land, 

 much of it in the mountainous counties of 

 Northern Alabama, which it is hoped will 

 be withdrawn from entry in accordance 

 with the precedent established in creating 

 the western national forests, and this will 

 make a good nucleus for national forests 

 in that state. 



There has been so much doubt as to the 

 attitude of the Geological Survey in rela- 

 tion to its share in the oi)eration of the 

 new forest law that a statement has been 

 issued by the Director of the Survey, 

 George Otis Smith, which is in substance 

 that the responsibility of the United States 



Geological Survey under the act is set forth 

 in section 6, which provides that preceding 

 any purchase there must be an examination 

 of the land by the Geological Survey, with 

 a favorable report to the Secretary of Agri- 

 culture "showing that the control of such 

 lands will promote or protect the naviga- 

 tion of streams on whose watersheds they 

 lie." In the agreement between the two 

 departments it is set forth that the respon- 

 sibility rests upon the National Forest 

 Reservation Commission to determine what 

 streams are navigable or "may be developed 

 for navigable purposes" within the meaning 

 of this act, and upon the Secretary of Agri- 

 culture to select the navigable streams to 

 be thus protected. 



The Geological Survey, however, is under 

 the law the determinative agent whose cer- 

 tification is necessary to show that control 

 of the land, the purchase of which is con- 

 templated, has some material effect on 

 stream flow and the protection of naviga- 

 bility. The report by the Geological Sur- 

 vey will be based upon the consideration of 

 such questions as whether the tract pos- 

 sesses slope and soil and rock surface of 

 such character that vegetative cover will 

 check or retard runoff, and thereby secure 

 the entrance of the water into the under- 

 ground circulation; whether the topo- 

 graphic and geologic conditions favor seri- 

 ous surface erosion, In the absence of a 

 protective cover of vegetation, of materials 

 of such a character and contributed under 

 such conditions as to reach the navigable 

 portion of the stream ; whether protective 

 cover in the headwater region would pre- 

 vent loss of storage capacity of reservoirs. 



