616 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



ship than it now is, and forest conservation will receive one of the greatest 

 encouraj^ements that can be given it. 



This is not a Utopian program. All of its elements are now in hand, 

 and steady and persistent efforts will accomplish the complete result, even in 

 the face of national carelessness and individual irresponsibility. 



NEW ENGLAND'S HOPE DEFERRED 



GEW ENGLAND is deeply and unpleasantly stirred by the failure of the 

 Weeks law to accomplish any immediate results in the protection of the 

 White Mountain forests, and especially by the possibility which has 

 assumed alarming proportions that relief may be imjjossible under the law as 

 it now stands. The state of feeling will surely become visible and audible when 

 the people of that section generally become aware of the facts which are now 

 known to comparatively few. A common impression still is that a law has 

 been passed and anxiety may now be laid aside. That is a customary American 

 attitude. 



It is generally known that the first direct proposal to purchase forests 

 in the northern and southern Appalachians was sidetracked by an opinion 

 of the judiciary committee of the House of Representatives that such a pur- 

 chase would be unconstitutional, but that forests might be purchased on the 

 watersheds of navigable streams if it could be shown that the maintenance 

 of these forests was necessary to protect or promote the navigability of such 

 streams. It is needless here to discuss the merits of this opinion. Its validity 

 as a final judgment is very doubtful. On this point constitutional lawyers 

 differ widely. It was maintained by some strict constructionist lawyers on 

 the committee and outside of it with entire sincerity. It also furnished a 

 good instrument to use with less sincerity in the sharp political game which 

 was played in the House to kill the measure. 



The Weeks bill was constructed to meet this view, for so close w^as the 

 fight in the House that it was useless to go against the judiciary committee. 

 In order to further meet the views of many members who did not know just 

 where they stood, it was provided in the bill that the Geological Survey should 

 pass upon lands, the purchase of which was proposed, reporting as to their 

 relation to the navigability of the streams upon whose watersheds they lie. 

 It may easily be understood that the Survey did not care to be drawn into 

 a matter which had already involved the foresters, the engineers, and the 

 Weather Bureau in endless warfare, but the task was reluctantly assumed in 

 obedience to the will of Congress. 



The practical result is that while the experts of the Survey admit the 

 serious menace of the destruction that is being done in the White Mountains 

 and that this ought to be checked, they could not, according to the last 

 information available, by the method of investigation which they have adopted, 

 connect it with the navigability of the streams heading in those mountains, 

 and there is at present reason to expect a report unfavorable, or only partially 

 favorable on the White Mountain watersheds. The position taken by the 

 Survey is understood to be that the relation of each watershed must be 

 determined by direct examination of that watershed that no other factors are 

 of scientific value and that what has happened on other watersheds in other 

 parts of the world cannot be used to forecast what will happen here. On this 

 ground it must be admitted that the White Mountains stand small chance. 

 The ultimate results of progressive denudation and of the cutting of hard- 



