54 6 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



O 



A Bluff Called by the rectification of boundaries, which 



is going on rapidly as a result of care- 



N ANOTHER page is printed an f u i surveys, a work of which the readers 



address delivered by the Forester o f this magazine are kept informed 



of the United States before the Den- f rom mO nth to month. Ample provision 



ver Real Estate Exchange on the 3d must be made for administrative pur- 



of August. Frequent attacks have been poses, as Mr. Graves points out, be- 



made upon the Forest Service for its cause a force of rangers and other em- 



alleged policy of shutting homesteaders payees must be maintained for the good 



out of the public lands, thwarting the o f t he forest, and it may be added that 



ambition of the pioneer, and checking t he welfare and proper maintenance of 



the development of the country. This these men are just as important as those 



agitation has been especially active in o f any ot her settlers. 

 Colorado, where the high altitude some- j n v j ew o f these facts, and knowing 



times engenders marked extravagance t i ie honest purpose of the Service and 



of language. It is characteristic of the t he character of the man at the head 



direct, incisive methods of the Forester o f j t , it may safely be predicted that he 



that he went straight to the storm center w ju b e equally successful in other cases, 



and examined the situation on the or that any real wrongs that exist will 



ground in company with some of the b e righted as far as the laws permit. 

 severest critics of the Service. To those 



who have had knowledge of the real sit- & & % 



nation it has been known all along that 



the harsh criticisms that have been made Terrific Fire Losses 



have been due in part to exceptional 



cases of over-zealous administration, but I 1 NLESS the general reports of for- 



chiefly to persistent misrepresentations, U est fires are more than usually un- 



combined with a certain amount of mis- reliable, the summer of 1910 will leave 



understanding of the laws, the condi- a conspicuously evil record of irrep- 



tions, and the real purpose of the ad- arable damage done. The known losses 



ministrators. The latest advices indi- are appalling 



cate that Mr. Graves has been able to Early in the season great dryness 



go upon the ground and disprove, even started the mischief ahead of time, and 



to the critics of the Forest Service, so throughout some of the choicest timber 



far as the Colorado forests are con- regions of the northwest the flames have 



cerned, the charges that have been so been ra g a most continuously ever 



vociferously made. Admitting that the ?mce. From Wisconsin and Michigan 



land pointed out to him is agricultural, * as recently reported on trustworthy 



he has shown that, instead of amounting a uthonty that, even if every fire in the 



to "millions of acres withheld from set- countI 7 w ^e then extinguished, and no 



tlement," it amounts to some patches of more sho , uld start during the rest of the 



a few thousand acres, isolated and in season, the summer would go down in 



high altitudes, the applications for which history as the costliest that lumbermen 



have been few, while some of the claims have . ever known. The Portland Ore- 



taken up have been abandoned by the goman toward the end of July, estl- 



settlers. These facts make the sound- mated that the t tal ! oss m t imbe f and 



ing charges that have been made look {^P^Jft, to & at * me f m A Z~ 



,, -^ , TT lumbia, Idaho, Washington, and north- 



small indeed Under the Forest Home- em California at $IOO ^ O>OOO , or double 



stead Law of 1906, land suitable for cul- thg average annual fire toll . and Mon . 



tivation is made available for settlers tana< where enormous losses are being 



as far as applications are made for it, suffered as this magazine goes to press, 



and agricultural lands on the outskirts was n ot included. 



of the forests are being eliminated from August 2, in accordance with tele- 



the forests and thrown open to settlement graphed requests from the Western Pine 



