COMMITTEES ON BEHALF OF THE GOVERNMENT 317 



prospectors for the purpose of clearing the ground. " Nearly 

 every summer their smoke obscured for months the sight of the 

 sun over hundreds of square miles." To this destruction by fire 

 was added a widespread devastation caused by wandering herds 

 of sheep, which ranged about the borders of the forests, stripping 

 the ground bare of seedling trees and growing shrubs, trampling 

 the tender plants, and dislodging the soil on steep mountain 

 slopes. On the unreserved lands, the theft of timber by settlers, 

 mining prospectors, railroad contractors and others had assumed 

 enormous proportions. The Department of the Interior which 

 was charged with the custody of these lands was powerless to 

 stop this plunder of the public domain, owing mainly to defec- 

 tive and conflicting laws and the sentiment of the people in the 

 States and Territories in which the forests are located that they 

 belonged to them and not to the people of the United States as a 

 whole. 



Upon its return from the West, the committee on February i, 

 1897, presented a preliminary report to the Secretary of the 

 Interior, in which it recommended the establishment of thirteen 

 new forest reservations, covering somewhat more than twenty- 

 one million acres, to be added to the seventeen reserves already 

 existing, which comprised seventeen and one-half million acres. 

 This report was forwarded to the President on February 6, 

 1897, by the Secretary of the Interior, David R. Francis, with a 

 favorable recommendation, and on February 22, the i65th 

 anniversary of the birth of Washington, President Cleveland 

 promulgated proclamations establishing the reserves. 



About two months later, on May i, 1897, the committee sub- 

 mitted its complete report on the inauguration of a forest policy, 

 which was transmitted on the same date by President Wolcott 

 Gibbs to the Secretary of the Interior and printed at the Govern- 

 ment Printing Office. 171 This report, which covers 45 printed 

 pages, is comprehensive in scope and contains definite recom- 

 mendations for the establishment of a national forestry service. 



171 See p. 383 ; also Rep. Nat. Acad. Sci. for 1897, pp. 29-73, where the report is printed 

 in full. 



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