200 



THE FORESTER. 



September, 



The Forest Problem In The West. 



Being a Paper Read at the Summer Meeting, Los Angeles, Cal., 1899. 



(number five of the series.) 



by the president of the forest and water society of southern california. 



The economic interest of the Ameri- 

 can people in their forests everywhere, 

 and especially in the West, is to preserve 

 the integrity and water-holding power of 

 the mountain water-sheds of the country. 

 This is clearly the public interest, whether 

 these mountain water-sheds could or 

 could not support by their products and 

 wise use a system of management guaran- 

 teeing the integrity of their water- hold- 

 ing power. The public interest is both 

 economic and humanitarian in preserv- 

 ing the mountain forest covering. With- 

 out forest preservation most of our re- 

 maining wild public land districts cannot 

 be settled, and districts already settled 

 are likely to lose in man sustaining 

 power. This has occurred already over 

 wide areas of the world from undue 

 forest denudation, on the one side by the 

 irregular or exhausted water supply and 

 on the other by the destructive action of 

 flood and torrent through sudden rain- 

 fall delivery from bared areas. The 

 proper preservation of forest balance 

 does not require that ripe timber should 

 not be cut, or that other uses, such as 

 mining, should not be enjoyed. 



The interest and requirements of dis- 

 tricts vary in what treatment of forested 

 areas is most advantageous. In most of 

 the West and in all of the Southwest, 

 the conditions of topography, rainfall 

 and climate exact the highest care and 

 treatment of the comparatively small 

 forested area, all of which in the South- 

 west is on mountains or high plateaus 

 only. 



In this district it were better, for the 

 country and for its people, that no use 

 should be made of forest lands or for- 

 est products than to have the forests 

 wasted and burned as at present is gen- 

 erally being done. 



However, no such drastic remedy as 

 the isolation of the forests from human 



use is necessary. Under a proper and 

 intelligent forest system the integrity of 

 the water-sheds can be safely maintained, 

 and yet plenty of use can be found for 

 both land and products; uses that can 

 go on without fatal results to the forested 

 area. 



It is only in the extreme southwestern 

 mountains that the conditions are such 

 as to counter-indicate the cutting of any 

 timber or even firewood in the mount- 

 ains. But even here mining, resorts, 

 power companies and irrigation works 

 can be established with no disadvantage 

 to the trees or chaparral, but rather to 

 their increased safety. The nation can 

 gain by preserving its forests in safe 

 proportion, and can in no way consent 

 to see this proportion of safety to its 

 people diminished. The nation will 

 gain by forest preservation even though 

 the system be without any resources or 

 power of self-sustenance. 



While forestry has become a living 

 issue in the Atlantic States, through the 

 depletion of perennial flow of springs 

 and streams and increased flood action, 

 and probably by greater and increasingly 

 injurious extremes of frost and heat aris- 

 ing from forest destruction, in the West 

 and Southwest effective forestry is a 

 question of life or death. 



With irrigated districts, present or 

 prospective, the conservation of the 

 Forest Natural Reservoirs is at least as 

 important as the conservation of any 

 part of the rainfall by artificial storage 

 diversion or distributing systems. 



The lands on the mountains and water- 

 sheds in this part of the United States 

 are in large part Federal public lands. 

 By the extensive reservation of forested 

 mountain lands from sale or settlement, 

 the Federal Government has committed 

 itself to a rational forest system. What 

 the situation demands and what the 



