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AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



203 



application of water to land in Egypt 

 will far exceed the values created by the 

 exclusion of water from land in Holland. 

 Both are Government undertakings. 



In this country the Government has 

 undertaken land reclamation by. exclud- 

 ing water, as by the Mississippi dykes. 

 It has also added to land-values and 

 product-values by the construction of 

 harbors and canals, thus reducing or re- 

 moving freight tariffs or lighterage and 

 landing tariffs The States on, or hav- 

 ing rivers, have been benefited by this 

 policy. So also the Coast States, or 

 those on the Lakes or served by the 

 great Sault Ste. Marie Canal have been 

 benefited; so has the country generally 

 been benefited. 



It is eminently proper that the people's 

 Government should apply this policy to 

 the development of the rich and sunny 

 Western lands that cannot produce and 

 serve mankind without water. In this 

 case the benefit is direct to the public. 

 It is the public land that will be most 

 benefited. It is homes for the people 

 that will be created. It is of course 

 markets and a high productive power 

 population in our own bounds that we 

 thus create. It is the conservative agri- 

 culturist that we thus introduce and 

 encourage to balance the more radical 

 bodies of employes in the great manu- 

 facturing districts. Fifty million such 

 Americans will consume more American 

 products and support more American 

 trade than all our present foreign trade 

 combined. 



Taking the public land area as a whole 

 we find some that is inherently worth- 

 less, some that can be made good and 

 productive, some where forests and their 

 products can be safely used under rea- 

 sonable regulations, some where the 

 forests can only be safeguarded, but not 

 used, as in the chaparral mountains of 

 the South, and a wide district that is at 

 present used for pasturage, excessive and 

 premature. The pastures thus constantly 

 deteriorate and carry less stock. 



The public land pastures have deteri- 

 orated and are deteriorating in stock and 

 sheep carrying power. Fighting and dis- 



order is everywhere present among the 

 pasture users. Sometimes they have 

 wars. These stock and sheep men, as 

 far as seen, welcomed a proposed system 

 of leasing the public lands appropriate 

 to pasture, under judicious restriction as 

 to the number of stock permitted on 

 each section and the time of year when 

 the stock should go on. The public lands 

 in California have a present value for 

 pasturage that varies with seasons. It is 

 estimated to have an annual rental value 

 of not less than $250, 000 and may ex- 

 ceed half a million dollars. Its rental 

 value varies with the seasonal rainfall. 

 The stockmen would be glad to pay rent 

 and thus know upon what feed they could 

 rely, without the present accompani- 

 ments of murder and arson. 



Those districts where pasturage in- 

 jures the water-sheds could have the stock 

 reduced to a safe number by reasonable 

 regulation or entirely removed. 



When we consider the vital impor- 

 tance of the entire forest question, and 

 past and present precedent in the matter 

 of forestry and irrigation; when we con- 

 sider the effect of forest denudation in 

 filling up navigable rivers and harbors, 

 the importance of water to miners, to 

 cities and to irrigators; when we further 

 reflect on the empire at our hand and in 

 our borders to be created by irrigation 

 works, we can agree that forests, reser- 

 voirs and public land management all 

 go hand in hand. 



The land system as a unit can be self- 

 supporting and revenue producing. All 

 interests can be fairly dealt with and the 

 country brought to its highest productive 

 power. 



Those who engage in promoting this 

 great work have strenuous efforts before 

 them; they deserve the garlands of re- 

 ward as civic patriots as much or more 

 than those who foment distant foreign 

 wars. The conquest of this empire 

 within our bounds for our own children 

 is more useful, more profitable, more 

 secure and more glorious than any for- 

 eign conquests can ever be. 



Abbot Kinney, 



Los Angeles. Cal. 



