490 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION. 



December, 



a member of the National Forestry Commission by President Cleveland, and assisted in outlining 

 the boundaries of the great reserves proclaimed at that time. Mr. Pinchot has written a number 

 of oflficial reports and privatel}^ printed books, the most notable of these being ' ' The Primer of 

 Forestry," "The White Pine," and "The Adirondack Spruce." His executive duties as chief 

 of the Bureau of Forestry keep him actively engaged in the forest, alternating with work at 

 the Washington headquarters. His assistants are scattered in every part of the United States, 

 and are rapidly developing plans and methods for conserving the forest reserves of the country 

 and putting them to their best use. 



THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE. 



PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT again 

 showed his great interest in the 

 questions of forestry and irrigation by 

 giving them a prominent place in his 

 recent message to Congress. The part 

 of the message devoted to these subjects 

 is reprinted here : 



"Few subjects of more importance 

 have been taken up by the Congress in 

 recent years than the inauguration of 

 the system of nationally aided irrigation 

 for the arid regions of the far west. A 

 good beginning therein has been made. 

 Now that this policy of national irriga- 

 tion has been adopted, the need of thor- 

 ough and scientific forest protection will 

 grow more rapidly than ever through- 

 out the public-land states. 



' ' Legislation should be provided for 

 the protection of the game, and the 

 wild creatures generall}^ on the forest 

 reserves. The senseless slaughter of 

 game, which can by judicious protec- 

 tion be permanently preserved on our 

 national reserves for the people as a 

 whole, should be stopped at once. It 

 is, for instance, a serious count against 

 our national good sense to permit the 

 present practice of butchering off such 

 a stately and beautiful creature as the 

 elk for its antlers or tusks. 



' ' So far as they are available for agri- 

 culture, and to whatever extent they 

 may be reclaimed under the national 

 irrigation law, the remaining public 

 lands should be held rigidly for the 

 home-builder, the settler who lives on 

 his land, and for no one else. In their 

 actual use the desert-land law, the tim- 

 ber and stone law, and the commuta- 

 tion clause of the homestead law have 

 been so perverted from the intention 

 with which they were enacted as to per- 

 mit the acquisition of large areas of the 

 ptiblic domain for other than actual set- 

 tlers and the consequent prevention of 

 settlement. Moreover, the approaching 



exhaustion of the public ranges has of 

 late led to much discussion as to the 

 best manner of using these public lands 

 in the west which are suitable chiefly 

 only for grazing. The sound and steady 

 development of the west depends upon 

 the building up of homes therein. Much 

 of our prosperity as a nation has been 

 due to the operation of the homestead 

 law. On the other hand, we should 

 recognize the fact that in the grazing 

 region the man who corresponds to the 

 homesteader ma}^ be unable to settle 

 permanently if only allowed to use the 

 same amount of pasture land that his 

 brother, the homesteader, is allowed 

 to use of arable land. One hundred 

 and sixty acres of fairly rich and well 

 watered soil, or a much smaller amount 

 of irrigated land, may keep a family in 

 plenty, whereas no one could get a liv- 

 ing from 1 60 acres of dry pasture land 

 capable of supporting at the outside 

 only one head of cattle to every ten 

 acres. In the past great tracts of the 

 public domain have been fenced in bj^ 

 persons having no title thereto, in direct 

 defiance of the law forbidding the main- 

 tenance or construction of any such un- 

 lawful inclosure of public land. For 

 various reasons there has been little in- 

 terference with such inclosures in the 

 past, but ample notice has now been 

 given the trespassers, and all the re- 

 sources at the command of the govern- 

 ment will hereafter be used to put a 

 stop to such trespassing. 



' ' In view of the capital importance of 

 these matters, I commend to the earnest 

 consideration of the Congress, and if 

 the Congress finds difficulty in dealing 

 with them from lack of thorough knowl- 

 edge of the subject, I recommend that 

 provision be made for a commission of 

 experts specially to investigate and re- 

 port upon the complicated questions 

 involved." 



