498 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION. 



December, 



for perennial irrigation. But the pro- 

 vision of perennial irrigation is not the 

 only object for which this type of dam 

 may be employed. Provided with its 

 numerous flood openings, it may be 

 looked upon as a weir capable of con- 

 trolling the mightiest rivers in flood just 

 as ordinary weirs control them in times 

 of low suppl}-; it may thus be utilized 

 for the regulation of flood supplies of 

 rivers and for their employment in basin 

 or inundation irrigation. As designed 

 for Assuan, its use is restricted to sites 

 where broad platforms of sound rock 



can be counted upon, but designed in 

 * beton armee ' or ' ribbed concrete. ' I 

 hope to see it utilized in narrow gorges 

 and throttled valleys, where ^20 will 

 go as far as ^50 in a broad platform." 

 Unfortunately, in America the char- 

 acteristics of our rivers, their floods and 

 the amount of sediment carried, are not 

 as well known as they should be ; but 

 each year adds volumes to our knowl- 

 edge of these streams, and by the time 

 any extensive system is to be put in op- 

 eration our knowledge will be much 

 more complete. 



THE FUTURE OF OUR PUBLIC FOREST 



LANDS. 



A SUGGESTION FOR THE CONSIDERATION OF THE AMERI- 

 CAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



BY 



FILIBERT ROTH, 



CHIEF OF DIVISION OF FOREST RESERVES, GENERAL LAND OFFICE. 



IN an article which appeared in For- 

 estry AND Irrigation for Jan- 

 uary, 1902, entitled "The Immediate 

 Future in Forest Work," Mr. Gifford 

 Pinchot, Chief of the Bureau of For- 

 estry, U. S. Department of Agriculture, 

 made the statement : 



"Another of the essentials of the im- 

 mediate future is the extension of the 

 forest-reserve system. That may be 

 said to be the first great need of forest 

 work in this country at present." 



Undoubtedly, it is the first great need 

 of such work. The demand for the im- 

 mediate withdrawal from further dis- 

 posal of all forest lands, and for their 

 proper treatment by the government, 

 has become urgent from, practically, all 

 quarters if we except land-grabbers, 

 lumber syndicates, and other .speculative 

 concerns engaged in colossal schemes 

 of pillage and plunder on the public 

 domain. National protection for our 

 public forests is now the demand of the 

 people ; and when it can be said that 

 the public demands forest protection, 

 *he time for action has arrived. 



Thus far, the government can scarcely 

 be said to have fairly entered upon a 

 national forest polic5^ The work so 

 far has been upon altogether too limited 

 a scale to justify the term. Up to this 

 time it has been confined to merely seg- 

 regating tracts of land, here and there, 

 in various sections of the country, while 

 leaving the great mass of its forested 

 lands to waste and destruction. Such a 

 policy is far from sufficient. The Com- 

 missioner of the General Uand Office 

 pointed this out recently when he said : 



' ' To set apart and protect a few scat- 

 tering areas of forested lands, while leav- 

 ing the great body of such lands to be 

 j^earl}' swept by conflagrations, is clearly 

 not to take care of our great reaches of 

 forest lands in any adequate sense of the 

 term. 



' ' The immediate benefits resulting 

 from the application of a forest service 

 in the respective reserves has served in 

 the nature of a demonstration of the 

 importance of extending the service 

 over all the forested lands of the gov- 

 ernment. It accordingly appears that 



