196 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



April 



tion to the pent-up forces of a movement 

 which had suffered a century's delay. 

 When Congress finally awoke to action 

 in this matter, the public was found back 

 of the movement, and consequently re- 

 sults have followed. 



Prof. William Russell Dudley, of Stan- 

 ford University, California, in addressing 

 the Sierra Club, in 1896, regarding the 

 forest reservations in existence at that 

 date seventeen in number, embracing 

 17,000,000 of acres had occasion to 

 deplore the lamentable contrast between 

 German}' and America in respect to for- 

 estry. He pointed to the fact that, 

 while Germany had forest schools and 

 trained foresters who saw to the protec- 

 tion and rational use of her forests, we 

 had no such schools, no trained forest- 

 ers, and no efficient system for the pro- 

 tection of our forest wealth from fire. 

 To remedy these conditions he urged the 

 immediate withdrawal of all public for- 

 est lands from sale and entry; the survey 

 of it by experts, to determine what por- 

 tions should be permanently reserved; 

 its protection by the United States Army 

 until foresters should be trained; the 

 establishment of forest schools, and the 

 giving of instruction in the principles 

 of forestry at West Point. 



Note the advance made since that 

 date. Today, less than six years since 

 the first appropriation for this service 

 became available, official reports by both 

 the Interior and Agricultural Depart- 

 ments show that nearly every condi- 

 tion suggested by Professor Dudley is 

 already being met. 



In the year just closed, the area of 

 reserved land has been increased to 

 over sixty millions of acres, embraced 

 in fifty-four reservations, while at least 

 twenty-five millions of additional acres 

 have been placed in a state of temporary 

 reservation, with a view to the creation 

 of yet further reserves. A graded forest 

 service, numbering as many as five 

 hundred men during the danger or fire 

 season, is patrolling and administer- 

 ing the affairs of the reserves, one chief 

 result of whose presence is seen in the 

 fact that forest fires are now so well 

 kept in check in government reserves 

 that the local press in various quarters 



has had occasion to call attention to the 

 efficiency of the service. 



In connection with issuing free- use 

 timber permits to a reasonable extent 

 a system of timber sales has been estab- 

 lished which, in results already at- 

 tained, has demonstrated the feasibility 

 of making our public forests return a 

 large revenue to the government in- 

 stead of, as at present, costing yearly 

 an appropriation for their protection. 

 The forests are being improved by clean- 

 ing out the dead and down trees and 

 selling the mature timber; and a practical 

 and scientific system of forestry is 

 guaranteeing the development of the 

 younger timber while securing efficient 

 protection from fire ; to which may 

 be added the fact that a marked de- 

 crease in respect to depredations upon 

 public timber has followed as the direct 

 result of providing legitimate methods 

 of procuring needed timber supplies. 

 The reforesting of denuded areas has 

 been undertaken in various reserves 

 with good results, and the further ex- 

 perimental work of afforesting treeless 

 regions has also been recently entered 

 upon, two reserves having been es- 

 tablished for this work in the sand-hills 

 of Nebraska, where experiments by the 

 Department of Agriculture, pursued 

 during the past ten years, had demon- 

 strated the practicability of artificial 

 forestation. Grazing within the re- 

 serves an important matter in con- 

 nection with the great wool and other 

 industries of the West is being regu- 

 lated, and under recent appropriations, 

 aggregating over eight hundred thou- 

 sand dollars, and which are yearly re- 

 newed, the U. S. Geological Survey is 

 engaged in surveying and permanently 

 establishing the boundaries of the re- 

 serves. 



In the Department of Agriculture an 

 even more important change has been 

 effected in the expansion of the division 

 having charge of scientific forestry into 

 a Bureau of Forestry, with a greatly in- 

 creased appropriation for the conduct of 

 business. This has resulted in a corre- 

 sponding expansion in its field of opera- 

 tions, as seen in the extensive working 

 plans which it is engaged in preparing 



