1903 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



203 



ments. No better body of men could 

 be found, for instance, than those work- 

 ing under the United States Geological 

 Survey for the work that it has done ; 

 but in the nature of the case this work 

 is temporary. The General Land Office 

 is under the Department of the Interior, 

 and its work could properly be done 

 by the Bureau of Forestry, which is 

 under the Department of Agriculture. 

 All the trained foresters in the employ- 

 ment of the United States, and practi- 

 cally all those in the country, are at- 

 tached to the Department of Agriculture, 

 while the administration of the forest 

 reserves is carried on without the direct 

 participation of any of these trained 

 men. Without going too deeply into 

 the discussion, the following may be 

 briefly stated as reasons why the trans- 

 fer of all federal forest work to the 

 Department of Agriculture should be 

 made : 



In the first place, the Department of 

 Agriculture has already a very impor- 

 tant field of forest work for farmers and 

 others in the introduction of practical 

 forestry on private forest lands. This 

 is a permanent part of this department, 

 and could not be transferred. The in- 

 terests of private owners have already 

 been alluded to, but it may be added 

 that the amount of forests in farms 

 alone is about four times as great as the 

 whole area of the federal forest reserves. 

 It is not contemplated that the question 

 of titles, patents, and ownership should 

 be transferred from the General Land 

 Office. It remains only to be added 

 that the Commissioner of the General 

 Land Office, the Secretary of the Inte- 

 rior, the Secretary of Agriculture, and 

 the President of the United States con- 

 cur in the wisdom of the proposed trans- 

 fer. The national forest reserves are 

 almost wholly on high land, and their 

 importance to the prosperity of the 

 West grows out of their relations to 

 irrigation, manufactures, and to other 

 interests depending on a regular water 

 supply ; to the production of wood, not 

 only for lumber, but for ties and fuel, 

 charcoal and other wood products ; also 

 for the protection they offer to herds 

 and flocks for grazing, and, finally and 

 most important of all, to their retarding 



the melting of the snows and washouts 

 that come from heavy rains. 



TIMBER TESTING. 



Second, the committee earnestly urges 

 adequate appropriations by Congress 

 for the work of timber testing. The 

 importance of this work can hardly be 

 exaggerated. It is of vital moment that 

 the comparative strength of timbers of 

 different sorts should be definitely known 

 by architects and engineers. The ab- 

 sence of this knowledge may cause un- 

 due waste or undue parsimony in the use 

 of timber. In the nature of the case 

 the process is expensive, since many ex- 

 amples of each sort of timber to be tested 

 must be assembled, and the testing de- 

 stroys the value of the timber subjected 

 to it. Further, the reports of any tim- 

 ber test should have the sanction of a 

 department of the United States Govern- 

 ment in order that they may have va- 

 lidity and universal acceptance. Some 

 of this work has already been done; but 

 as new woods are coming into the mar- 

 ket, they should be properly tested and 

 classified with reference to their endur- 

 ance and fitness for various timber pur- 

 pose 5. The committee urges upon the 

 members of this association to bring this 

 matter to the attention of members of 

 Congress. 



A TIMBER CENSUS. 



Third. The committee recommends a 

 census of standing commercial timber in 

 the United States. Notwithstanding 

 the estimates put forth from time to 

 time, it is known by the initiated that 

 there is at present no reliable knowledge 

 of the timber supply. If, for instance, 

 the conclusions of the census of 1 880 had 

 been valid, the entire stock of White 

 Pine in the United States would have 

 been out of existence in 1890, while 

 now, twelve years subsequent to that 

 date, there has been a production in 

 three states of over five thousand million 

 feet. There is an explanation for this 

 great discrepancy, in that no timber 

 trees with a diameter of less than twelve 

 inches were counted in the census re- 

 ferred to, and the growth accumulating 

 on the trees was left out of considera- 



