420 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



September 



The land-grabbers are very wide 

 awake, while the general public is not, 

 and the danger is that it may not be 

 until too late. The remedy rests with 

 Congress, and Congress will not act 

 until public opinion insists upon its 

 acting. The efforts thus far made in 

 Congress looking to a cure for this evil 

 have been thwarted by the friends of 

 the speculators in Congress, who are at 

 all times very active. The land laws 

 should be repealed along the lines laid 

 down by President Roosevelt in his mes- 

 sage to the last session of the 57th Con- 

 gress. The time to act is now. 



Kicking In Wyoming certain 



About Forest residents are howling 

 Reserves. loudly against the ex- 



tension of the bounda- 

 ries of the Yellowstone Forest Reserve. 

 They protest that the extension of the 

 reserve interferes with the pasturing of 

 their sheep and cattle, and that the 

 live-stock industry in this section is thus 

 greatly retarded. Their protests smack 

 a good deal of the ignorance of the real 

 object of setting aside forest reserves 

 that has been heard in other sections of 

 the West. The reserves are made to 

 furnish timber and to conserve water. 

 It is not meant that the public domain 

 shall be given over to large cattle and 

 sheep ranchers to the exclusion of the 

 balance of the people. And this is 

 exactly where the protest originates. 

 Long and unrestricted use of the public 

 lands for private interests has bred a 

 class who have no respect for the law, 

 and who oppose the government in every 

 step it makes in trying to administer 

 the remaining public resources for the 

 benefit of all the people. A favorite 

 trick of this class to cover their designs 

 is to shriek out against the supposed 

 injustice that forest reserves do to the 

 small settler. This is highly ridiculous, 

 for were the small settler where the 

 average large rancher wished him, he 

 would need the sympathy and help of 

 all of us. 



That the forest reserves are of great 

 value in preserving the water and tim- 

 ber resources of the West is indisputable. 

 Considering the great area they cover 



and the number of people they affect, 

 the amount of inconvenience they cause 

 is unusually small. The rules govern- 

 ing the reserves are liberal. They allow 

 settlers a reasonable amount of free 

 timber ; mineral claims may be devel- 

 oped, and the owners of agricultural 

 lands within the borders of reserves 

 are protected. Grazing also is per- 

 mitted under proper restrictions in 

 nearly all the reserves. But the govern- 

 ment is breaking up the stealing of 

 timber as a business and the fencing of 

 public grazing lands by ranchers. This 

 brings the bulk of the opposition to for- 

 est reserves. 



President Roosevelt, in increasing the 

 reserves, is merely carrying out the 

 policy of every Executive since the in- 

 auguration of the forest reserve policy 

 under President Harrison. He has a 

 more intimate knowledge of the condi- 

 tions and needs of the West than any 

 previous Executive, and for this very 

 good reason his work along this line 

 will be of greater value. 



Take away the howl of the ' ' graft- 

 ers ' ' and the opposition to forest re- 

 serves will crumble. A perusal of the 

 Forest Reserve Manual issued by the 

 Department of the Interior by any fair- 

 minded person will convince them of the 

 fairness of the government's side of the 

 matter. 



Want Forest In striking contrast to 

 Reserves* the foregoing claims 



that forest reserves are 

 ruining their country is a petition re- 

 cently received by the Department of 

 the Interior. This petition, signed by 

 95 per cent of the male residents of the 

 Teton Basin, lying in Fremont and 

 Bingham counties, Idaho, and just out- 

 side the boundaries of the much criti- 

 cised Yellowstone Forest Reserve, asks 

 that this region be set aside as a forest 

 reserve. 



The petitioners give as reasons for 

 their request that reckless lumbering is 

 ruining both old and young timber, 

 overgrazing is having a decidedly bad 

 effect on water supply, and that herders 

 have been responsible for forest fires 

 that have done great damage to the 



