50 FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION January 



public timbered lands at the uniform rational forest policy, by which the title 

 price of $2.50 per acre, when they are to the public timber lands shall remain 

 in many instances worth forty times forever in the government, the stump- 

 that ($100), has been heretofore- set age only to be disposed of, at its mar- 

 forth in the pages of my annual re- ket value, 

 ports and those of my predecessors." Under such a plan as this, and under 



As far back as 1902 the commission- an agreement whereby one-half the 



er of the General Land Office said in proceeds could be devoted to the For- 



his annual report : est Service and the other half to the 



"Many lands which the government irrigation fund, two policies of great 



disposed of a few years ago for $2.50 internal improvement and importance 



per acre are now worth $100 an acre,, could be generously maintained, while 



or even more. K at the same time the forestry question 



"Under this law the government has would be to a great extent solved, pub- 

 disposed of more than 5,000,000 acres lie forest lands being lumbered in such 

 of valuable timbered lands, and has manner as to preserve the young 

 received therefore about $13,000,000. growth and leave the forests as a per- 

 The law has been too often violated, petual source of income to the nation 

 Individuals without funds of their own and at the same time conserve the 

 have been employed to make entries water supply. 



for others with large capital, and who If the $100,000,00 which have been 



paid the expenses, and some wealthy lost to the government under the above 



speculators have made enormous for- showing were at hand, a score or more 



tunes. of enormous irrigation projects could 



"Considering the forests simply as be immediately constructed, reclaiming 

 property whose only use is to be con- from 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 acres of 

 verted into lumber and other material desert land, and enormous areas of 

 of commercial value, the government eastern forest reserves created through 

 has disposed of them at an actual loss the purchase of mountain timber lands 

 of considerably more than $100,000,- east of the Mississippi. 

 000. In other words, through the op- I n this connection, your committee 

 eration of this law public property is much impressed with the importance 

 worth much more than $130,000,000 of the creation of federal, forest re- 

 has been disposed of for about $13,- serves to preserve the water supply of 

 000,000. eastern streams, upon the continued 



Since that report was made, nearly flow of which depends much of our 

 4,000,000 additional acres have been manufacturing industries. The west- 

 disposed of under this law, the value ern half of the United States has over 

 of timber land in the meantime con- 100,000,000 acres set aside in national 

 stantly increasing. forest reserves, as a source of future 



But estimating the values only of timber supply and for the preservation 

 the 4,709,860 acres of timber lands dis- of the flow of streams for irrigation ; 

 posed of in the last five years, and at but the East has no such an advantage, 

 only $25 per acre, the government has. whereas the menace to her water sup- 

 in that time, parted with the title to ply from forest destruction is equally 

 land worth $117,746,500. The price as great. Large areas in the Southern 

 received for this land has been at the Appalachian and White Mountain 

 uniform rate of $2.50 per acre, or $11,- ranges should be created into forest 

 774,650, a loss to the government of reserves. 



over $100,000,000. Your committee In a speech at Raleigh, N. C, on 



endorses the recommendation of the October 20 last, President Roosevelt 



President and his Public Lands Com- said : "It is the upper altitudes of the 



mission for the repeal of this Timber forested mountains that are most val- 



and Stone act and the substitution of a uable to the nation as a whole, e?pecial- 



