208 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



May 



Governor McLane was followed by 

 Mr. Theophi!'"" ^arsons, of Boston, 

 chairman of the Massachusetts dele- 

 gation, who spoke on the manufactur- 

 ing interests and water powers as af- 

 fected by the forest reserve problem, 

 particularly in Xew England. As a 

 representative from the South, Major 

 Augustine T. Smythe, of Charleston, 

 S. C., spoke along the same lines, pre- 

 senting much valuable information as 

 regards the depreciation in values of 

 water powers as a direct result of the 

 cutting of timber. The effect of the 

 denudation of the forests on the navi- 

 gation interests was discussed by Mr. 

 C. C. Goodrich, General Manager of 

 the Hartford and New York Trans- 

 portation Company, Hartford, Conn., 

 speaking for New England, and Prof. 

 L. C. Glenn, of Vanderbilt University, 

 Nashville, Tenn., on the part of the 

 South. Dr. Eugene Allen Smith, 

 State Geologist of Alabama, also 

 touched on this subject and the extent 

 of the damage wrought to the shipping 

 interests of the South. Prof. J. H. 

 Stewart, Director of the Agricultural 

 Experiment Station, Morgantown, W. 

 Ya., explained the interest of the farm- 

 er in the proposed Southern reserve. 



Rev. Edward Everett Hale, Chap- 

 lain of the Senate, and a pioneer in the 

 movement for the White Mountain 

 Reserve, made the opening speech of 

 the second day's session, on April 26. 

 Agricultural Commissioner E. J. Wat- 

 son, of South Carolina, was called upon 

 to explain the relation of agriculture 

 to forestry, and to discuss the effect of 

 forest denudation upon agricultural 

 prosperity. Mr. Harvev N. Sheppard, 

 of Boston, representing the Appala- 

 chian Mountain Club, urged, in a 

 brilliant address, the creation of the 

 reserves as a breathing space for the 

 crowded inhabitants of the thickly set- 

 tled East. Governor R. B. Glenn 

 closed the arguments in an eloquent 

 appeal for prompt action. 



The hearing in its entirety was a re- 

 markable one. There has seldom been 

 called together for a like purpose viz., 

 to plead for action by Congress on any 

 measure a set of men speaking for 



so many varied interests, and repre- 

 senting so much invested capital in the 

 industries which have in a large meas- 

 ure brought America to the front as a 

 producing nation. 



As matters now stand for the action 

 in Congress on the bill for these re- 

 serves cannot be had before the next 

 session. But meantime the many 

 friends of the measure should continue 

 actively at work in creating sentiment 

 favorable to its passage. It is only 

 the strongly expressed wish of the peo- 

 ple that will bring final and favorable 

 action. Much headway was made the 

 past twelve months, and at no time 

 since the geginning of this movement 

 has the outlook for success been so 

 bright. 



Forest Service According to such a high 

 s u "? " technical authority as 



the Mississippi Valley 

 Lumbermen : "The first report of lum- 

 ber statistics gathered by the Forest 

 Service of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, and presented at the annual meet- 

 ing of the National Lumber Manufac- 

 turers' Association, at St. Louis, though 

 admittedly incomplete, makes so good a 

 showing as to- warrant the belief that 

 this section of Government work will 

 become immensely valuable during 

 coming years. ' ' It further comments as 

 follows : "Those who have, in the past, 

 attempted to gather statistics of this 

 character from a comparatively small 

 area of country know the difficulties 

 that must be overcome even where the 

 compilers have personal knowledge of 

 the business and personal acquaintance 

 with a very large proportion of those 

 from whom the information must be 

 obtained. Errors of commission and 

 errors of omission have not been miss- 

 ing from the statistics compiled by the 

 lumber trade journals that have been 

 engaged in this class of work for more 

 than a quarter of a century. Persist- 

 ent effort in the form of second, third 

 and fourth requests have failed to 

 bring reports from many manufactur- 

 ers, and after an almost complete de- 

 gree of accuracy was reached in the 

 Northern pine statistics, the manufac- 



