1906 FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 451 



vigorous execution of the present law When it has been found that a cloud 



will protect the public domain and the has been fraudulently placed on the 



legitimate miner. The co-operative Government's title to the public land, 



investigation on mineral-land claims the persons responsible should be held 



by the Departments of the Interior liable for the expense which their il- 



and of Agriculture, now in operation, legal efforts has forced the Govern- 



insure such execution. ment to incur. 



FOREST RESOURCES AND THE PUBLIC 



WELFARE 



An Address Made Before the Annual Kentucky State Develop- 

 ment Convention, Winchester, Kentucky, October 1 2, 1 906 



BY 



HERBERT A. SMITH 



Editor, U. S. Forest Service 



\Y/E have lately passed through a notable. By 1950 we bid fair to be a 

 ** half century of industrial devel- nation of 200,000,000 souls. We have 

 opment almost unparalleled in human covered the land with our farms, yet 

 history. In 1850 our population was it is now apparent that we have no 

 23,000,000, in 1900, 76,000,000. In more than scratched the surface of its 

 1850 our farm acreage was less than productive power. By the use of ir- 

 300,000,000, in 1900 over 800,000,000 rigation we may plant empires in the 

 while the value of our farm property desert, while by improved methods of 

 was less than $4,000,000,000 as cultivation we have it in our reach 

 against over $20,000,000,000 at the to increase the yield of our present 

 latter period. Our manufactures farms many fold. Our manufactures 

 make a still more remarkable show- are still increasing at a rate that 

 ing. The wage earners employed staggers the imagination to keep pace 

 have risen from one to five millions, with, and instead of having to supply 

 while the capital invested multiplied our needs from other countries we 

 twenty times in the half century are invading the markets of the 

 from $500,000,000 to nearly $10,000,- world. Electricity promises to rival 

 000,000. It is chiefly within this half in the next half century the marvels 

 century that our railroads have spread which steam wrought in the last, while 

 their network over the land, and steam our vast supplies of iron and coal, 

 has revolutionized the whole world the two main pillars of present-day 

 of industry. In brief, then, these fifty industrial supremacy, insures us such 

 years have seen an immense expan- an immediate future as no other na- 

 sion of agriculture coupled with the tion can hope to rival, 

 sudden growth of a colossal manu- Yet there is another class of con- 

 facturing interest, and naturally along siderations which demands our atten- 

 with these an accompanying develop- tion. One of our most sagacious men 

 ment of transportation. of affairs has lately been calling to 

 Who can doubt as we seek to read our notice the clanger of exhaustion 

 the future in the light of the present, of many of our resources upon which 

 that the first half of the twentieth prosperity depends. The very rapid- 

 century will see a progress equally ity of national growth of which we 



