1906 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



553 



posed of for immediate or early re- 

 moval nearly 300,000,000 board feet of 

 lumber at stumpage prices ranging up 

 to $4 per thousand (besides other ma- 

 terial to a large value), as against 96,- 

 060,258 board feet, with a maximum 

 price of $2.50 per thousand in 1904-5, 

 and 69,257,710 board feet in 1903-4. 

 The number of free-use permits grant- 

 ed in the same years also showed 

 progressive increase. In the year 

 1904-5 the reserves were under Forest 

 Service control only after February 1. 

 One fiscal year of full control has 

 established two important facts that 

 the reserves advance the present inter- 

 ests of the people of the West and that 

 they will speedily pay the cost of ad- 

 ministering them. 



BENEFIT TO INDUSTRY. 



These national forests are being 

 made useful now. The benefits which 

 they are to secure are not deferred 

 benefits. Through Government con- 

 trol the interests of the future are 

 safeguarded, but not by sacrificing 

 those of the present. Far from handi- 

 capping the development of the states 

 in which they lie, the reserves will 

 powerfully promote development. 

 They work counter to the prosecution 

 of no industry, and retard the bene- 

 ficial use of no resource. 



The wealth of the West lies, and 

 will long lie, in what the soil will pro- 

 duce and in what the earth hides. La- 

 bor and capital will here find employ- 

 ment mainly in turning to use the 

 farm land, grazing land^ timber land, 

 and mineral ands of the region, and in 

 the commerce to which these great 

 productive industries will give rise. 

 That the reserves beneficially affect all 

 of these industries is becoming clearer 

 to the peope of the West every day, 

 and in consequence the policy of pub- 

 lic administration of our unappropri- 

 ated timber lands becomes more and 

 more firmly etsabushed in the ap- 

 proval of a united public sentiment. 

 Local sentiment has sometimes been 

 unfavorable to the creation of reserves 

 before their effect upon the public wel- 

 fare was understood ; but opposition 



has always dissolved under the test 

 of actual experience. 



PROMOTION OF AGRICULTURE. 



The reserves do not withhold land 

 from agricultural use, but greatly in- 

 crease the amount of available farm 

 land. Though they were made from 

 the most rugged and mountainous 

 parts of the West and were intended 

 to include only land unsuited for agri- 

 culture, by the act of June 11, 1906, 

 the right is given settlers to home- 

 stead within the reserves wherever 

 strips and patches of tillable land can 

 be found. At the same time, through 

 their water-conserving power, these 

 forests fix in regions of scanty rainfall 

 the amount of land which can be 

 brought under the plow, since at best 

 much otherwise fertile land must go 

 uncultivated for want of water. With- 

 out forest preservation much of the land 

 now under irrigation would have to 

 be abandoned again to the desert. Thus 

 the promotion of agriculture is one of 

 the main ends of the forest-reserve 

 policy. 



SUPPLIES FOR MINING. 



Mining in the West is mainly in re- 

 gions surrounded by reserves or in- 

 cluded within them ; but the reserves 

 do not impede the development of 

 mineral resources. On .the contrary, 

 by guaranteeing future supplies of tim- 

 ber they are indispensable to the fu- 

 ture development of these resources, 

 as the great mining interests well 

 know. They do not interfere with the 

 prospector, who has the same right to 

 prospect and locate in forest reserves 

 that he has on any other part of the 

 public domain. 



PROTECTION OP GRAZING. 



Administrative control of the forest 

 reserves is beneficial to the grazing 

 industry. The sentiment of stockmen 

 throughout the West is unitedly in fa- 

 vor of such control, because of the 

 gain to them now that the reserve 

 ranges are safe from overcrowding 

 and deterioration. Thus the rights of 

 the individual user are respected, and 



