FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



January 



islation and administration, municipal, 

 State and National, there can be no 

 doubt. Indeed, even now, its sinister 

 features may, to the seeing eye, be per- 

 ceived protruding, in countless places, 

 from measures long lauded as of the 

 highest utility and public necessity. 

 Cut out the graft, by all means. As 

 Carlyle said of the lie, it exists only to 

 be killed. Wherever it rears its foul 

 head aloft, it cries unto all men, "Come 

 and slay me !" 



Fortunately, the Appalachian bill 

 has been so drawn that it seems in- 

 credible that graft can find in it a hid- 

 ing place. Let it, however, be in- 

 spected with a microscope and, in the 

 interests of safety, subjected to every 

 form of germicide known to the po- 

 litical laboratory. But, when all is said 

 and done, remember this: the waste 

 now attending the failure to enact this 

 legislation is, to the expense attending 

 its enactment, plus any graft which 

 may still linger in the shadow, as the 

 mountain to the mole-hill. Dr. C. P. 

 Ambler, who has known the Appa- 

 lachian movement from its first incep- 

 tion, says that if the Government had 

 bought the Appalachian lands in 1899, 

 when first asked to do so, it would 

 have saved from twelve millions to 

 fifteen millions of dollars simply in the 

 value of the land and timber pur- 

 chased. Compare this with the petty 

 three million dollars which the last 

 Congress was asked to appropriate to 

 buy this land, or with the trifling five 

 million dollars which it is now asked 

 to appropriate ! And then compare, if 

 possible, the appropriation asked, plus 

 any possible "graft," with the incon- 

 ceivable waste of natural resources 

 daily accompanying the cutting and 

 burning of the woods, the erosion of 

 fertile fields, the deposit of soil in 

 rivers and harbors on which, to re- 

 move it, multiplied millions must 

 be expended, the washing away of 

 houses, railways, bridges, mills, and 

 factories, the eighteen-million dollar 

 item of flood destruction in a single 

 section of the South in I9oi-'o2, and 

 then tell us how long should Congress 



withhold action for fear of possible 

 "graft." By such a course, is it not 

 wasting at the bung-hole while saving 

 at the spigot? Is it now swallowing 

 camels while straining out gnats? Is 

 it not leaving fertile fields to grow up 

 in weeds for fear of spending money 

 on seed corn? Is it not permitting the 

 ceaseless, relentless, day and night, 

 year in and year out, undermining of 

 our National edifice to save the wages 

 requisite for the prevention of such a 

 calamity ? 



The On November 23, a lead- 



Wood Pulp j n g Western daily news- 

 Situation paper, in announcing an 

 increase in its price, used the follow- 

 ing language : 



"Production of newspapers in the 

 United States has caused such an enor- 

 mous consumption of wood pulp that 

 the forests of spruce and other pulp 

 woods are nearly swept away. No sub- 

 stitute material has been discovered 

 and, in the face of the diminishing 

 supply, paper manufacturers have felt 

 compelled to rapidly advance their 

 prices. 



"This advance is threatening to end 

 the day of one-cent newspapers. They 

 have grown to such size that even a 

 fractional advance in the cost of paper 

 necessitates either a revolution in 

 business methods or an advance in the 

 price of newspapers. The market 

 price of print paper has advanced 

 from $1.90 and $2 per hundred pounds 

 to as high as $2.50 and upward. Man- 

 ufacturers believe that in the near fu- 

 ture they will be compelled to again 

 advance the price. The situation has 

 grown more and more acute with each 

 advance. The mills have been turning 

 to Canada for their supply of spruce, 

 but, remembering the effect of their 

 export duty on pine logs when the 

 lumbermen were bringing them across 

 the border, Canadians are now agitat- 

 ing strongly the policy of putting an 

 export duty on spruce. This has made 

 the American mills more apprehensive 

 for the future. The result is that pub- 

 lishers are practically bound hand and 



