252 FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION May 



cated to a startling realization of how to anarchy elsewhere. Experience is 



we have recklessly squandered our proving that government in the Na- 



heritage of forests, soil and other nat- tional Forests, as outside, is vastly 



ural resources for over a hundred superior to no government ; the nat- 



years. Our prodigality has been ural inference would therefore be that 



shameful and criminal." It says : "No government on the range would be 



where in the world are forest reserves superior to no government there, 



more enthusiastically approved and ap- The need for regulation should be 



preciated as an institution as in this plain. Unregulated grazing is damag- 



arid Western country." It refers to ing and, in some cases, destroying the 



the Appalachian-White Mountain for- range, as unregulated use and abuse 



est proposal as a far-seeing one. It are damaging and destroying the 



speaks of the Government Reclamation forests. 



work with the highest approval. At Again, throwing a fertile range 



the same time it offers some sharp open to competing regiments or armies 



criticisms. of cattle and sheep men is much like 



1 It is strongly opposed to Govern- "throwing a banana to a cage of mon- 



ment control and leasing of the open keys," or throwing open the Cherokee 



public range. This proposal, in its Strip to settlers. Civilization should 



view, is demanded by the Forest Ser- have advanced beyond that method of 



vice and by big cattle owners, in each distribution, 



case for revenue only. Further, government is necessary 



This policy, it claims, is highly det- to the establishment of homes upon 



rimental to the interests of the com- the land. 



munities immediately concerned. The If the plans for regulation pro- 

 big cattle men anticipate long leases of vided by the Burkett or Scott bills 

 land from which the home-owner are objectionable, let the objectors sug- 

 \\vmld practically be excluded. Thus gest better plans. 



the settlement of the country would Again, stress is laid (outside the 



be retarded and opportunity denied editorial) upon the irrigation S'tua- 



the man of small means seeking a tion. Attention is called to the fact 



home. that the Government irrigates only on 



In answer it may be said that what- large projects; a multitude of >.n -il- 



ever interest the Forest Service may ones must therefore, if irrigated at all, 



have had in revenue, whether from be irrigated through private initiative. 



National Forests or range, in the past, The private irrigator, usually a big 



it has none now. The Fifty-ninth Con- stock man, and the small home owner, 



gress provided that all revenues from it is argued, work together under the 



National Forests should, hereafter, be non-governmental system in harmony; 



covered into the Federal Treasury, and the big man furnishes the water, and 



the Forest Service should be main- the little one the crop, which he sells 



tained not by revenues from the Na- to the irrigator for winter feed. The 



tional Forests but by direct appropria- lease system, however, with its long 



tions from Congress. Revenues from tenure, would justify the big cattle 



the range would, of course, be no man in raising his own feed and would 



more available to the Service than rev- thus eliminate the home owner. 



enues from the National Forests. The obvious remedy for this diffi- 



As to regulating the use of the culty is more Government irrigation, 



range, it must be conceded that the It is recognized that the present Na- 



Government owns the range and tional irrigation works cost the couii- 



hence has the right to control it. try nothing ; that it is maintained by a 



Again, according to the dictionaries, perpetually self-renewing, revolving 



the absence of government is anarchy, fund ; that what the Government pays 



Those who advocate it should show out with one hand for reclamation 



why anarchy on the range is superior work it takes back with another 



