GOVERNMENT CONTROL OP THE FORESTS. 91 



cover the taxes imposed upon the lands where they grow; that the tax 

 precludes forest preservation, and is really a premium offered and enforced 

 by the state to eliminate the trees." This business consideration sways all 

 their action, and the trees are going and will soon be gone, unless they are 

 met by an argument more powerful than our talk. 



Timber trees are the growth of centuries, and the planter or saver of 

 trees would, of course, know he must die long before his pines or oaks 

 reach a paying maturity. Such trees, like the nation itself, must from 

 very necessity belong to the people as sacred to use as their constitution. 

 Does not the long period of their development demonstrate that only by 

 government control can their type be preserved and their just usufruct 

 be protected? 



Deploring the resultant calamities of denuding our woodlands, some of 

 our leading lumbermen suggest non-taxation as an inducement to preserve 

 them. To this the people will not consent for a single moment. Obviously 

 exemption would induce swifter destruction, for the tax is then changed to 

 the temptation of gain. 



Again, lumbermen occupying our ground propose state bounties as in- 

 ducements to preserve our native forests. It is as just to apply the bounty 

 law to saving as to raising trees. The citizens of the woodlands, and they 

 doubtless constitute a majority, have to pay their share of the bounty tax 

 without a local and direct reimbursement; yet the representatives of the 

 woodland constituency have voted for the bounty for the prairies with a 

 manly generosity. A common sense justice would demand that the bounty 

 be extended without respect of persons, comprising any and all available 

 localities in the state, encouraging not only the planting but the saving of 

 trees. Stipulate in the law that the woodland proprietor shall annually re- 

 ceive so much from the state, say $2.00 per acre, when it is proved for a term 

 of eight years that he has saved, or planted on denuded districts, so many 

 pines, oaks, elms, etc., size mentioned and healthful condition, and then 

 he would be interested in excluding fires and browsing cattle, and would 

 be careful how he cuts. The premium plan with taxation enforced is 

 practical so far as it goes; but it is obvious the state could not afford to 

 pay bounty without limitation to acreage. Hence it would fail to meet 

 the demand for forest accumulation. 



THE BILTMORE FOREST SYSTEM. 



The first practical application of scientific forest management in the 

 United States has been initiated in North Carolina, known as the Biltmore 

 Estate, owned by George W. Vanderbilt, and superintended by Gifford 

 Pinchot. It covers 7,282 acres. An illustrated exhibit of it occupied a 

 prominent position at the Columbian exposition in the Forestry Building. 

 Mr. Pinchot is a well-posted forester and understands what he is about. 

 His report of the first year's work, commenced May 1, 1892, on this estate, 

 is very creditable. It gives an elaborate description of the locality on the 



