98 TREE PLANTER'S MANUAL. 



THE FOREST RESERVATIONS BILL NOW 

 BEFORE CONGRESS. 



There is now pending in congress a bill (H. R. 119) to protect forest 

 reservations in the United States, but just what it provides may not be 

 generally known. 



The bill was introduced September 6, 1S93, by Hon. Thomas C. MeRea, 

 chairman of the committee on public lands in the House of Representa- 

 tives. The measure is entitled, ''A Bill to Protect Public Forest Reserva- 

 tions," and is divided into eight brief sections, as follows : 



" Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 

 States of America in Congress assembled, That all public lands heretofore 

 set apart and reserved by the President of the United States, under the 

 provisions of the act, approved March third, eighteen hundred and ninety- 

 one, or that may hereafter be set aside and reserved as public forest reser- 

 vations, shall be, as far as practicable, controlled and administered in ac- 

 cordance with the provisions of this act. 



Sec. 2. That no public forest reservation shall be established except to 

 improve and protect the forest within the reservation, or for the purpose 

 of securing favorable conditions of waterflow and continuous supply of 

 timber for the people. 



Sec. 3. That the Secretary of the Interior shall make provisions for the 

 protection against fire and depredations of the public forest reservations 

 set aside, or that may be set aside, under the said act of March third, 

 eighteen hundred and ninety-one, and he may make such rules and regu- 

 lations and establish such service as will insure the objects of such reserva- 

 tion, namely, to regulate their occupancy, to utilize the timber of commer- 

 cial value, and to preserve the forest cover from destruction: Provided, 

 that no timber of commercial value shall be sold except to the highest 

 bidder on sealed proposals after due appraisement, as hereinafter provided, 

 at not less than the appraised value thereof. 



Sec. 4. That before any sale of timber of commercial value on any 

 forest reservation shall be made, notice thereof shall be given for at least 

 thirty days in a newspaper of general circulation printed and published at 

 the capital of the state or territory, and shall also be published, when 

 practicable, in a newspaper printed and published in the county and coun- 

 ties in which such reservation is situated, describing by numbers the tracts 

 of land on which the same is situated and the location thereof, and desig- 

 nating the land office of the district in which the land is situated as the 

 place where such sealed proposals will be received, and stating the time 

 within which such sealed proposals will be received. All such sales will be 

 /or cash, payable at the time of sale at the land office of the district in 

 which the land is situated, and the proceeds shall be accounted for by the 

 receiver of such land office in a separate account, and shall be covered 

 into the treasury as a special fund to be expended in the care and man- 

 agement of such reservations in such manner as Congress may provide. 



