PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 71 



I 



CONGRESSIONAL ACTION FAVORABLE TO FORESTRY. 



Able statesmen have at various times made such laws as, it was thought, 

 would encourage the preservation of some of our forests, and provide for the 

 planting and care of forest growths on the semi-arid lands of the West, but 

 from various causes they have been of little practical utility. 



Thousands of homesteads have been taken in the Northwestern Timbered 

 States, on lands of no value whatever for agricultural purposes, destroying 

 wantonly millions of feet of valuable timber in order to secure homesteads 

 where they should have been timber reservations, or the land sold for its 

 value as timbered lands. 



This has been done to fulfill a positive requirement of the Homestead 

 Act, that a certain area should be cleared and cultivated before a title could 

 be obtained, and by making oath and proof that these heavily timbered lands 

 were of greater value for farm purposes than for timber. The Act gave the 

 preference to the homesteads. Notwithstanding the immense value of the 

 timber destroyed to make a few acres of farm land. 



All heavily timbered tracts should be withdrawn from Sale for Home- 

 steads, and either held as forest reservations by the Government, and the 

 trees sold from time to time as they are demanded, or sold outright as timber 

 lands at prices corresponding with the real value of the lumber. 



In all probability, if the Government would retain the title to timber 

 lands, in mountain regions, and sell at stated times, the trees of a 

 certain given size, with the requirements that young growths should be pre- 

 served, and the prices fixed according to measurement of the stumps, a far 

 greater sum would be derived from the timber than as by the present method, 

 and instead of such terrible waste as has heretofore been practiced a continuous 

 supply of lumber and timber would be provided for posterity. 



The timber Act, granting lands to those who would plant and cultivate 

 timber trees, was fatally defective. It was not taken into consideration that 

 a great majority of those who were willing to take such lands and plant 

 timber, were very poor men, unable to carry out the intention of the Act, 

 without practical assistance from the Nation. No provisions were made for 

 supplying seeds of valuable trees, young seedlings, or other plants. The 

 result is that a few cottonwood groves are about all that can be found. 



The Government should provide an abundant supply of seeds, cuttings, 

 and young plants of the more valuable forest trees, and distribute them 



