58 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



ing vote. It provides for the substitution of the timber 

 and stone law with a plan to allow the general govern- 

 ment to retain title to all its timber lands, but to sell 

 the timber thereon under such regulations as will insure 

 the perpetual reforestation of these lands, their timber 

 cropping, and the preservation of their water supplies. 



Under the present law timber land of great value is 

 disposed of by the Government at $2.50 an acre, is 

 carelessly and wastefully lumbered so that entire water- 

 sheds are denuded of their forest cover, destructive 

 fires are allowed to sweep over them leaving them 

 bare and unable to retain the moisture upon which 

 irrigated communities depend. This law was passed 

 to enable settlers to purchase small tracts of timber 

 land, presumably adjacent to their homsteads. Its 

 provisions have been evaded, as the President inti- 

 mates, to such an extent that enormous tracts of land 

 have passed into speculative ownership without result- 

 ing good to the communities ; in fact, with the utmost 

 danger to their prosperity and well being. This 

 measure should likewise receive the prompt considera- 

 tion of that branch of Congress before which it is 

 pending. 



There is yet another law which stands as a great 

 menace to forest preservation. It is the forest reserve 

 lieu land law, known as lieu land or scrip law. It 

 allows the owner of land within the forest reserves to 

 exchange that land for other unreserved public land 

 of the reserves. Under it vast areas of almost worth- 

 less land, in many cases previously denuded of its tim- 

 ber by its owners, have been exchanged for the finest 

 timber lands in the Northwest. This law should be 

 repealed, and where private individuals or corporations 

 own land within the forest reserves which they do not 

 desire, it should be appraised by the Government and 



