AMERICAN FOREST CONGRESS 233 



1895, and 1896. During the other eleven years the 

 law has been in operation the several Presidents have 

 issued proclamations creating fifty-nine forest reserves, 

 embracing 62,763,494 acres, an area so great that com- 

 parisons are necessary in order to obtain an adequate 

 conception of it. 



If the various reserves were assembled in one com- 

 pact tract, the aggregate area would be greater than 

 that of the great State of Wyoming; greater than the 

 area of Michigan, of Oregon, of Utah, of Minnesota, 

 or of Nebraska. It would be greater than the com- 

 bined area of all the New England States, with New 

 Jersey and Delaware thrown in for good measure, and 

 it would be greater than New York and Pennsylvania 

 combined. 



The primary object of the creation of forest reserves 

 was that the timber supply of the country might be 

 husbanded and preserved, and that the denudation of 

 the great timbered areas of the country, which was 

 progressing with fateful rapidity, might be choked. 

 But with the creation of the reserves a more important 

 object was evolved, and that is the preservation of the 

 water supply. I cannot better describe this object than 

 by quoting from the message of President Roosevelt 

 to Congress at the opening of its present session : 



"This" (the preservation of the water supply) "is 

 their most important use. The principal users of the 

 water thus preserved are irrigation ranchers and set- 

 tlers, cities and town to whom their municipal water 

 supplies are of the very first importance, users and 

 furnishers of water power, and the users of water for 

 domestic, manufacturing, mining, and other purposes. 

 All these are directly dependent upon the forest 



reserves." 



The beneficial object of the withdrawal from unre- 



