THE GOVERNMENT LEADS 113 



on the watersheds of navigable rivers should be 

 permanently controlled for the sake of flood pre- 

 vention. The man who talked of saving the timber 

 for the wood itself, however, obtained small cre- 

 dence and a limited audience. In 1911 Representa- 

 tive John W. Weeks, later Secretary of War, intro- 

 duced and persuaded Congress to pass the law 



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Total Fb/xs7;5 or mt (/Af/rsoCMrC'S. 



POBUa.Y OWA/£^ff/W£SrS. 



Only about seventeen per cent ofthe forest land of the United States 

 is publicly owned. 



which bears his name. Under It the United States 

 government adopted the policy of cooperation in 

 fire protection above mentioned and strengthened 

 its policy of permanent forest 'ownership through a 

 plan to buy some five million acres in the eastern 

 states. In ten years something over two million 

 acres have thus been purchased, and this property 

 as a whole is now estimated as worth sixty per cent, 

 more than it originally cost, while the sale of tim- 



