HOSTILITY TO NATIONAL FORESTS 257 



without serious mutilation, but in the Senate a more decided hostility 

 was immediately manifest. Senator Heyburn promptly assumed his 

 familiar role, supported of course by his colleague Borah, and by 

 other western men, and also by men from farther east — Cummins of 

 Iowa and Gallinger of New Hampshire. One of the chief objects of 

 criticism in these debates was the inclusion within national forests of 

 agricultural and other non-timbered lands. 



After several days of debate. Senator Nelson of Minnesota arose 

 with an amendment directing and requiring the Secretary of Agri- 

 culture to select, classify, and segregate as soon as practicable, all 

 lands within the boundaries of natural forests that were fit for agri- 

 cultural purposes, and opening such lands to settlement under the 

 homestead laws. 



Senator Nelson's amendment aimed a very severe blow at the forest 

 reserves. In the first place, it directed and required the Secretary of 

 Agriculture to segregate the lands, thus leaving him no discretion in 

 the matter. In the second place, it provided for the elimination of all 

 lands suitable and fit for agricultural purposes. The Forest Home- 

 stead Act of 1906 had provided for the elimination of lands chiefly 

 valuable for agriculture which might be so used without injury to the 



Irest reserve, and which were not needed for public purposes. Nel- 

 n's amendment provided for the opening of agricultural lands irre- 

 lective of their value for other purposes, or of the need for them for 

 iblic use. Thus heavily timbered lands of only a slight value for agri- 

 culture would have been opened up to exploitation under this amend- 

 ment, even though the value of the timber might have been ten times 

 greater than the agricultural value of the soil when cleared. Such a 

 provision as that would inevitably have resulted in gross frauds. 

 Entrymen would merely have taken up claims and sold them to large 

 timber owners, and the "poor settlers" would have built no "homes" 

 after all. Also it should be noted that all ranger stations or other 

 plots necessary to the efficient management of the forests would have 

 been opened up under this provision, if they possessed even a slight 

 value for agriculture. 



Thus the Nelson amendment was calculated to do immense injury 

 to the national forests, perhaps to overthrow the entire reservation 

 policy, and the American Forestry Association sent a vigorous peti- 



