HOSTILITY TO NATIONAL FORESTS 261 



artin of Colorado likewise regarded this as one' of the worst abuses 

 { the reservation policy, and in the debates on the Agricultural Ap- 

 ropriation Bill of 1911, as a slap at the Forest Service, he offered an 

 mendment reducing the cost of rangers' cabins from $650 to $500 — 

 figure which Mondell thought was still 50 per cent too high. This 

 as a favorite method of attack upon the reserves, and almost every 

 ear some effort was made to cut down the cost of rangers' cabins, or 

 to impose some restriction on their construction or use. In 1912, 

 Representative Martin of South Dakota secured an amendment for- 

 bidding the Forest Service to use the residences of homesteaders for 

 ranger stations.* 



I The Forest Service has denied that there is any real justification 

 jor complaints regarding the appropriation of administrative sites. 

 n response to a Senate resolution in 1913, demanding information 

 »n this point. Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson made a report 

 howing that in the state of Washington, with about 10,000,000 acres 

 of national forests, 424 administrative sites had been withdrawn, with 

 total area of about 40,000 acres, and of this total only 272 acres 

 were under cultivation. Over 80 per cent of the area of these adminis- 

 trative sites was reported to be under heavy timber or permanently 

 suited to agriculture by climate or soil.^" It is of course sometimes 

 cessary for the Forest Service to use sites for administrative pur- 

 poses which are not absolutely worthless for agriculture. Successful 

 rotection of the forests requires not only an adequate force, but a 

 ell-placed force of rangers. Furthermore, since ranger stations must 

 placed where forest officers can either actually live with their fami- 

 s throughout the greater part of the year, or make headquarters 

 uring the summer months with sufficient feed for their saddle and 

 ack horses, it is necessary to select for this class of sites areas which 

 rnish a fair pasture. The Forest Service must obviously provide for 

 s own needs ; but it does not displace settlers already in possession, 

 r reject applications for the listing of land in order to take the land 

 r public purposes. ^^ 



^Cong. Rec, Mar. 8, 1910, 2891; Feb, 4, 1911, 1957, 1958; Mar, 7, 1912, 2982: 

 Jtat. 37, 280. 



10 S. Doc. 1075; 62 Cong. 3 sess. 



11 Report, Sec. of Agr., 1912, 487. 



