THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



FEDERAL FORESTRY. 



Address Delivered by Henry S. Graves, Forester in 



Charge of the Federal Forest Service, at the 



Fifth National Conservation Congress, 



Washington, D. C., November 19, 1913. 



The part played by the nation in forestry must 

 always be large. Here as in all other countries, the 

 real development of forestry began when the gov- 

 ernment took up its practice. Even today some 

 persons would leave the forests entirely to private 

 owners ; others insist that the public phases of for- 

 estry are altogether a state function, and federal 



No. 1 Bumper Crops Are Assured by This System for Truck Farms, 

 by Courtesy Henry R. Worthington Hydraulic Works, New York. 



activities in this field uncalled for. Those who hold 

 this view are usually either lukewarm concerning 

 the need for forest conservation or opposed to re- 

 stricting private activities. 



National responsibility in for- 

 estry is perfectly clear-cut. There 

 need be no confusion with an equally 

 clear-cut responsibility of the states. 

 And as to private forestry, little of 

 value has so far been done that has 

 not been an outcome of gublic action 

 through state or federal agencies, or 

 both. It was the work of the fed- 

 eral government in placing its own 

 fnrests under administration, its 

 demonstration of fire protection and 

 of conservative lumbering, its expe- 

 rimental and educational work, and 

 its stimulus to our educational insti- 

 tutions to train and turn out a large 

 body of foresters, which created the 

 present wide interest in forestry and 

 brought the efforts of other agencies 

 into successful play. I do not mean 

 in any way to overlook the splendid 

 work of certain individual states like 

 Pennsylvania and Xew York, which 

 dates back many years. But that 

 was localized in a few states. It required the 

 nation itself to set in motion a national movement. 

 The national work will always be the backbone of 

 American forestry, not trenching on or interfering 

 with state work or individual efforts, but serving 

 as a demonstration of forest management on its 



own lands, a center of leadership, cooperation and 

 assistance to state and private work, a means to 

 handle interstate problems and coordinate the work 

 of neighboring states, a guarantee that national 

 needs which individual states can not meet will be 

 provided for on a national scale. 



Underlying the forestry problem are two 

 fundamental considerations which should be em- 

 phasized and reiterated until thoroughly driven 

 home. One is the public character of forestry. The 

 public has a peculiar interest in the benefits of for- 

 estry. Both in the matter of a continued supply 

 of forest products and in that of the conservation of 

 water resources the public welfare is at stake. In 

 each case purposes vital to the pros- 

 perity of the country can be accom- 

 plished only with the direct partici- 

 pation of the public. Private owners 

 will secure results only on a limited 

 scale in the long run on their own 

 initiative. It takes too long, 50 to 

 200 years, to grow a crop of timber 

 trees. Most private owners in face 

 of fire risk, bad tax laws, and uncer- 

 tain future markets will not make 

 the necessary investments. Most 

 lumbermen have bought their lands 

 either to log or to speculate in the 

 standing timber, not to grow trees 

 for later generations. ,Nor will pri- 

 vate owners make investments for 

 general public benefits, as in water- 

 shed protection. If the public is to secure the bene- 

 fits of forestry it must take the measures necessary 

 to guarantee these results, and it must bear the cost 



Reproduced by 



No. 2 Main Check, Redwood Canal, Near Holtville, Imperial County, California. 

 Courtesy Henry R. Worthington Hydraulic Works, New York. 



of what it receives. 



Closely related to the fact that forestry is in 

 many aspects a public problem is the second of the 

 fundamental considerations I wish to emphasize. 

 Forestry requires stability of administrative policy 

 and such permanence of ownership as will ensure 



