THE TRAINING OF A FORESTER 



timber and the incessant eiForts of land 

 grabbers to steal Government lands. To 

 prevent the theft of timber is usually not 

 difficult, but it is far harder to prevent fake 

 homesteaders, fraudulent mining men, and 

 other dishonest claimants from seizing upon 

 land to which they have no right, and so 

 preventing honest men from using these 

 claims to make a living. 



In the past, this problem has presented the 

 most serious difficulties, and still occasion- 

 ally does so. There is no louder shouter 

 for "justice" than a balked habitual land 

 thief with political influence behind him. To 

 illustrate the kind of attack upon the Forest 

 Service to which fraudulent land claims have 

 constantly given rise, I may cite the state- 

 ments made during one of the annual at- 

 tempts in the Senate to break down the Ser- 

 vice. One of the Senators asserted that in 

 his State the Forest Service was overbear- 



37 



