FOREST CONDITIONS. 



341 



government to July i, 1902, comprise an acreage of 

 nearly 60 million acres, hardly more than i per 

 cent of the public domain, but it is well known that 

 a considerable portion of these reservations is not 

 timber land; they include brush lands, grazing 

 lands, and desert. 



In fact the examinations by agents of the United 

 States Geological Survey indicate that of about 12 

 million acres examined, not more than 30 per cent 

 contains merchantable timber, and the amount of 

 such timber is estimated at not to exceed 24 billion 

 feet B.M. In other words, on this vast area can- 

 not be found one year's requirement for the whole 

 United States, or six years' supply for the mills now 

 operating in the "Western states. There is no reason 

 to suppose that the rest of the federal reserves are 

 much better timbered, for the examined portions 

 seem to represent fairly well average conditions ; 

 hence, the forest reservation poUcy of the govern- 

 ment, as far as the supply question for the country 

 at large is concerned, has not, and indeed cannot, 

 alleviate matters very much. Even if all the tim- 

 ber lands now in possession of the federal govern- 

 ment were withdrawn from entry, — and it is a short- 

 sighted poHcy not to have done so long ago, — such 

 reservation would bear on local conditions of supply 

 only. But, indeed, for the welfare of the West- 

 ern states, the inauguration of the forest reservation 

 policy is of the utmost importance ; not only from 

 the timber supply point of view, but especially with 



