Saving the Forests 



523 



a large part of West Virginia. In this 

 are included two forests, aggregating 

 about 5,000,000 acres, in Alaska, and 

 one of 66,000 acres in Porto Rico. 

 Hawaii and the Philippines also have 

 forest reserves, and the forested pub- 

 lic lands in the Philippines are sup- 

 posed to amount to over 50,000,000 

 acres ; but in both of these cases the land 

 belongs, not to the United States, but 

 to the insular governments. If it were a 

 question not of government ownership, 

 but of total timbered area, the United 

 States would stand next to Russia. 



How much unreserved timberland the 

 government owns it is impossible to sa}'. 

 Outside of Alaska, however, the total 

 is unimportant in comparison with the 

 national forests. More complete knowl- 

 edge will doubtless bring to light more or 

 less which should be added to the presi 

 ent forests. On the other hand, these 

 forests now include many interior hold- 

 ings and claims. Their area is subject 

 to still further future reduction by the 

 location of new mining claims and the ex- 

 clusion of land found to be agricultural. 

 It is no part of the government policy 

 to try to grow trees on land which can 

 be used to better advantage in other 

 ways ; so wherever the prospector can 

 find paying mineral and the homesteader 

 can find land worth farming permanently 

 the national forest gives way. 



It must also be remembered that by 

 no means all the land in these forests 

 is forested. In many cases the unfor- 

 ested condition is temporary ; the origi- 

 nal growth has been swept away, usually 

 by fire, but can and will be brought back 

 in time. But a good deal of the land can 

 never grow anything. The national for- 

 ests lie mainly upon the mountain ranges 

 of the West. As these rise to alpine alti- 

 tudes, the timber is left behind, and a 

 point is reached where there is only 

 bare rock and perpetual snow. 



No exact statement can be made, either 

 as to the amount of barren land in the 

 national forests or as to the deduction 

 which should be made for alienations 

 within them. Perhaps one-twentieth 

 would be a fair allowance for the first 



and one-tenth for the second. It seems 

 improbable that any future action to en- 

 large the number or size of the national 

 forests in the West will more than offset 

 the eliminations which the recognition of 

 private titles will work. 



Thus the nation is likely to have in 

 hand eventually, as the final fruits of the 

 policy of putting into national forests 

 suitable portions of the public lands, from 

 120,000,000 to 130,000,000 acres of act- 

 ual forest. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF OUR NATIONAL 

 FOREST POLICY 



This polic}' had its beginnings in the 

 act of March 3, 1891, when Congress em- 

 powered the President to "set apart and 

 reserve, in any state or territory having 

 public lands bearing forests, any part of 

 the public lands wholly .or in part covered 

 with timber or undergrowth, whether of 

 commercial value or not, as public reser- 

 vations." Under this act there were cre- 

 ated in the next three years reserves 

 which totaled 18,000,000 acres. These 

 reservations, however, were merely with- 

 drawn from settlement and the location 

 of claims ; but practically no provision 

 was made for their protection or use. 

 The United States had rather drifted 

 than been guided into the ownership of 

 forest reserves and had little idea what 

 to do with them. Few people knew 

 that there were any such things. 



In February, 1896, when the secon^ 

 Cleveland administration was drawing 

 toward its end, the Secretary of the In- 

 terior, Hon. Hoke Smith, requested the 

 National Academy of Sciences to make 

 an investigation and report upon "the 

 inauguration of a rational forest policy 

 for the forested lands of the United 

 States." The result was the appointment 

 of a committee of seven, which, after 

 some months of study and examination 

 of western forest conditions, recom- 

 mended the creation of 11 new reserves, 

 containing in all more than 21,000,000 

 acres. On February 22, 1897, these re- 

 serves were proclaimed by President 

 Cleveland. 



The general public was taken wholly 



