August 27, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



279 



tions, the water-power developments, the timber 

 operations, the relation of the forests to agricul- 

 ture, the road and trail and other improvements, 

 the recreational use of the forests, other uses, and 

 to see some of the typical homestead claims. I was 

 afforded an opportunity to see typical forests in 

 each of the districts and some of the more strik- 

 ing operations of each of them. 



I regret that it was physically impossible for 

 me to visit more of the forests in each district. I 

 feel, however, that I accomplished my main pur- 

 poses and that the results of my trip are invalu- 

 able, i was exceedingly gratified with the evi- 

 dence of enthusiasm, loyalty and devotion to duty 

 on the part of all representatives of the depart- 

 ment with whom I came in contact. I was espe- 

 cially impressed with the intelligent and sympa- 

 thetic attitude between the forest service and the 

 users of the forests and of all communities de- 

 pendent upon them. It was pleasing to observe 

 that in the forests themselves the residents and 

 other users look to the forest officers, not only for 

 information bearing on forestry problems in which 

 they are interested, but also for assistance in 

 many other matters. The efficient and sympathetic 

 handling of forestry problems on the part of the 

 service, in the interest not only of the nation, but 

 particularly of the sections in which the forests 

 are located, gives promise of the successful solu- 

 tion of any problems that may confront us. 



In a statement supplementing his letter. 

 Secretary Houston said that among the first 

 of the activities with vsrhich he came in con- 

 tact was the recreational use of the national 

 forests, under which upward of a million per- 

 sons every year travel, camp, hunt, fish or 

 maintain summer homes and resorts in the 

 forests. The tour of inspection began on the 

 Santa Fe forest, New Mexico, where many 

 summer homes have been built in the moun- 

 tains. In the Coconino and Tusayan forests, 

 Arizona, which border the famous Grand 

 Canyon, the secretary was particularly im- 

 pressed, he said, by the necessity of improve- 

 ments which will make the canyon more acces- 

 sible to the public and which are being con- 

 structed by the forest service on these and 

 other forests as rapidly as funds permit, nearly 

 3,000 miles of road and 21,000 miles of trail 

 having been built on all of the national forests 

 up to date. 



On the Angeles forest, in southern Cali- 

 fornia, the secretary said, he saw a strik- 

 ing illustration of the importance of forest 

 protection of watersheds, which in this locality 

 has contributed to the irrigation development 

 that in twenty years has transformed a desert 

 into one of the most flourishing agricultural 

 sections of the country. He visited some of 

 the 1,100 towns and cities which derive their 

 domestic water supply from national forests 

 and, after crossing the Sierra Nevada range in 

 an automobile that was fitted to the railway 

 with special, flanged wheels, he inspected one 

 of the largest water-power projects on the 

 forests, a fourteen-million-doUar plant oper- 

 ated under permit on the Sierra National For- 

 est. With regard to water-power, development 

 of which is going on actively under the De- 

 partment of Agriculture's regulations, the 

 secretary said that he saw no need for a change 

 in the existing system of control, except for 

 legislation to permit long-term leasing of 

 water-power sites. 



Stock owners in the west, said the secretary, 

 are more than satisfied with the departmental 

 regulations under which improved range con- 

 ditions are brought about along with the graz- 

 ing of increasing numbers of livestock, of 

 which more than fifteen million, mainly sheep, 

 cattle and horses, now graze annually on the 

 national forests. In the logging and miU 

 operations on some of the big timber-sale pro- 

 jects in the Douglas fir country of Oregon and 

 Washington, the secretary said, he was enabled 

 to get much first-hand knowledge of fire pro- 

 tection and conservative logging as carried on 

 under government regulation, and he com- 

 mended the reforestation work for which from 

 ten to fifteen million trees are grown annually 

 in forest service nurseries. 



The secretary completed his tour in Mon- 

 tana after he had had a personal insight into 

 practically all of the important activities of 

 the forest service and, as he said, obtained first- 

 hand impressions not only from forest officers, 

 but from all classes of local residents who are 

 affected by the methods and regulations under 

 which the national forests are being admin- 

 istered in every section of the west. 



