June 12, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



931 



and his family settled liappily upon 160 

 acres of carefully tilled land is worth more 

 to the industrial, commercial, transporta- 

 tion and social interests of the country 

 than the non-resident ownership of a range 

 indiistry covei-ing many thousand acres. 



Every Secretary of the Interior for 

 twenty-five years past has recommended a 

 curtailment of the land privilege. Con- 

 gress has responded in some degree to this 

 demand, but there is immediate need of 

 radical changes in the laws now upon the 

 statute books. Not another acre of the 

 public lands should be sold for cash or 

 its equivalent. Residence and cultivation 

 should be required before title could be ob- 

 tained, and this residence and cultivation 

 should be at least five years, so as to insure 

 a permanent and not speculative interest 

 in the holding. The desert-land law and 

 the commutation clause of the homestead 

 act should be repealed, for while there may 

 be isolated cases produced in evidence of 

 the alleged beneficial character of these 

 laws, a vast majority of the land acquired 

 under these filings is for other than the 

 legitimate purpose of settlement, occupa- 

 tion and general development of the coun- 

 try. 



In 1902 about twenty million acres were 

 taken from the public domain under the 

 various laws now on the statute books. It 

 is estimated that there will be nearly 

 twenty-five million acres appropiiated in 

 1903. In 1901 there were but sixteen mill- 

 ion, and yet at that time that figure was 

 considered enormous and alarming. Those 

 who are building up large land holdings 

 in the west realize that public sentiment is 

 aroused, and they are crowding in every 

 direction to secure title to as much land as 

 possible before congress takes this matter 

 in hand. 



It has been argued against the repeal of 

 these laws that the fund created by the 



national irrigation law from the sale of 

 public lands Avould be destroyed. In the 

 first place, if these laws wei'.e repealed to- 

 day and existing rights allowed to be per- 

 fected there would probably be about 

 twenty million dollars in the reclamation 

 fund. The government would reap an 

 enormous profit on the investment, even if 

 it were necessary to appropriate one hun- 

 dred million dollars to maintain the fund 

 for reclaiming the arable public lands of 

 the west rather than to allow a continuation 

 of the present system. 



The cream of the people's land is being 

 skimmed each year; and with less than a 

 hundred million acres which may be con- 

 sidered as reasonably possible of settlement, 

 it can be but a very short time, at the pres- 

 ent rate of segregation, before this has dis- 

 appeared and the area which congress pro- 

 posed to improve for the home-builders will 

 have been included within the boundaries 

 of great pastures producing not a thou- 

 sandth part of their possible annual con- 

 tributions to the wealth and prosperity of 

 the country. 



Outlooh of the Timber Supply of the 

 United States: Professor B. E. Fernow, 

 director, State College of Forestry, Cor- 

 nell University. 



This paper, reviewed, upon the basis of 

 the last census and of other statistics, the 

 consiimption of wood products in the 

 United States, and the probabilities of 

 meeting the same from the virgin supplies 

 still on hand. 



Contrary to expectations, the wood eon- 

 sumption of the leading industrial nations 

 has, in spite of substitutions, constantly in- 

 creased during the last forty years, and 

 that greatly in excess of the increase in 

 population, as a result of greater industrial 

 activity and higher civilization; the in- 

 crease in per capita consumption in Great 



