492 



SGIENGE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 117. 



checked forest fires. Thousands of acres of 

 valuable timber have been appropriated 

 - without any equivalent to the Treasury and 

 without even an attempt at settlement as 

 contemplated under the law. There are no 

 provisions now on the statutes under which 

 any citizen can obtain wood from the pub- 

 lic domain by purchase, except that on the 

 Pacific coast a man may buy 160 acres of 

 it at $2.50 per acre for his own personl use 

 only. A mining company needing timber 

 must either steal, buy stolen timber, or ob- 

 tain it by circumvention or perversion of 

 the law — at least of its intention, if not its 

 wording. Large mill establishments, able 

 and willing to pay, are forced to cut logs on 

 government land free of charge under a 

 permit system, which was invented for the 

 single settler, the pioneer, whose right to 

 help himself to what he needed was thereby 

 established. Hundreds and thousands of 

 men have been induced to perjure them- 

 selves, in order that a lumbering company 

 might acquire suflficient acreage from which 

 to supply itself with timber. 



Not only has this baneful legislation led 

 to the destruction of millions of dollars 

 worth of forest growth, but it has prevented 

 •any reasonable administration of the public 

 timber domain, and has tended to lower the 

 •moral plane of otherwise estimable citizens 

 with regard to their respect of public prop- 

 erty. 



" The community has become demoralized 

 with reference to this question, for it is 

 forced to steal one of the. necessaries of 

 life. The paramount and absolute necessity 

 to obtain timber for use overrides all con- 

 siderations. To the miner and settler the 

 use of timber from local supplies is as ab- 

 solutely necessary as the use of water and 

 air, and no plan of management which fails 

 to recognize this necessity can hope to be 

 successful." 



The proposed forest laws are designed to 

 remedy this condition of antagonism be- 



tween the population and the administra- 

 tion, which is vainly trying to enforce un- 

 reasonable laws. Reservation is the first 

 step; regulation of the use of the timber 

 the second ; perpetuation of a valuable re- 

 source for coming generations the object. 



The program of those urging this policy 

 is as follows : 



1. Withdraw from sale or entry all lands 

 not fit or needed for agriculture, and con- 

 stitute as objects of special care by the 

 government the lands at the headwaters of 

 streams and on mountain slopes in general. 



2. Permit prospecting, mining and other 

 occupation under such regulations as to pre- 

 vent unnecessary waste, and cut and sell 

 the timber under such methods as to secure 

 perpetuation and renewal of the forest 

 growth. 



3. Provide for protection against fire, 

 theft and unlawful occupancy. 



4. Respect all existing vested rights, and 

 arrange an exchange, if necessary, for pri- 

 vate lands included in reservations; finally, 

 restore to the public domain for entry all 

 lands which are found within the reserva- 

 tions fit for agriculture. 



5 . The rational management of these forest 

 areas for the benefit of the future as well as 

 of the present and for all interested with- 

 out destruction. 



These are the business-like propositions 

 embodied in the so-called Paddock Bill, 

 and the same underlie the less elaborate 

 McEae Bill, passed by the House of Eepr 

 resentatives in the first session of last 

 Congress, and also underlie the clause 

 which the House tried to incorporate in the 

 Sundry Civil Bill of the second session of 

 the 54th Congress. The interests of the 

 miner, the lumberman, the settler, of every 

 citizen in the present and in the future, is to 

 be taken care of in these forest reservations. 



There is one industry, and one only, that 

 finds no consideration in this policy. It is 

 that of the sheep herder. Not that his 



