894 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. Ko. 128. 



by lofty mountain i-anges well •wooded at 

 the north and sparsely wooded at the south. 

 Their forests serve to collect, and in a 

 measure regulate the flow of streams, the 

 waters of which, carefully conserved and 

 distributed artifically, would render possible 

 the reclamation of vast areas of so-called 

 desert lands. Irrigation systems have been 

 undertaken in many localities under State 

 or corporate control and have been prose- 

 cuted until their value has been amply 

 demonstrated, although the one essential 

 condition of their permanent success, the 

 preservation of the forests on high mountain 

 slopes, has been entirely neglected. 



Under the authority of Section 24 of the 

 Act of Congress, approved Ma.rch 3, 1891, 

 by which the President of the United States 

 can withdraw from sale and entry and set 

 apart as forest reservations parts of the 

 public domain, whether wholly or in part 

 covered with timber, seventeen forest re- 

 serves, with a total estimated area of 17,- 

 500,000 acres, were established prior to 

 1894. During the journey made by your 

 committee last summer through the West- 

 em States and Territories it became im- 

 pressed with the importance of extending 

 this reserved area before further encroach- 

 ments were made on the public domain ; 

 and on its return it prepared a short pre- 

 liminary report, recommending the estab- 

 lishment of thirteen additional forest re- 

 serves with an estimated total area of 21,- 

 378,840 acres and roughly designating their 

 boundaries. On the 6th of February this 

 report was submitted hy the Secretary of 

 the Interior to the President, who, on the 

 22d of February, issued proclamations mak- 

 ing the recommendations of your commit- 

 tee effective. 



Fire 'and pasturage chiefly threaten the 

 reserved forest lands of the public domain. 

 In comparison with these the damage which 

 is inflicted on them by illegal timber cutting 

 is insignificant. Timber can only be cut 



profitably when the operation is conducted 

 on a comparatively large scale ; and large 

 operations require roads and sawmills, and 

 consequently the use of capital, and are 

 usually easy to detect and arrest. The 

 cutting of timber on the unreserved public 

 lands under cover of bad laws or without a 

 pretense of legal sanction causes, as we 

 shall show later, serious losses to the gov- 

 ernment, but so far as we have been able 

 to observe it does not now seriously menace 

 many of the reserves. 



Fires are particularly destructive to the 

 forests Of western North America. These 

 are composed almost exclusively of highly 

 resinous trees, which, when they grow 

 beyond the influence of the moisture-laden 

 air currents from the Pacific Ocean, ignite 

 easily, and, burning fiercely on the surface, 

 are quickly killed, while the flames sweep 

 forward, leaving standing behind them the 

 dead, although unconsumed, trunks to fur- 

 nish material for later conflagrations and 

 to intensify their heat. The climate, with its 

 unequally distributed rainfall and intensely 

 hot and dry summers and the peculiarly 

 inflammable character of the forests, make 

 forest fires in the West numerous and par- 

 ticularly destructive, and no other part of 

 the country has suifered so seriously from 

 this cause. 



Nomadic sheep husbandry has already 

 seriously damaged the mountain forests in 

 those States and Territories where it has 

 been largely practiced. In California and 

 western Oregon great bands of sheep, often 

 owned by foreigners, who are temporary 

 residents of this country, are driven in 

 spring into the high Sierras and Cascade 

 ranges. Feeding as they travel from the 

 valleys at the foot of the mountains to the 

 the upper alpine meadows, they carry deso- 

 lation with them. Every blade of glass, 

 the tender, growing shoots of shrubs, and 

 seedling trees, are eaten to the ground. The 

 feet of these ' hoofed locusts,' crossing and 



