98 OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



time may bring public and private owners of forest 

 lands into co-operation for protection. Whether en- 

 lightenment and co-operation can merely slow the 

 speed of inevitable depletion, or whether, as optimists 

 believe, the remaining forest can be so handled and 

 increased by reforestation that the needs of future 

 generations may still be reasonably met, remains to 

 be shown. 



Whatever the result of present efforts toward 

 rehabilitation, this generation's problem is one for 

 promptness, with a margin allowing few errors. 

 The resurgence of sectionalism in efforts to con- 

 trol again the national is inevitable, but must be 

 quenched by national protest, for there is now no 

 leeway in surplus forest as in the past. Congres- 

 sional leaders of local causes and private interests 

 can no longer be allowed their day; there are few 

 days left. 



In order that we may see our problem clearly, 

 let us glance at the period of culminating folly, that 

 from 1870 on, with its wholesome latter-day reac- 

 tion of organized conservation. 



THE CLIMAX OF FOLLY 



The increased forest destruction of the seven- 

 ties and eighties was greatly augmented by the Free 

 Timber Act and the Timber and Stone Act, both of 

 1872, yet it was the interpretation of ambiguous 

 statement in these acts rather than their original in- 

 tention which gave them their enormous power for 



