io8 OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



tative Fort of Illinois to set aside forest reserves at 

 the head of navigable streams. It died for lack of 

 interest, and meantime, under the old Swamp Land 

 grants, vast forest areas were passing into specula- 

 tive hands. Of Florida's quota of public lands, a 

 hundred thousand square miles, largely forest, disap- 

 peared within a few years, a quarter of it in one 

 sale at twenty-five cents an acre. 



About this time another idea found expression 

 which was to loom large in the coming conservation 

 of the remaining forests. Senator Clayton of Ar- 

 kansas having introduced a bill authorizing the sale 

 of southern pine lands based on the current belief 

 that private ownership would assure fire protection, 

 Senator Boutwell of Massachusetts voiced the future 

 in an amendment to sell the timber while retaining 

 the land in national ownership. The idea was new 

 to Congress, and was immediately opposed. The 

 amendment was thrown out and the bill passed. In 

 the debate, Senator Howe of Wisconsin expressed a 

 sentiment common enough then, and still, unhappily, 

 persistent, in these words : 



"When he (Senator Boutwell) calls upon us to 

 embark in the protection of generations yet unborn, 

 I am inclined to reply that they have never done any- 

 thing for me." 



Under President Cleveland, the timber thieves, 

 then at the high tide of activity, were rigorously 

 curbed within the limits of slender appropriations. 

 Commissioner of the Land Office William Sparks 



