H 



Garden and Forest. 



[January 8, 1890. 



each one to lie a kingdom within itself, for the purpose of 

 controlling and using the great values which have been 

 pointed out The plan is to establish local self-govern- 

 ment by hydraulic basins, and, each basin may constitute a 

 great country. Some great river basins would have to be 



divided into two or more districts Let the people of the 



district provide their own officers for the management and 

 control of the water, for the protection and utilization of the 

 forests, for the protection and management of the pasturage, 

 and lor the use of the power, and with district courts, water- 

 masters, herders and foresters, they would be equipped with 

 the local officers necessary for the protection of their own 

 property and the maintenance of individual rights. The peo- 

 ple of each little kingdom, or separate hydraulic basin, can 

 obtain capital by their own enterprise as a community. Con- 

 stituting a body corporate, they can tax themselves and can 

 borrow money. For security they have a basis of land titles, 

 water rights, pasturage rights, forest rights and power rights." 



But now comes a curious proposition: 



" Let the general Government make a survey of the lands, 

 segregate and designate the irrigable lands, the timber lands, 

 the pasturage lands and the mining lands ; then let the gen- 

 eral Government retain possession of all but the irrigable 

 lands, but give these to the people as homesteads. Then let 

 the general Government declare and provide by statute that 

 the people of each district may control and use the timber, the 

 pasturage and the water-powers under specific laws enacted 

 by themselves and by the states to which they belong." 



What would be the advantages of having the nation 

 retain possession, in name only, of the mountain forest- 

 lands if the people of the valley are to control and use the 

 timber on the nation's lands as they please, without super- 

 vision by the national Government, and without any 

 responsibility to national authority ? If the nation is to 

 "retain possession" of the forests, it should have some 

 control of its own property. On the other hand, if the 

 people of each irrigation district are to have entire control 

 of the mountain forests about the sources of the streams, 

 the nation's title should be extinguished and the forests 

 should be owned by those who are to have complete con- 

 trol of them. It would then be easier to educate the own- 

 ers in sound ideas regarding the functions and value of the 

 forests, and there would be more chance of their some 

 time learning to take care of them. At present millions of 

 people have a special appetite for pillaging public prop- 

 erty, and if the forests belonging to the nation are to be 

 left without defense to the uncivilized impulse and caprice 

 of the new communities, there should be no pretense that 

 the nation retains possession, as under the proposed sys- 

 tem it would have no power or right to defend or protect 

 this invaluable forest property. Responsibility should 

 rightly go with control, and if the local community is to 

 have complete control, its responsibility for the fate of the 

 forests should be brought home to it in the plainest possi- 

 ble way. 



What is really desired by intelligent men who are in- 

 terested in the relations of the forests on the public domain 

 to the national welfare is that the nation shall examine its 

 magnificent forest property, and ascertain its character and 

 extent before making any final disposition of it. Why 

 should the Director of the National Geological Survey op- 

 pose the appointment of a competent commission to make 

 such an examination? The country would not be obliged 

 to adopt any recommendation of the commission, but the 

 knowledge obtained by its investigations would be the best 

 preparation and basis for right action. The facts regarding 

 the forests on the public lands which the officers of the 

 Geological Survey have been able to observe during their 

 absorbing labors in their own field are highly interesting 

 and valuable ; but there has been no adequate examination 

 of this important national property. Until such an investi- 

 gation has been made, and the facts have been placed be- 

 fore the people of the country, no settled or final policy 

 regarding these forests can be intelligently adopted. 



In this important address the fundamental truth that the 

 forests which are the subject of discussion are the property 

 of the nation, of all the people of the United States, is recog- 



nized indeed, but without developing it, or indicating its 

 relations to national responsibility. It is most important 

 that we should properly estimate the opportunity which 

 national ownership presents for surrounding this invalua- 

 ble national property with such safeguards as may appear 

 judicious or practicable when we have ascertained what 

 our heritage is. The forests and the lands of the public 

 domain belong to the people of this state as much as to 

 any other local community. The nation holds this vast 

 wealth in trust for future generations. It should ascertain 

 its nature and extent, and then determine wisely what 

 arrangements will be best adapted for its permanent 

 administration. 



Down the Rhone. — I. 



1ST ORMANDY, Brittany and the coast near Nice are familiar 

 -*-^ parts of France to the American tourist, and the Loire 

 Valley, like Picardy in the north-east and a portion of the Pyre- 

 nean region in the south-west, are not unknown to him. But 

 who travels in the great central district that stretches from the 

 Bay of Biscay to the German frontier, and from the shores of 

 the Loire to the skirts of the Pyrenees ? It is incomparably 

 beautiful, all this great stretch ignored of the foreigner, and its 

 beauty varies strangely with every journey one may make — 

 changing from volcanic majesty to pastoral loveliness, from a 

 rocky, wooded picturesqueness to the southern charm of wide 

 green plains, set about with naked masses of yellow hills. 

 But no part is more delightful than the valley of the lower 

 Rhone, and this is the very part that is most seldom seen. Of 

 course the Rhone Valley is constantly traversed by rail, but 

 the journey is usually made in winter, and even in summer 

 one cannot really see it from the train — not even so well as 

 one can see the Rhine ; for the road seldom keeps close to 

 the bank, and often one would not guess the great river's 

 existence. 



Fortunately, before we started on a long French journey 

 last summer, we fell in with certain artists who had once gone 

 down the Rhone in the proper way by accident — for cheap- 

 ness' sake, uninformed of all the increase of delight that the 

 diminution of expense would mean — and who had since gone 

 about, usually in vain, trying to persuade others to do the like. 

 So we found ourselves in the middle of July starting on a 

 Rhone voyage from Vienne, a little way below Lyons. 

 Vienne itself is well worth seeing. It is perched on the high 

 eastern bank, and • has crooked old streets, quaint little 

 churches, Roman ruins, and a cathedral whose facade has 

 been eaten by centuries of river breezes almost into the 

 likeness of a sponge, but is still superbly effective at the top 

 of a stately terraced stair. The drives along the river are 

 enchanting, too. When the boat, which starts from Lyons an 

 hour earlier, swept into view at 8 A. M., we saw a long, narrow 

 steamer, piled high with freight, and full amidships and at the 

 stern with peasants going short distances down the stream. 

 No one travels here for the sake of traveling — the only purpose 

 of the boat is to serve local traffic — so that stops are made at 

 every village. But this fact merely adds to the interest of the 

 trip, and it means, furthermore, that one has to one's self the 

 space in the bow which is reserved for possible first-class fares. 

 We were all alone on our July day, except for a single French- 

 man who was showing his daughter the river, on one of 

 their frequent visits to their family in the south ; and does 

 this not sound pleasant to the reader who knows what the 

 tourist crowd on a Rhine steamer means ? 



Yet the Rhone, if one could not see both, is better worth 

 seeing than the Rhine, and not merely because one is proud 

 to be "doing" something that all the world has not "done" 

 before him. The glimpse of its beauty which we had while 

 driving about near Vienne almost persuaded us to think as 

 much, and the further we went, the more we believed it. Do 

 you fancy the landscape flat and monotonous ? There is no 

 place between Lyons and Avignon where mountains are 

 out of sight, or where there is more flat land than serves to 

 make beautiful fertile plains in admirable contrast with the 

 rocky yellow hills that encircle them. Are there ruins and 

 picturesque churches all along the Rhine ? So there are here, 

 in even greater numbers, in much greater variety. Do you 

 delight in picturesque villages ? You have never seen them 

 till you have seen what they mean on the Rhone. If there are 

 no crags so bold and rocky as one sees in the Lorelei region 

 of the Rhine, there is an endless succession of superb rock- 

 forms more suave in contour, far more lovely in color — 

 yellow almost always, touched with spots of dusky foliage, 

 and passing into the softest tones of white and gray. Then, 



