340 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



million acres have been brought under the con- 

 trol of the forestry department, — a larger area 

 than that of all our national parks and reserva- 

 tions. The chief aims of the administration are 

 effective protection of the forests from fire, an 

 efficient system of regeneration, and cheap trans- 

 portation of the forest products ; the results so 

 far have been most beneficial and encouraging. 



It seems, therefore, that almost every civilized 

 nation can give us a lesson on the management 

 and care of forests. So far our government has 

 done nothing effective with its forests, though 

 the best in the world, but is like a rich and 

 foolish spendthrift who has inherited a magnifi- 

 cent estate in perfect order, and then has left his 

 fields and meadows, forests and parks, to be sold 

 and plundered and wasted at will, depending on 

 their inexhaustible abundance. Now it is plain 

 that the forests are not inexhaustible, and that 

 quick measures must be taken if ruin is to be 

 avoided. Year by year the remnant is growing 

 smaller before the axe and fire, while the laws 

 in existence provide neither for the protection 

 of the timber from destruction nor for its use 

 where it is most needed. 



As is shown by Mr. E. A. Bowers, formerly 

 Inspector of the Public Land Service, the foun- 

 dation of our protective policy, which has never 

 protected, is an act passed March 1, 1817, which 

 authorized the Secretary of the Navy to reserve 



