THE AMERICAN FORESTS 843 



Thus, the prospector, the miner, and mining 

 and railroad companies are allowed by law to 

 take all the timber they like for their mines and 

 roads, and the forbidden settler, if there are no 

 mineral lands near his farm or stock-ranch, or 

 none that he knows of, can hardly be expected to 

 forbear taking what he needs wherever he can 

 find it. Timber is as necessary as bread, and no 

 scheme of management failing to recognize and 

 properly provide for this want can possibly be 

 maintained. In any case, it will be hard to teach 

 the pioneers that it is wrong to steal government 

 timber. Taking from the government is with 

 them the same as taking from nature, and their 

 consciences flinch no more in cutting timber from 

 the wild forests than in drawing water from a 

 lake or river. As for reservation and protec- 

 tion of forests, it seems as silly and needless to 

 them as protection and reservation of the ocean 

 would be, both appearing to be boundless and 

 inexhaustible. 



The special land agents employed by the Gen- 

 eral Land Office to protect the public domain 

 from timber depredations are supposed to collect 

 testimony to sustain prosecution and to superin- 

 tend such prosecution on behalf of the gov- 

 ernment, which is represented by the district 

 attorneys. But timber thieves of the Western 

 class are seldom convicted, for the good reason 

 that most of the jurors who try such cases are 



